The face e-fits: Cheryl Cole matched ideal features on a computer and David Beckham was deemed almost flawlessBeauty companies seem to think they have the perfect faces, judging by the pair’s constant stream of endorsements.
And it seems the public agrees that Cheryl Cole and David Beckham are the ideal examples of a ‘beautiful’ man and woman.
Researchers asked 100 volunteers to produce an image of an attractive male or female face using police e-fit techniques, and then combined them into one male face and a female face.
When the perfect features were compared to real celebrities, Miss Cole’s facial proportions were found to be the best match for the perfect female face and Beckham’s those of a male face.
Dr Chris Solomon, who led the study, said the match between Miss Cole’s face and the ideal was ‘striking’.
He said: ‘She has so many of the classic features of beauty – the wide eyes, the narrower than average nose, the small mouth with full lips and the high, slim eyebrows.
‘Her only imperfection was that her chin and jaw appeared slightly wider than the idealised proportions – but this is an imperfection most of us would be happy to live with.’
Beckham was found to have the perfect nose, eyes and smile. ‘The only discrepancies are a slightly narrower jaw and eyebrows slightly further down the head than would be considered ideal,’ said Dr Solomon, of the University of Kent.
The study, commissioned to coincide with the release of Beauty and the Beast on Blu-Ray, found a consensus on what constitutes ‘beauty’. Perfect women need a smooth complexion, large eyes, full lips and a narrow nose.
Men need a ‘lean face’ with visible but not protruding cheek bones, a narrow bottom of their nose, deep-coloured eyes and a soft, small jawline. However, the study also found many volunteers did not want any prospective partner to have a perfect face.
Many men said that a technically perfect female face looked ‘cold’ and ‘lifeless’.
‘This suggests that what we recognise to be “perfect” beauty is not necessarily the same as what we see as attainable or desirable in a partner,’ Dr Solomon said.
source :dailymail
