Golden ratio / Marquardt Phi mask fit
what a photo can give, and how we take it.
The ratios people actually preferred, instead of 1.618: Pallett's 0.36 vertical and 0.46 horizontal, scored like every other proportion here.
Also searched as golden ratio face, golden ratio face test, phi mask and Marquardt mask.
What we report
The ratios people actually preferred, instead of 1.618: Pallett's 0.36 vertical and 0.46 horizontal, scored like every other proportion here.
Why not the clinical number itself
Refuted with morphometric methods. Holland (2008) used Procrustes and thin-plate-spline analysis to show that the mask is ill-suited to non-European populations, and that what it best describes is MASCULINIZED white women. That is the opposite of what raters prefer. Khoshab et al. (2022), a PRISMA systematic review of 27 studies across six ethnic categories, found no ethnic or gender group that consistently approximates either the neoclassical canons or Φ. Pallett et al. (2010) put it plainly: "there was never any proof that the golden ratio was special. As it turns out, it isn't."
Sources
- Holland 2008, Aesthetic Plast Surg — doi.org/10.1007/s00266-007-9080-z
- Khoshab et al. 2022, Aesthet Surg J — doi.org/10.1093/asj/sjab339
- Pallett, Link & Lee 2010, Vision Res — doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2009.11.003
Ratios of near-coplanar frontal distances, angles relative to the interpupillary line, and skin appearance. Each comes with an error bar, and each is placed against a population you choose. Start an analysis or read the methodology.
The conformity figures for all five neoclassical canons across four measured populations, the three papers that tested the phi mask, and the layout raters actually preferred.
The others people ask for
Same question, different measurement: what the clinical version needs, and what a photograph can give instead.
What is measured instead
How every bone-level measurement is taken here · methodology · glossary · all 35 insight pages