What are those shapes? Well within that oval the anatomical major units are the eyes, nose and mouth.  These major units must be symmetrically arranged and the units must be arranged in an orderly manner.  How is this possible? Well what I thought was important was to find out what shapes are the most important within each of those major units.  Within the eye, the iris is what I concluded was the most important.  Within the nose, the nasal tip is the most important.  Within the lip, the lower lip is the most important and specifically the center of the lower lip.  These shapes; the iris, nasal tip, and center of the lower lip must be balanced among each other.  When there is balance between the iris, nasal tip and lower lip a very important element of beauty is reached.  What I found and was able to scientifically prove to a degree is that when the distance from the iris to the midline, distance from the horizontal level of the iris to nasal tip, the distance from the nasal tip to the lower lip, and the distance from the lower lip to the bottom of the chin is equal to each other a very basic level of beauty is found to be present within that particular face. When this not present the imbalance of these relations starts to create tension between the anatomical units of the face.  When the iris is closer to the nasal tip the major unit of the eye and nose starts to get crowded and this tension creates a sense of uneasiness to the viewer and hence less beauty is assessed from the viewer.  When they are more in balance more beauty is achieved. You can read more about this by reading my paper.

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington

This is a follow up to my discussion about how I began to do what I do and what my fascination is regarding facial plastic surgery.  During residency, we were required to write a scientific paper.  These beginnings into research gradually directed me into my current strong interest in the field of facial aesthetics or the theories regarding facial beauty.  I knew that I wanted to make a strong contribution to my field but I didn’t want to write on a frivolous subject.  So I looked into issues that could make a big impact.  In one of my blogs, I talked about how I found that our current understand of facial beauty were still based on theories that were from the 1400’s with little improvement in our understanding.  These rules that we were still basing our decision making on were called the neo classical canons from Leonardo Da Vinci.  It has been only recently in the past few years that we have begun to find in our scientific discovery that these rules don’t differentiate the beautiful from the average.  Dr Farkas wrote a lot of papers on this subject.  Some people have found that averageness is beautiful.  Another author found in his study of inmates, to look for facial characteristics that would suggest a greater tendency to commit crimes, took the average proportions of the inmates to look for these traits. What he found was that the average proportions actually created a face that was more beautiful than the rest of the inmates.  This is were averageness is beautiful as an idea became popular.  Further studies by Perett and colleagues, published in Nature, have shown that something more than average creates beautiful.   But we still didn’t know the answers.

One night, when I was in Syracuse for an interview. I couldn’t sleep.  My mind was busily thinking about the answer to facial beauty.  It was then that I had an “aha” moment, when I discovered the Circles of Prominence.  I knew that a theory had to be based on something that we concentrated on a lot when we look at the face.  Naturally I looked to the eyes.  But what was it that was important.  I concluded that it was the iris, the colored portion of the eyes.  That is probably the reason why our whites are so stark white to bring out contrast of the iris color.  The other idea that I found very useful during my studies in mathematics is the values zero and infinity.  Most all numbers are between these to extremes.  In the face there has to be an ideal from zero and infinity.  If we spend so much time looking at the iris, my feeling was that the iris was that ideal between zero and infinity.  Hence the width of the nasal bridge, nasal tip size, distance from the nose to the upper lip, the height of the lower lip are all one iris width.From there I started thinking about the other rules of facial beauty.  You can read more about this by reading my paper.

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington

This is another blog talking a little about how Beauty can impact our lives.  Did you know that people that are beautiful have many attributes attributed to them just based on their looks.  The reason people do this is somehow to simplify their lives when they face people who they don’t know.  Attributes like honesty, moral goodness, personality, intelligence, wisdom and many other positive personality traits are thought to be present in people that are better looking bestowed on to them by the observer.  This has a tremendous impact in many things.  When people are considered for hiring for a job, the employers and the ones that are doing the hiring are more likely to hire the candidate that is more beautiful.  This power of beauty pervades are lives in so many aspects.  Beauty moves our world with tremendous power.

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington

I wanted to start writing about my personal views and experience on my journey to find and attain beauty.  This is my first post regarding this subject and this will be an introduction for this category on my blog.

Beauty is one of the most powerful things in our universe.  I argue that it is the most powerful thing in our lives.  It is more powerful than politics, work, school, almost anything.  Wars have been started because of it.  Can you recall the story of Helen of Troy that was recently depicted in a recent Brad Pitt Movie.  Our world history is moved and shaped by Beauty to a large degree.  Remember, John F Kennedy and his victory over Nixon who was an incumbant president during war times.  The odds are the incumbant president usually wins.  Many believe that John F Kennedy’s win was largely due to his good looks and his charisma.  Kennedy lead one of the most powerful nations on the planet.  Beauty=Presidency=Major historical events.  Did you know that a 3 month old child is more likely to stare longer at pictures of better looking people than at people that are less good looking.  Did you know our mothers are more likely to check on their children left alone in the grocery cart when they are have better looks.  School children are given better grades when they are more beautiful while these differences largely disappear when they these children are compared by standardized tests. This power of beauty continues on through college, work, marriage and to the end of our lives.  This is why I have found this enigma, beauty, so fascinating.  This is why I have dedicated my life’s work to finding out what it is, how it changes our lives, and through my profession, how I can attain it for my patients.

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington