Measuring the way to beauty
Aesthetic doctors use golden ratio of 1.618:1 when enhancing patient's looks
You may have heard of the golden ratio as a mathematical measurement of harmony and proportion for paintings, architecture and even logo designs. When used, it fosters compositions that are pleasing to the eye.
Now, aesthetic doctors are using the golden ratio to help patients enhance their beauty in a more structured way.
Scientists found that attractive faces tend to have left-right symmetry and a height-width ratio of about 1.618:1 - better known as the golden ratio.
Attractive faces are also horizontally proportionate, where all thirds of the face - forehead to eyebrow, eyebrow to nasal base and nasal base to chin - are proportionate to one other.
Vertical distances are in even proportions, with the hairline, inner tips of the eyebrows, bottom of the nose and tip of the chin at equal distances apart.
Dr Wong Chin Ho has been using the golden ratio for the past eight years in his practice as a plastic surgeon at W Aesthetics Plastic Surgery.
He told The New Paper: "The perception of beauty is instinctive and universal.
"The golden ratio provides a more objective assessment of beauty, but of course the experience and eye of a doctor is still important.
"It is a useful guide for beginner doctors and it helps me communicate to patients where the ideal place to put the fillers or neurotoxins is... to achieve their desired look."
The golden ratio is an established method in the industry, and more doctors and patients are gaining awareness about it, said Dr Wong.
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He added that Hollywood stars George Clooney and Angelina Jolie, and in Singapore, Jeanette Aw and Zoe Tay are among those with proportionate faces and an approximate golden ratio.
He was speaking to TNP last week at a press conference where international aesthetics and neurotoxin company Merz Aesthetics reiterated new guidelines to help aesthetic doctors achieve well-proportioned faces in Asians.
The guidelines were first announced last month at the 38th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Dermatologic Surgery.At the press conference, Merz also revealed the results for the Asia-wide Merz Aesthetics Advancement of Techniques Golden Ratio Search, which received over 3,000 submissions from 10 countries, 80 of them from Singapore.
The inaugural three-month search short-listed 10 individuals with the most proportionate face, fulfilling the golden ratio, horizontal face proportion and facial symmetry criteria.
The study also revealed that the most ideal face shape among Asians is oval.
Ms Nurun Nisha M. Heallmy, 29, was named Singapore's most proportionate face.
The sales and marketing executive told TNP: "It is so exciting (to have won) but this does not change me as a person."
While she remembers being told "once or twice" when she was younger that she has symmetrical features, she did not think too much of it.
"I am blessed that my looks are easy on the eyes, but now I know why," she said.
Ms Nurin said she now "feels more confident and carries herself better".
She added: "The use of the golden ratio in the new medical guidelines transcends race and helps everyone appreciate beauty more objectively."
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