How many faces do you see? TikTok optical illusion with ‘hidden’ woman leaves viewers baffled

A bemusing optical illusion challenges viewers to pick out a hidden face within an image.

The illusion, shared on TikTok by presenter Dean Jackson, depicts the face of an old man wearing a sombrero - but the image also contains the face of a young woman.

Can you see the young woman?

Challenging viewers to pick out both faces in the image, Mr Jackson points to the picture and states: “An old man in a sombrero. But can you see the young woman facing to the right of the picture?

“If so, please put ‘step one’ in the comments.”

Some viewers managed to pick out the young woman on the first attempt, but many were left puzzled by the image and failed to see the second face.

Offering help to those struggling, Mr Jackson added: “I’ve tried to simplify it a little bit. Now if you can’t see her at step one, let’s try this.

“Let’s colour her face and the top of her neck pink. Now can you see the woman facing to the right of the picture? If so, please put ‘step two’ in the comments.”

The tips helped several viewers to pick the woman out, although some said they still found it difficult.

Offering further help, Mr Jackson then coloured the young woman’s hair golden and asked users to comment “step three” if they spotted her. He then coloured the top of her costume green and invited viewers to comment “step four” if this helped to pick her out.

The colours appeared to help many viewers, with users commenting that they could finally pick her out.

One user wrote: “Step 4 but it took a lot of looking!”

Another added: “My god that took me ages & I keep losing it!!! I can only see her when I’m squinting.”

“Second time watching I saw after the final step”, a third added.

Despite the many tips, a large majority of users said they still could not see the young woman’s face at all and frustratedly wrote “what woman” in the comments.

One user said: “I cannot see it at all, we need to step five and six!”

“I have no idea... I can’t see it”, said another.

A third wrote: “What woman, what woman, squints ooooooh I see, oooh I know she’s there, where’s she gone.”

“What woman?!!!” a fourth added.

How many faces do you see?

The illusion is very similar to another image shared by Mr Jackson that puts viewers’ power of perception to the test.

In a video, he shows viewers the image of a man who is looking sad, but asks users if they can also pick out the face of an angry-looking man in the same picture.

Those who cannot see the angry face are advised to cover part of the image with their finger - on the nose just below one of the eyes - to help pick it out.

However, Mr Jackson claims only 1% of viewers can successfully pick out the second man.