The search for the perfect Tinder profile photo is some people's holy grail. Personally, I just went with one where I was eating cake because cake is important to me, but it turns out I could have used some more effective techniques. The folks over at Romance Goals decided to see exactly what we swipe right for. They looked at 600 random profile pictures across London, New York City, and Berlin, and then surveyed several hundred people to determine which features of a profile picture made them more or less likely to swipe right.
I do think that the bottom line is to have a photo that represents you, but there are a lot of different ways you can do that. Along with showing what you do in your spare time in your photos, Amanda Bradford, Founder and CEO of The League, told Bustle it's important to show people who are important to you in your pics. And, many experts agree that you just change your photos every once in a while.
"Photos are the first thing everyone looks at," Laurie Davis Edwards, founder of eFlirt and author of Love @ First Click told Bustle. "[Changing your photos] seems like a small action but it can make a huge impact on who you're connecting with."
You can check out all of the results at Romance Goals, but here are the highlights for you to bear in mind, basically it all breaks down to this:
1. Start At A Restaurant
Restaurant were the best locations for women, with 62 percent of restaurant photos getting a right swipe, compared to 59.4 percent of club photos or 26.1 percent of photos taken in the car.
But if you're a dude, it's best to stick with beach photos— they were the most popular for men with a 44 percent right swipe rate.
2. Use Photos With Just You In Them
Not necessarily selfies, but photos with just you in them. For both men and women, photos where you're flying solo were more likely to get you a right swipe then if you get your friends involved. In fact, women got 58.4 percent right swipes for their solo shots, compared with only 42.2 percent for groups.
For men it was even worse — with only 25.1 percent of group shots getting a right swipe. Which isn't surprising, considering how annoying it is when you can't tell who's who in a photo. If you're feeling nervous about being on your own, photos with two people did better than groups.
3. Include A Full Body Shot
If a woman includes a whole body shot, there's a 66.4 percent chance it'll get a right swipe, compared to 58.1 percent when it comes to just face photos. Interestingly, the opposite was true for men. A full body shot only got a 30.5 percent response rate, but photos focused on the face got 38.6 percent right swipes.
4. Show Those Teeth
I hate showing my teeth when I smile, but it turns out it will up your Tinder game. According to Romance Goals "Overall, smiles with teeth were associated with the highest swipe-right and message rates for both women and men. Among women’s profiles, swipe-right rates dropped from 60.5 percent for smiles showing teeth to 56.7 percent for smiles without teeth and 55.6 percent for other expressions.
The difference was slightly more pronounced for men: Those with profile photos of smiles with teeth had a 40.6 percent swipe-right rate, followed by 37.7 percent for closed-mouth smiles and 34.1 percent for pictures without a smile." So even if you can't bear to get your teeth out, make sure to smile.
5. Wear Something Fairly Formal— And Steer Clear Of Swim Suits
This one really surprised me. Women wearing formal clothes got the most swipe rights— with a 62.4 percent positive swipe right. Swimsuits came in last with a 41.7 percent swipe right, over 20 percent lower! Maybe men aren't as shallow as we thought.
In fact, maybe we're the shallow ones, because we love our dudes in swim suits. There was only a 32.9 percent swipe right rate for formal clothes, but if they're showing some skin in swim gear then suddenly it jumps to 53.3 percent. We like what we like.
Images: Fotolia; Romance Goals; Giphy (5)
