In this article, I would like to discuss racial differences in beauty.

Among previous studies on racial characteristics of an attractive face, Marquardt¹ proposed the golden facial mask (Phi mask) as a standard to describe facial characteristics of different races. According to Marquardt, the attractive face of Caucasians and other European races have thin upper and lower lip that retruded backward and eyebroware flat. Their noses are somewhat wide and the width of the face is larger than the golden facial mask. The tip of the nose is projected upward direction and the chin and nose are elongated in some cases.  On the other hand, he described that a beautiful Asian face has some different characteristics; Asians usually have epicanthal folds and lateral border of the face is significantly wider than the Mask.

 

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Eye brows of Asians are slightly superior to that of the Mask with shorter tails. Asian has slightly wider nose and nostrils (nasal ala and nares extend laterally) and have superiorly positioned nasal columella creating a longer upper lip. Asians’ eye brows are slightly superior to that of the mask with shorter tails. They have right angle junction between the columella and the upper lip. They have slightly retruded nasal dorsum and tip and some Asians have slightly retruded chin. Meanwhile, he described that an African beautiful face have full lips and their lower lip is 18 degrees wider from the corner of the mouth and extending to inferiorly to the labio-mental fold and upper lip is 18 degrees wider from the corner of the mouth and extending to the philtrum.

Africans have wider nose and nostrils (nasal ala and nares extend laterally) – such that the lateral aspect of the nostril (nare) is on the naso-labial fold. They have eye brows in the brow zone superior to that of the Mask and lateral border of the face slightly narrower than the Mask.

Among other studies analyzing the face, Le et al.² reported a comparative analysis of the Asian and Caucasian face. The authors said that Asians have a greater intercanthal distance, smaller palpebral fissure, wider nose, and smaller horizontal length of the mouth. Besides, they wrote that height of the lower face is smaller than that of the forehead.  

The above differences have generally been accepted by public as different facial features according to races.

 

-To be continued-