Does makeup on a woman make that much of a difference?
Yes, it does.
I always liked Kelly Ripa when she was young. But is older now.
Here is a picture of her with makeup and without makeup.
Kelly Ripa is 52 now. She's always had a very good, petite physique. She's 5'2"-5'3" with a weight in the low 100s. She's not experienced weight gain since her 30s and she was pregnant 3 times between 1996-2003. That's an achievement.
Without makeup, Kelly Ripa looks like a woman with a good body but a very ordinary face. She was 50 years old at the time of that picture. A 50 year old woman walking through a mall or grocery store with a face without makeup would not stand out at all.
In the sexual marketplace, it wouldn't matter. She's 52 now and has been in the same relationship since 1995 and married since 1996. All 3 of her children are 18+ now (25, 21, and 20). She's likely to become a grandmother in the next few years.
For an ordinary person, having a 25+ year marriage and raising 3 children to legal adulthood is an achievement. In marriages started since the 1990s, it's rare to get married and raise children 2-3 to adulthood without getting divorced. There are also no publicly known reports of either of them having an affair.
Everything I mentioned in the last paragraph is even more impressive with both partners being famous and in show business. Both had high SMVs in the past, even if Kelly Ripa likely was always a makeup creation.
From an SMV standpoint, Kelly has very little but she's less likely to care with what appears to be a happy home life.
