Beauty And The Golden Ratio

I admit, I tend to watch all sorts of competitions from decorating, to fashion, to makeup. I find them quite fascinating and I'm always learning something.  The other day, I was watching a makeup competition.  One where people are giving a challenge and if they mess up, they are out.  One of the contestants mentioned doing something with the golden ratio face.  Of course, my ears perked up and off I went to explore more on the topic.

As you know, artists and architects of the Renaissance period used the golden ratio to plan their masterpieces.  A scientists discovered our eyes perceive beauty based on the golden ratio applied to the face.

A perfect face is going to have a length - width ratio that equals 1.6 so the face is one and a half times longer than it's width.  If one divides the length of the face into three part, each part should be equal.  The three parts are from the top of the forehead to the spot between the eyebrows, the spot between the eye brows to the bottom of the nose, and the bottom of the nose to the bottom of the chin.

On a perfect face, the length of the ear is equal to the length of the nose, and the longest part of the eye is equal to the space between the eyes.  So if the face matches all of these criteria, the eye "sees" the person as beautiful.  However, most faces that are seen as beautiful are not necessarily symmetrical so symmetrical is not a factor.

It is interesting that the model Bella Hadid is the person who comes closest to having the perfect face based on the Golden ratio.  She meets it with a 94 percent success rate.  The measurements were carried out by a plastic surgeon in London by  using computerized mapping techniques.  

Now there are several activities available so students can use the golden ratio to see how close a person is to perfection.  One is Is She Beautiful - The Golden Ratio which has students compare two measurements of Shania Twain to see if the ratio is close to either 36% or 46% based on the appropriate measurements.  This just looks at two ratios.

Another one is Math Behind the Beauty which explains the Golden Ratio in a bit more detail and has students trying to fit a perfect mask to photos provided by the site.  The site also allows students to do their own face, or the face of a star.  The masks are based on the work done at this site so one can read up on the research before assigning the activity.

For those who don't believe in the Golden Ratio face, this article lays out the argument against this whole idea. It appears to have some valid arguments and this could be used in a compare and contrast activity between the two ideas.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.