I'm here to testify that for the majority of men have absolutely no idea of the amount of craft that goes into female beauty. When men say women look better without makeup it usually means that the woman they have in mind is inept at applying makeup. But it's partly circumstantial too, to be fair. The beauty that one sees close up, face to face with a woman is quite different from public beauty--what you'd see out on the street, at work, or at an event. This is for exactly the reasons you describe, having to do with contrast. Public beauty, like beauty in photographs is two-dimensional and fleeting. Face to face with a woman, you experience the third dimension much more intensely, placing far less aesthetic demand on contrast. Take the upper pair of photos under "The No Make-Up Look" and forget it's a photo, and instead imagine you are close enough to kiss her. A visually oriented person might very well experience her beauty more intensely without makeup, because close up, in person, you are dealing with the three dimensional complexity of her face, which demotes contrast in relative importance. You see this all the time---women who are devastatingly beautiful in person, but who fade in photographs. And you see the reverse---women who are incredibly photogenic, yet their appearance is unremarkable in person. Very likely the same is true for men, as well. Moreover, it's not just the three dimensionality of the in-person face, but the subtle animation. This doesn't appear at all in photos, but can dominate in person. Makeup can mask the minute facial movements that in-person beauty relies upon, while heightening the static factors that dominate in public beauty.