At a glance
- Term
- Neoteny
- Area
- Face geometry
- Measurable from a selfie
- Yes: eye size and lower-face height against face size
- Evidence
- Established
- Related
- Sexual dimorphism (face), Midface ratio, Philtrum ratio
What “large eyes” means here
Eye size has a reference point here. Crop a portrait until the eyes fill the frame and they’ll look large on your screen. To describe a youthful facial proportion, you need to see how much space the eyes take up within the face itself.
The same idea applies to a short lower face. Look at the stretch from the base of the nose to the chin, then compare it with the full height of the face.
What you can read from a photo
The free face-symmetry scan measures distances between landmarks in one selfie. It names what it measured and reports left-right differences and basic ratios. If you’re interested in eye size, check which distance the result describes. The gap between your eyes answers a different question from the width of either eye.
A philtrum ratio concerns the space between your nose and upper lip. Using that alone to describe your lower face would leave out the rest of the distance to your chin.
What the established evidence covers
Neoteny has an established meaning in biology, and facial neoteny applies that idea to the features you can see in an adult face. Gillian Rhodes discusses youthful features in “The evolutionary psychology of facial beauty.” The term gives you a way to describe a look without setting a target for your own proportions.
Reading one number from one photo as a fixed fact about your face is an easy mistake. An eye measurement can describe the eyes in that picture. It can’t tell you how full your cheeks look, let alone sum up the whole face.
Questions people ask
- Is “baby-faced” another word for neoteny?
- “Baby-faced” is an everyday description of someone who looks young. Neoteny is more specific because it refers to youthful traits that remain visible in adulthood.
- Can you describe full cheeks as a neotenous feature on their own?
- Yes. If cheek fullness is what you notice, you can describe that feature directly. Calling the cheeks youthful leaves the size of the nose and the height of the lower face open.
Written from the measurements and ingredient facts on this site, then checked for the usual mistakes. Not medical advice.
Related pages
The closest pages in this section, picked by topic rather than by date.
- midface ratio meaning: What the number measuresThe midface ratio meaning is simple: pupil-to-lip height divided by pupil spacing. Learn what a selfie measures and why there's no proven be
- philtrum ratio meaning: What the measurement describesLearn the philtrum ratio meaning, what a selfie can measure, and why there's no evidence for treating a particular ratio as a proven beauty
- A guide to sexual dimorphism meaning in facesLearn sexual dimorphism meaning in faces, which features a selfie can compare, and why masculine or feminine traits aren't an attractiveness
- Bigonial width meaning and how to measure itUnderstand bigonial width meaning, how a selfie measures the distance across your jaw corners, and what comparing it with cheekbone width te
- Bizygomatic width meaning: the distance across your cheekbonesLearn bizygomatic width meaning, how cheekbone width relates to face shape, and what a selfie can measure without fixing your face to a labe
- A guide to brow ridge meaningUnderstand brow ridge meaning, why a front-facing selfie can't measure its projection, and what established evidence says about changing it.
- buccal fat meaning: What it is and what photos can't showLearn the buccal fat meaning, why cheek fullness can't measure this fat pad, and what permanent removal may mean for your appearance later.
- Canthal tilt meaning: what your eye-corner angle tells youLearn the canthal tilt meaning, how to measure eye-corner angles in a selfie, and why a photo result isn't a fixed fact about your face.
- A guide to cheekbones meaningLearn cheekbones meaning, how cheek width compares with your jaw and forehead, and why one selfie cannot give a fixed measurement of your fa