Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are popularly regarded as our society’s “beautiful people,” but their faces may be no more attractive than yours, according to a mask purporting to measure facial attractiveness.

U of T’s Dr. Mounir Bashour is scientifically testing the mask, created by Californian plastic surgeon Stephen Marquardt.

“How beautiful you are determines, basically, a lot of your characteristics, because you’ve been beautiful or not since you were a child and that determines how confident you’d be later on,” he said, explaining the research.

Bashour says physical attractiveness accounts for 95 per cent of “beauty” when judging someone before learning about their personality and interests.

“If you don’t pass that facial attractiveness test, you’re gone,” he said.

Marquardt claims his mask fits any face, regardless of ethnicity or sex. The closer the fit, the more attractive that person is. The mask uses a geometric pattern of pentagon components based on the “golden ratio,” j (1.61803), a universal number recurring in nature like p.

Bashour notes many believe j is the background to growth in nature.

“How (this ratio) works is that if you grew perfectly well as a fetus and continued to develop normally after you were born, you would fit the phi (j) ratio in every shape, way and form, or at least all your components would fit, so that you would have perfect growth and you would, therefore, fit the mask.”

But Bashour believes Marquardt “hasn’t been rigorously scientific in his work,” noting as far as he knows, there have been no evaluations of the mask published in noted scientific journals.

“And there are a lot of people who believe this works now, but without any scientific background,” he said.

A biomedical engineer and ophthalmic and plastic surgeon, who also possesses a background in psychology, Bashour says this research combines these three fields. His aim is not to analyze the idea of beauty, which he feels is very subjective and not quantifiable, but instead to look at a very specific definition of facial attractiveness which may be measurable with the mask. He is also interested in analyzing the differences between the eyes and faces of men and women.

The research involves photographing faces of U of T students (who are compensated for their time) and then comparing them to the mask to obtain a numeric rating of the faces.

This number is compared to ratings of attractiveness by judges. If the ratings are equal, Marquardt’s claims are true.

“It is conceivable that it’ll work; however, it is not conceivable, to me, that one mask will work for all sexes and races,” Bashour said.

He says judges can naturally possess preferences for certain facial features, but after judging picture after picture of faces photographed in identical settings and poses, “you’re going to get a very, very objective rating.”

The notion that facial attractiveness can be scientifically measured is both fascinating and concerning, which is one reason Bashour is pursuing this research.

“It has inherent interest because people just have an interest in what makes people attractive,” said a U of T first-year law student who participated in Bashour’s research. She recommends volunteering, as it was a “relaxing” and informative experience.

Bashour suggests that the model has the potential for vast applications. “Whether it works or not, however, it is something that has to be done because this has become a very popular and popularized idea,” Bashour said.

POSSIBLE USES OF THE MASK

Advising people for cosmetic and reconstructive surgeries, as well as for makeup application, are some potentially substantial uses of the mask. “If this works, it is something that would be used by many plastic surgeons,” claims Bashour. “Bottom-line, an objective template for studying cases is an incredibly powerful tool for many reasons.”

Bashour suggested other potential applications in the use of personal classified ads and also in the modeling/entertainment industry. He has developed the term AQ (Attractiveness Quotient), which can be calculated on the basis of the mask.

He feels an AQ could potentially be used as a selling feature in cases where the level of attractiveness is an important quality, just as a numerical rating of IQ can represent one’s intelligence, or as blood types in Japan or horoscopes in North America can symbolize important attributes. Interested volunteers between the ages of 18-30 years with an hour to spare can contact Dr. Mounir Bashour at [email protected] or 416-837-1691 to book an appointment.