# data[].attributes.body
https://www.jco-online.com/archive/2002/06/339-jco-interviews-dr-stephen-r-marquardt-on-the-golden-decagon-and-human-facial-beauty/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
DR. GOTTLIEB Steve, you appeared on a recent television documentary series, The Human Face, in a section called "Beauty", and presented a Golden Decagon mask that you have devised from the Golden Ratio. What is the Golden Ratio?

DR. MARQUARDT The Golden Ratio is a ratio found in nature and design that measures 1:1.618. It has been called the Fibonacci Ratio or Phi Ratio and, sometimes, the divine ratio. It is also referred to as the Golden Section or Phi Section.

DR. GOTTLIEB Many historic figures--Pythagoras, Plato, Euclid, da Vinci, Durer, and Mozart, to name a few--have believed the Golden Ratio represented perfect harmony in nature and in design. Is there evidence for such a phenomenon?

DR. MARQUARDT It does seem to occur throughout nature in many biologic systems, including flowers and the leaf divergence from a stem in plants, and particularly in humans. For example, the width of the nose to the width of the mouth is a ratio of 1:1.618 in a beautiful face. In an ideal dentition, the width of the maxillary central incisor is 1.618 times the width of the maxillary lateral incisor. In an ideal human body--for example, Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (or "Man in a Circle")--the distance from the bottom of the foot to the navel is 1.618 times the distance from the navel to the top of the head, and the distance from the navel to the thyroid cartilage, or Adam's apple, is 1.618 times the distance of the thyroid cartilage to the top of the head.

DR. GOTTLIEB You believe there is a mathematical, biological basis for human attractiveness in the Golden Ratio?

DR. MARQUARDT A famous platitude is that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and to a great extent that is true. A man may find a Ferrari automobile extraordinarily beautiful, where a woman might find it very unattractive; a woman might find a particular dress very beautiful, where a man may have totally ambivalent feelings about it. On the other hand, when it comes to facial attractiveness, there does seem to be a universal perception of characteristics of the form or shape of the face that are found attractive, and this attractive-face concept seems to be not only universal within one culture, but universally cross-cultural, regardless of other parameters, including birth rank, age, sex, etc. This universal perception of attractiveness appears to have a biological basis.

DR. GOTTLIEB Why did you create the Golden Decagon mask?

DR. MARQUARDT I have often been given credit for creating the Golden Decagon mask. However, I really have to say that I didn't create it, but rather discovered it. We now believe that this mask is an archetypal or instinctual pattern in our brain which is present before we are born and is with us throughout our lifetime. I originally was looking to try to answer the question, "Is beauty quantifiable?" That is, is there an idealistic or idealized form of the face which is universal with regard to a perception of attractiveness? The vast majority of people I questioned regarding this concept felt that beauty was not understandable or quantifiable, and something that we might never really comprehend to any degree. However, a few throughout history, including the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds and others, have felt that beauty probably is understandable and quantifiable to some extent. The reason I was searching for a quantifiable parameter for attractiveness myself was to better understand beauty, because as a facial reconstructive surgeon, a great deal of my surgical skill is used not only to correct functional facial deformities, but also to help correct esthetic deformities. Without a clear understanding of what beauty is, it's very difficult to have an appropriate or meaningful goal when one is correcting an esthetic deformity.

DR. GOTTLIEB That would apply to orthodontists as well.

DR. MARQUARDT Absolutely.

DR. GOTTLIEB How did you develop the mask?

DR. MARQUARDT I began merely studying faces of professional models and movie stars. By virtue of the fact that they get paid for being attractive, they seemed to be a good group to study to ascertain if there were some recurrent theme in attractive faces. I initially studied them with regard to any similarities they might have, and found that the Golden Ratio did seem to occur in the faces of these attractive people much more often than in the faces of less attractive individuals. There had been little success in multiple previous attempts to use the Golden Ratio to describe the attractive face, primarily because no generalized recurrent theme was found in the face.

DR. GOTTLIEB Why was that?

DR. MARQUARDT The big problem was that limited areas of the face could be described in linear fashion as carrying a 1:1.618 ratio, but this was all pretty much one-dimensional. No one had ever successfully described any part of the face or the entire face in any way in a two-dimensional configuration. My first major breakthrough was the realization that the visual perception of the face is really two-dimensional, and that if there were going to be some kind of a recurring theme in the face that was mathematical, it would most likely be two-dimensional, rather than one-dimensional. The simplest configuration that describes the Golden Ratio in two dimensions is an acute Golden Triangle with sides of 1.618 and a base of 1, or an obtuse Golden Triangle with a base of 1.618 and sides of 1. Together these elements form a Golden regular pentagon, and the regular pentagon itself, if duplicated, inverted, and superimposed on itself, forms the Golden Decagon--a regular vertex radial decagon. I must admit it took quite some time for my thinking to evolve from the Golden Section line into the two-dimensional complex configuration of the Golden Decagon, but once that was established, then the rest of the facial configuration was constructed fairly rapidly.

DR. GOTTLIEB For a long time the Golden Divider, which is a double caliper set to the Golden Ratio, was used to identify Golden relationships. What is the advantage of the mask over the divider?

DR. MARQUARDT The Golden Divider is very helpful to establish and understand linear relationships, but to really understand twodimensional Phi harmony and Phi relationships, particularly in a face, it's necessary to use the Phi mask or at the very least the Phi decagon, which is the ultimate representation of the Phi Ratio as it occurs in the face in two dimensions.

DR. GOTTLIEB Are you developing a three-dimensional mask?

DR. MARQUARDT We are actually working on constructing the 3D versions of the masks at this time. For both the repose and smiling expressions, we already have the mask in two views (frontal and lateral). With two views of an object you can construct the third view, and with all three views you can construct a three-dimensional model. So with the two views of each expression already defined, we are well on our way to the 3D construction.

DR. GOTTLIEB One of the intriguing things about the Golden Decagon matrix is its relationship to DNA. If, as you say, the Golden Ratio is in the DNA structure, are the beauty and harmony in nature, including the structure of the human body and face, genetically determined according to the Golden Ratio?

DR. MARQUARDT As can be seen on our website, www.beautyanalysis.com, the Golden Decagon configuration is fairly complex geometrically, and the DNA molecule (particularly the "B" DNA molecule, which is the most common DNA seen in biologic systems) in cross-section exactly matches the Golden Decagon geometric configuration (Fig. 1). This is probably because the DNA, needing to replicate itself by increasing in size at a constant ratio, ad infinitum without deviation, appears to call upon the mathematics of the Golden Section, which itself is the only mathematical configuration that can duplicate itself ad infinitum without variance. Because both the DNA molecule and the Golden Decagon have this property, this is the most likely reason that the DNA follows the Golden Section geometrically. The research we've done so far seems to strongly indicate that the DNA structure, which is the determinant of the body and face construction, is built upon the Decagon complex, which in turn is built upon Phi or the Golden Section. We now feel that the Phi mask or Golden mask is a genetically encoded configuration or archetype which is basically encoded in our genetic material and passed on from generation to generation for recognition of our own species.

DR. GOTTLIEB Is it science fiction to think that some of the more serious departures from facial and bodily beauty and harmony may be improved with DNA modification?

DR. MARQUARDT DNA is the basis for all life. It is the source code from which we, and everything within us, is made. Our body's potentially ideal form and function are a product of our DNA, and likewise our body's malformations and abnormal functions are frequently a function of our own DNA. Since our DNA is the source code of our creation, with greater control of our DNA through its purposeful modification, we should ultimately be able to control those functions and anatomic configurations that DNA is responsible for manipulating and constructing.

DR. GOTTLIEB You have developed both frontal and lateral versions of the mask, as well as smiling ones. Could you show us those?

DR. MARQUARDT Here you can see both the frontal and lateral versions of the mask, in repose ( Fig. 2A), and smiling ( Fig. 2B).

DR. GOTTLIEB How should the masks be used?

DR. MARQUARDT The mask really describes the idealized form of the face. The ideal size of the face is approximately 1/7 to 1/8 of body height, which has been known since the first Greek sculptors presented this concept, and has been used ever since. On the other hand, there has never been a clear understanding or any quantification of the ideal shape or form of the face or its components, including the nose, eyes, lips, etc. I believe these masks are based on the first concept that truly mathematically quantifies the idealized face and its frontal and lateral views, both resting and smiling.

DR. GOTTLIEB How do you then apply that information?

DR. MARQUARDT The application for this information or technology would be in any area where idealized facial configurations are important, whether it be in medicine, in surgical applications of reconstructive procedures of the face; in orthodontics, for diagnosing variations from ideal and treatment planning their corrections; in art, whether it be painting or sculpture; and in the graphic arts, to modify and adjust faces to increase their visual perception of attractiveness. Additionally, the technology can be used in per- sonal identification and security programs, where any face could be compared to the mask and this comparison used as a unique personal "fingerprint" of the individual's face. Even genetically identical twins, under close analysis, have slight variances in their facial configurations. There are quite a few other applications, including biology, psychology, and anthropology, but these are some of the main ones.

DR. GOTTLIEB Does the Golden Decagon apply to the faces of children?

DR. MARQUARDT The Golden Decagon mask that has been presented at this point is that of the post-pubescent female adult, ranging from about 14 to 24 years of age. There is a mask for the young child, and it is somewhat of a slight variation from the post-pubescent adult mask, but is distinctly different in several ways. As anybody in the field of child development can attest, the face distinctly changes between the ages of approximately 2 and 14. The mask of a child between the ages of approximately 6 months and 2 years has a high degree of attraction for adults for the purposes of creating a nurturing behavior in adults toward that child. As the child increases in age, the face becomes less like that face, becoming relatively less attractive with age. For example, a 2-year-old is generally found to be more attractive than a 4-year-old. Most 4-yearolds are found to be more attractive than 6-yearolds, most 6-year-olds more attractive than 8- year-olds, and most 8-year-olds more attractive than 10- or 11-year-olds. At this point, however, attractiveness changes, and between the ages of approximately 11 and 14, the attractiveness increases tremendously. By 14, the face has metamorphosed into that of the pubescent adult. This matured face is generally quite attractive, not in a nurturing way for parents, but in a sexual attraction way for a mate. So while the mask of the child age 6 months to 2 years is significantly different from that of the post-pubescent adult, both are highly attractive, but in very different ways for their different biological purposes.

DR. GOTTLIEB Does the concept of beauty change in the adult aging process?

DR. MARQUARDT At about age 24, the postpubescent adult face begins to slowly and progressively become less attractive year after year from that point forward. It is interesting to note here that the face of the female becomes progressively less attractive at a greater rate than does the face of the human male. In other words, the human male's attractiveness maintains longer than the female's attractiveness. Although the human male is not generally considered to be as attractive during the post-pubescent period as the female, he does maintain his attractiveness to a greater degree for a longer period of time.

DR. GOTTLIEB Some orthodontists believe in very early treatment of certain conditions, at 3 to 6 years of age; other cases may be started from 6 to 9, while a majority are probably started between 9 and 12 years of age. Does what we know about the development of the face encourage or discourage certain orthodontic treatment changes at certain ages?

DR. MARQUARDT The ultimate goals of orthodontic treatment are the idealization of the occlusion and, if at all possible, the simultaneous positive influence on the facial attractiveness of the patient. Regardless of the age at which the patient starts treatment, these should be the primary concerns. With respect to the mask, anything that the orthodontist can do to "guide" the patient's facial components into a high correlation with the mask will enhance the final esthetic outcome of treatment. It should be remembered that the mask is that of the face of the postpubescent adult, so the goal of the orthodontist, with respect to esthetics, would be to treat the child's face so that it matures into an attractive young adult face--in other words, has a high correlation to the mask.

DR. GOTTLIEB There must be examples of faces generally accepted as beautiful that do not exactly fit the mask.

DR. MARQUARDT No biological configuration of the face that occurs naturally fits the mask exactly, because the mask is a geometrically perfect configuration, and biological systems are never geometrically perfect. Although some come extremely close, none are exactly mathematically precise. However, in my experience, the more a face is found to be subjectively attractive by human examiners, the more closely it will fit the mask. Conversely, the less attractive a face is, the less it will fit the mask. It is important to note, however, that most faces do fit the mask quite closely. Even a face that is considered somewhat plain will have a significant correlation with the mask. The difference between a plain face and a beautiful face is just a matter of a few millimeters in different areas--nothing as extraordinarily drastic as one might expect. It's not until faces are perceived to be fairly unattractive that they begin to deviate from the mask significantly. This is pretty clear on our website under the section "Beauty Ranges". On the site you'll find a tremendous amount of information on our research and on the concept of beauty ranges.

DR. GOTTLIEB Concepts of facial beauty seem to vary with time and among races. How does that square with the concept of the Golden Decagon mask?

DR. MARQUARDT Concepts of facial beauty have been thought to vary with time and among races, but our research shows that this is not particularly true. The mask's correlation with attractive faces throughout history seems to be quite consistent. There are slight variances between the races with regard to the mask, but this variance is also consistent throughout time. Again, on our website, www.beautyanalysis.com, under the section "Beauty Through History", faces as far back as Queen Nefertiti are analyzed using the mask. Beautiful faces extending through the Greek and Roman periods, late Egyptian, Renaissance, post-Renaissance, Baroque, precontemporary and contemporary are shown, each exhibiting a high correlation with the mask ( Figs. 3A, 3B). This is pretty clear evidence that the mask appears to consistently fit attractive faces throughout history.

DR. GOTTLIEB There has been some discussion in dental esthetics about symmetry vs. balance. Some say that perfect symmetry is not beautiful. Do you agree with that concept?

DR. MARQUARDT Terms like "symmetry", "balance", and "harmony" have been used over and over again without much distinction for their actual definitions. Symmetry can be defined as mirror imaging about an axis. Balance is equality of magnitudes on either side of a division. So from this definition, we can see that absolute symmetry would have balance, but balance wouldn't necessarily have symmetry. Harmony, on the other hand, is the presence of recurring themes within an entity. Probably the term that's been equated most commonly with beauty is symmetry. It has been said that perfect symmetry is perfect beauty. It is true that an attractive face is relatively symmetric, but that doesn't mean that a symmetric face is necessarily attractive. For example, a face like Paulina Porizkova's, on the cover of this issue, is quite symmetric and quite beautiful at the same time. On the other hand, if you take a face like Alfred E. Neuman's from Mad magazine and make it perfectly symmetric, he doesn't become Paul Newman, he's just a symmetric Alfred E. Neuman. So symmetry doesn't necessarily predict attractiveness. A face doesn't have to have exactly perfect symmetry to be beautiful, but symmetry is an important factor, and there must be a good deal of symmetry for a face to be beautiful.

DR. GOTTLIEB Why is the smiling mask more attractive than the repose mask?

DR. MARQUARDT The smiling face has historically been considered more attractive than the repose face in almost all cultures. The smiling mask actually contains significantly more of the Golden Decagon elements than are found in the repose mask. This appears to be the reason that we find the smiling mask more attractive. The greater the number of Golden Decagon elements used in the construction of a facial configuration or expression, the more attractive that face will appear to humans.

DR. GOTTLIEB What part do the teeth play in the smiling version of the mask?

DR. MARQUARDT When one smiles, the geometric or mathematic center of the face is not the geographic center of the face. The face is constructed of multiple Decagon complexes which pretty much descend to the mouth and encircle the teeth, so when one smiles, the center of attraction of the face is actually the smile. This includes the lips themselves and their contents, particularly the maxillary anterior teeth. Since the maxillary central incisors and the lateral incisors are the center of the smile, one could actually say that the anterior maxillary teeth are really the center of the visual elements in the face.

DR. GOTTLIEB So some elements of the face are more critical than others?

DR. MARQUARDT The perception of the face is predicated on recognition of the different subcomponents of the face. The most important parts for facial recognition are contained within what is referred to as the "Internal Triangle". This is a triangle from the eyebrows to the chin--specifically, one encircling the eyebrows and extending down to the chin with the point downward at the chin. Contained within this Internal Triangle are the eyebrows, the eyes, the nose, the lips, and the chin. These elements are actually the critical elements in facial recognition. The cheeks, the jaw line, the hairline, etc., contained outside of the Internal Triangle are secondary elements and are not as important as the elements within the Internal Triangle for facial recognition and the perception of attractiveness.

DR. GOTTLIEB Can you picture ways in which an orthodontist could use the Golden Decagon mask?

DR. MARQUARDT The orthodontist can use the mask as a paradigm of the ideal, final esthetic result. Insofar as the orthodontist can change or modify the esthetics with treatment, he or she should be cognizant of the changes necessary to bring the facial soft tissues into as close an alignment with the mask as possible to effect an ideal esthetic, as well as functional, result. Treatment planning using growth forecasts and facial analyses are critical when treating children as they mature into the young adult stage of their life, and having an idealized goal such as the mask to treat toward, I believe, would give much more consistent and esthetic results at the end of treatment than is currently possible.

DR. GOTTLIEB Could children in an orthodontic practice use the mask to explore aspects of their own facial beauty?

DR. MARQUARDT Children can certainly apply the mask to their faces to explore the correlation of their faces with the mask, but it is unfair to judge a child's attractiveness or future attractiveness by applying the mask to them as a child, due to the variation of growth patterns and inconsistency of facial growth from one child to another. Most children do not match the mask particularly well before they are 14 or more years of age. I think after that age, however, the mask is a significant way for pubescent young adults to analyze their faces, and a guide for the orthodontist in deciding on a treatment plan that will effect the most positive esthetic change for them. In addition, I believe that growth forecasting before the age of 14 may be a valuable aid in helping the orthodontist determine how closely the child's face, with normal growth, might potentially match the mask by the time they are a young adult. With this information, the orthodontist can make necessary corrections to guide growth into a configuration that will match the mask as closely as possible by young adulthood. This is particularly true when surgery is contemplated along with orthodontic therapy.

DR. GOTTLIEB Thank you, Steve, for giving our readers a fascinating insight into the ingredients of human facial beauty.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
JCO Interviews Dr. Stephen R. Marquardt on the Golden Decagon and Human Facial Beauty

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
DR. GOTTLIEB Steve, you appeared on a recent television documentary series, The Human Face, in a section called "Beauty", and presented a Golden Decagon mask that you have devised from the Golden Ratio. What is the Golden Ratio? DR. MARQUARDT The Golden Ratio is a ratio found in nature and design that measures 1:1.618.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.goldennumber.net/beauty/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Gary Meisner

A template for human beauty is found in phi, the pentagon and dodecagon

Dr. Stephen R. Marquardt is the world's most recognized expert on facial analysis and beauty. He has appeared in many documentaries and been referenced in countless articles, including the Beauty episode of BBC's 2001 documentary "The Face." Dr. Marquardt, also CEO of Marquardt Aesthetic Imaging, has studied human beauty for decades in his practice of oral and maxillofacial surgery, and now continues his studies full time.

His work includes cross-cultural surveys on beauty, in which he found that all groups had the same perceptions of facial beauty. He also analyzed the human face from ancient times to the modern day. Through his research, he discovered that beauty is not only related to phi, but can be defined for both genders and for all races, cultures and eras with the beauty mask which he developed and patented. This mask uses the pentagon and decagon as its foundation. Both of these geometric shapes embody phi in all their dimensions. For a more complete treatment and understanding of the scope of his work information see his site at Marquardt Beauty Analysis. On that site you will see the evolution and connection of the phi-based geometry of the pentagon and dodecagon to the archetypal human face of his Marquardt Beauty Mask, as illustrated in concept below:

Dr. Marquardt has another section of his site that explores face variations by age, sex and ethnic group. Here he observes that "Each archetypal mask appears to be a species non-ethnic configuration. That is the more a face, any face, looks like the mask, the more attractive it is to all humans. However no face, even the most attractive/beautiful face, exactly correlates with or matches (i.e.- exactly fits) the Mask. We are all a variation of the mask. Some of us vary only a little and some vary a lot - but most of us are somewhere between."

A digital application of the Marquardt Beauty Mask

Dr. Marquardt of course used the concepts he discovered and perfected to achieve successful results in surgeries on his many patients during his years practice. An independent researcher and graphic artist, who calls himself "The Photoshop Surgeon," applied Dr. Marquardt's mask in Photoshop to demonstrate its incredible ability to transform an already attractive face into one of exquisitely striking beauty. Click on the image below to watch this independently-created Youtube video showing the Marquardt Beauty Mask being applied in Photoshop with amazing results. The illustration below shows the the before and after images, with the alignment to the Marquardt Beauty Mask as the guide for the transformation in the center:

Explore the Marquardt Beauty Mask on your own

Details on applying the Marquardt Beauty Mask to your own photo can be found at " You and the Mask " page of his site. This includes male and female versions of the mask, frontal and lateral versions, in both smiling and repose (non-smiling) position. You can download the frontal and lateral repose versions of the female mask below. Click on image for full size version.

Note: The Marquardt Beauty Mask illustrations above are copyright 2001 by Dr. Stephen Marquardt at Marquardt Beauty Analysis and are used by permission.

I'd like to thank Dr. Marquardt for his extensive research in this area, and for allowing it to be shared in summary format here so that viewers of this site can be aware of his landmark work and visit his site to learn more about its background, concepts and application, as well as his mission for his work in this field.

Click below to see an excerpt from the BBC documentary on "The Face" featuring Dr. Marquardt at the 2:02 mark:

Filed Under: Face/Beauty

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beauty in the Human Face and the Golden Ratio

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Gary Meisner Dr. Stephen R. Marquardt is the world's most recognized expert on facial analysis and beauty. He has appeared in many documentaries and been referenced in countless articles, including the Beauty episode of BBC's 2001 documentary "The Face."

# data[].attributes.body
To what extend is the Perfect face template perfect?

Perfect face-Artifact
Introduction- Explain perfect face template
what, where, how (200 words)

Key Point
-Explain what perfect is=Symmetry

Key point 2
-Perfection and Ai= golden ratio and Ai loves maths

Key point 3
-Impact it has on human beings
Conclusion (200 words)

# data[].attributes.body
34% of Japanese women agree that tailor-made beauty/grooming products are more effective than standard varieties

# data[].attributes.body
https://reports.mintel.com/trends/#/observation/1012086

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Generate charts on consumer behaviour in: Italy, Germany, France, Spain & Poland

# data[].attributes.body
If so, the initiative’s outcome made one thing definitively clear: artificial intelligence will never determine a universal face of beauty. Even today, it only highlights how precisely narrow one’s definition of beauty can be.

# data[].attributes.body
“We don’t want human opinion,” says biotechnologist Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, one of the founders behind a pageant-holding, beauty-quantifying initiative called Beauty.AI. “At the end of the day, there are lots of disagreements. We’re looking at ways to evaluate beauty, and some ways may be more relevant or less relevant to human perception. But the entire purpose of Beauty.AI is to get rid of human opinion, to transcend it.”

# data[].attributes.headline
Refences i'll mostly use relating to my lead questions (Mostly leaning towards the 'perfect face filter idea)

# data[].attributes.subject
Refences i'll mostly use relating to my lead questions (Mostly leaning towards the 'perfect face filter idea)

# data[].attributes.body
Highlighted in yellow

# data[].attributes.body
Who defines beauty?
Different shapings of facial features are classed as beautiful in different countries.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/head/article/49659/1/photoshop-community-instagram-tiktok-celebrity-perfection-golden-ratio-zendaya

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Cultural turning points are rarely the grand, seismic events you read about in textbooks. Sure - there's 9/11 or Obama being elected to office, but there's also the iPhone, Caitlyn Jenner coming out, and Beyoncé's Lemonade. And whether we like it or not, there are plenty of smaller (more trivial) moments which work just as hard to keep culture ticking. Think that Snapchat dog filter or Bella Hadid's alleged nose job.

It's at the intersection of these two particular phenomena that a disturbing new trend has emerged: Instagram accounts dedicated to photoshopping celebrities and giving them imagined cosmetic procedures. Accounts like @goddess.women, @fixedyouu, and @beauty.kingdome have gained significant momentum over the past few months and now churn out daily edits of Gen Z friendly celebs such as Zendaya, Billie Eilish, Selena Gomez, and the Hadids.

The edits are uncanny, eerie and, in many ways, indistinguishable from Instagram's already pathological use of Facetune and filters. But what does the rise of these accounts say about our current relationship with body image and our perception of self? And how will this impact their highly engaged, mostly adolescent and almost exclusively female audience?

"I truly believe our appearance defines us," says the individual behind @fixedyouu (who wishes to stay anonymous). "We might not admit it but there is an undying curiosity about what we could or would be like if we were perfect looking". The concept of perfection is, for so many reasons, problematic but it's deeply embedded within the culture of beauty - having been reflected back to us through insipid advertising campaigns, before and after tabloid spreads and celebrity 'glow-ups'.

It's the 'best version of ourself' that we've read via "because you're worth it" slogans and "you deserve it" messaging. Even outside of marketing, the moralistic value we assign to beauty ideals are well documented - like when taller men and slimmer women earn more than others. It's the tired, but intoxicating, notion that being more conventionally beautiful equals happiness, wealth, and partnership.

"I truly believe our appearance defines us. We might not admit it but there is an undying curiosity about what we could or would be like if we were perfect looking" - @fixedyouu

Of course, we know this equation to be untrue but when @fixedyouu reveals that: "I have never liked my appearance and I probably never will", it does make it all the more powerful. The solution here, or so it's implied by the account handle, is cosmetic surgery. Despite being a public account, @fixedyouu is apparently only targeted "towards the plastic surgery community", otherwise known as Instagram's 'Sx' community - an undercover collective comprised of private accounts manned by anonymous "dolls" (cosmetic surgery patients) who compile moodboards, document their surgery journeys, and share best practice tips to other Sx members. "In this community we yearn to learn about new ways of improving our appearance,' the anonymous founder explains. "What's great about my page is that it gives you a relatively realistic idea of what certain surgeries would look like on different face shapes."

In this sense, the faces of celebrities (or even prison mugshots and historical figures like Frida Kahlo and Anne Boleyn) function as substitutes for their own - they become avatars through which the retoucher exorcises their own insecurities. On one hand, it resembles our unboundaried relationship with celebrity, an entitlement to access and an ownership over their appearance. But on the other, it provides a platform for us to live out our truest fantasies digitally. Be it by way of cosmetic surgery edits or WarNymph ( Grimes' digital avatar) or even the futuristic filter art of Ines Alpha - it's part of the ever growing phenomenon of wanting to look more beautiful online than in real life.

Yet what these accounts fail to acknowledge is "the true extent of the physical, emotional and psychological damage that is caused by people in their pursuit of beauty ideals", says Dr Bamford of the London Centre for Eating Disorders and Body Image. This type of "image altering fosters a sense of lacking in people" which can lead to "depression, anxiety, and body image dissatisfaction... a known risk factor for disordered eating".

Social media, alongside tabloid culture and reality TV, has supercharged and shamed the body into a site of constant critique and self-optimisation. The dysmorphic culture of the 'before and afters' inherent to these accounts, are "just another tactic used by the media to exacerbate people's body dissatisfaction". When coupled with a captioned list of 'procedures', they become almost instructional. It results in the types of images that the "young and vulnerable" tend to obsess over with macabre voyeurism - both admiring and resenting those who have the physical (or financial) assets to fulfil beauty ideals.

If being tanned, blonde, and big boobed were the hallmarks of 00s glam, it's now being pillow lipped, giftedly jawlined, and cat eyed. It's something writer Jia Tolentino describes as "distinctly white but ambiguously ethnic" in her essay, " The Instagram Face ". Indeed, with the exception of light skin celebrities such as Rihanna, Zendaya, or Beyoncé, these accounts rarely feature black or dark skin subjects. It means that even in a world of imagined beauty, black bodies are excluded from the narrative.

One TikTok account (@photoshoppetopia) quite rightly came under fire for its edit of Zendaya, which gave the actress smaller lips, a slimmer nose and a narrower jawline. It was captioned "perfect facial features", which in the photoshop community seems mutually exclusive to Eurocentric proportions. But what's most conflicting, is the lack of accountability that the people behind these accounts seem to take - many of whom refused to talk, in fear of aggravating the "hate" or the "extreme feminists" who comment on their work.

"I realise that the way I photoshop my photos could be seen as promoting a certain type of beauty (small noses, big eyes, perfect teeth)" says the 30-something New Yorker behind @just.a.tweak. But it's fair game "as long as it's been made clear that these images have been photoshopped". Except by that point, it's simply too late - the images have already become an object of aspiration. What's more, research from the University of Warwick has shown that flagging models as 'enhanced' or 'manipulated' (counterintuitively) increases our desire to emulate their appearance. This, in turn, widens the gap between retouched images and our very real image of self.

"It seems indicative of how the culture of beauty is moving beyond physical Beverly Hills-style procedures and mutating into something more digital, cyborgian, and (potentially) more sinister. What remains though is the damaging belief that beauty is nothing if not untouchable. If it is within reach, then it's simply not beautiful"

In fact, to assume that these images are just passively received by young people is to do them a disservice. These are digital natives, the vast majority of whom are accustomed to their own filtered reflections and au fait with retouching technology themselves. They're well aware that these depictions of beauty are artificial, it's just that many do not care. And with comments such as "she is so pretty" and "perfection!" on a recent post of Meghan Markle, it's clear these users still idolise and engage with the edits as if they were real.

In the words of @just.a.tweak, "people like to see beauty". But at the hands of these particular accounts, the "art form" of photoshop becomes a hugely socially irresponsible practice. When so many accounts offer their retouching services to users via DMs, it seems indicative of how the culture of beauty is moving beyond physical Beverly Hills-style procedures and mutating into something more digital, cyborgian, and (potentially) more sinister. What remains though is the damaging belief that beauty is nothing if not untouchable. If it is within reach, then it's simply not beautiful.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The photoshop community 'fixing' celebrity faces to sinister levels

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cultural turning points are rarely the grand, seismic events you read about in textbooks. Sure - there's 9/11 or Obama being elected to office, but there's also the iPhone, Caitlyn Jenner coming out, and Beyoncé's Lemonade. And whether we like it or not, there are plenty of smaller (more trivial) moments which work just as hard to keep culture ticking.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/krishrach/people-think-snapchats-beauty-filters-are-making-them-look-w

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Utilizamos cookies, próprios e de terceiros, que o reconhecem e identificam como um usuário único, para garantir a melhor experiência de navegação, personalizar conteúdo e anúncios, e melhorar o desempenho do nosso site e serviços. Esses Cookies nos permitem coletar alguns dados pessoais sobre você, como sua ID exclusiva atribuída ao seu dispositivo, endereço de IP, tipo de dispositivo e navegador, conteúdos visualizados ou outras ações realizadas usando nossos serviços, país e idioma selecionados, entre outros. Para saber mais sobre nossa política de cookies, acesse link.

Caso não concorde com o uso cookies dessa forma, você deverá ajustar as configurações de seu navegador ou deixar de acessar o nosso site e serviços. Ao continuar com a navegação em nosso site, você aceita o uso de cookies.

Snapchat declined to comment.

Posted on May 16, 2016, at 4:33 a.m. ET

Many Snapchat users are concerned that the some of the app's filters seem to favour white complexions, or unnaturally lighten users' skin tone.

The issue seems to be with Snapchat's "pretty" or "beauty" filters, which intend to make the user appear more attractive.

BuzzFeed News decided to try out some of the filters users were claiming unfavorably altered their features.

Because the filters have different effects on different faces and skin tones, we asked BuzzFeed UK's beauty and lifestyle writer Tolani Shoneye and BuzzFeed UK's junior celebrity reporter Ellie Bate to test out two of the beauty filters and write about how they made them feel.

Ellie: I get the concept of having a flower crown filter - it's ~on trend~ and that's fine. But this lightens even my skin, and I didn't think that was even possible. It gets rid of my freckles, which is annoying, because despite being told they're an "imperfection", I like my freckles. I look like a doll, and the eye thing is weird - I don't know whether it's supposed to look like they're sparkling or I'm crying.

Ellie: Instead of lightening my skin, the "beauty" filter seems to darken it slightly - although that might just be the sepia tone they've added to the photo. The weird thing about this is that it slims down my nose so significantly that it looks completely unnatural, and magnifies my eyes even more than they already are by my glasses. I've always disliked my kind of big nose and kind of small eyes, so I can't decide whether I'm happy that Snapchat has given me the opportunity to see myself the way I've always wanted, or mad that they have reassured me that my insecurities are completely legitimate.

Snapchat declined to comment for this story.

Want to see more stories like this? Become a BuzzFeed News member.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
People Think These Snapchat Filters Are Making Their Faces Look Whiter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Utilizamos cookies, próprios e de terceiros, que o reconhecem e identificam como um usuário único, para garantir a melhor experiência de navegação, personalizar conteúdo e anúncios, e melhorar o desempenho do nosso site e serviços.

# data[].attributes.body
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/when-beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-robobeholder/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
When beauty is in the eye of the (robo)beholder

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Beauty.AI saw a lucrative problem and tried solving via algorithms. It ended poorly.

# data[].attributes.body
Beauty standards
filters
perfection
We are completely unaware that social media has changed the way we view ourselves through automated filters, until we place tow images of our selves side by side to see the difference

# data[].attributes.body
“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.” Audrey Hepburn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Photos of Eating Disorder Recovery with Measurable Outcomes - photo 367869

# data[].attributes.body
Nyane is self-model, this screenshot expresses the idea of different sides to a person, influenced by trends and exposure from the society. All theres photos have different characteristics from kawaii, light academia to grunge. She does look comfortable in her on skin and clothing and uses that to express her confidence within these photos.

# data[].attributes.body
Shopedensapparel is a insta account that promotes different aesthetic clothing to different types of people, for exmaple in this screenshots there exmaples of retro, street, vintage, causal, academia clothing. People express there authetic selfs through fashion.

# data[].attributes.body
A short clip of a person looking at himself/herself in the mirror depressed and unappreciated of oneself he/she puts over his/her face to 'mask' the feeling underneath from family, friends, society.

# data[].attributes.body
"All the world is a stage, and the men and women merely players"
Shakespeare

Our groups choses these 'insta worthy', fake, unrelaistic images of people, manly models, because they're job is be someone they aren't. They were sunglasses, expressive jewerly clothing at are in trend to convice others of themselves that they are 'authetic'. The clothing, makeup, assecories all hide what underneath.

# data[].attributes.body
"Myself" never coicides with my image; for it is the image which is heavy, motionless, stubborn."
"Myself" which is light, divided, dispersed; like a bottle-imp, "myself" doesn't hold still, giggling in a jar".
Roland Barthes

He's turns into an object when his photo is taken, he feels like an object, because he's conflicting between how the ownership of the photo is. It the viewer, photographer himself? Motionless photo, I could add passport photos, as a 'motionless' photo, it's very restricted, including not being able to smile, wear jewerly ect.

# data[].attributes.body
Algorithms are altered based on the type of device you have/version of device, where your located, where you are sitting, what browser you are searching on. The filter bubble is a place where all the algorithmics are placed and anything you have browserd is in there. On the outside of the bubble is information you consume while the inside holds is mixture of what's outside and your own preference. However your not in control of the bubble the algorithms is, it decided whats stays, goes and even what we like. This is all based on what we click first, or how long we may look at something. It doesn't mean we welcome that information into the bubbles. This idea of filter bubbles, leads to addiction to social media, since we are desperately trying to find information or subjects that useful to our us.