The power of beauty: Be your ideal self in online reviews—an empirical study based on face detection

Beauty can increase people's self-confidence and offer premium benefits in social activities. Unlike natural appearance, beauty on the internet depends greatly on people's ideal selves. Different from previous research, this study investigated the relationship between profile image's facial beauty and online reviews. Based on 25,322 face detection results, our findings showed that people's behaviors corresponded to their created beautiful self-image, which resulted in posting negative and detailed online reviews. Moreover, beauty diminished the inhibiting effect caused by clear facial disclosure. Our results enrich the understanding of online beauty, self-presentation, self-disclosure, and rating bias in online shopping platforms. The practical implications for online platforms are also discussed.