Women in their period of peak fertility are most receptive to men with flirtatious faces, a British study has found.

The study published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour found that men can vastly improve their chances of “picking up” by learning how to give the right facial signals, the Daily Mail reports.

In the study, a group of 16 women were presented with several animated male faces and asked to rate each image on its perceived flirtatiousness.

Those faces were then presented to a separate group of 47 women, who were told to rate their attractiveness.

Women who were in the peak period of their menstrual cycle desired the more “flirtatious” faces.

“It demonstrates that attractiveness is not necessarily a fixed property of the face,” said study author Edward Morrison.

“By changing the way the face moves we may be able to increase our appeal to the opposite sex.”

The fertile women also favoured taller men with deeper voices and more masculine facial features.

But science was still a long way from finding a “magic formula” for wooing the opposite sex, Dr Morrison said

Source: ninemsn.com.au