Reflections on the Woman with the Heart Shaped Face

Sylvia Sidney: The Woman with the Heart Shaped Face

Is this the perfect female face?

I suppose it depends on who you ask - though it would surely be churlish to dispute that Sylvia Sidney's face is anything other than lovely to look at. At any rate, attendees at the 1934 Southern California Cosmetologists conference declared it to be ideal, displaying as it did their seven key features:

1. The length of the face equals three nose lengths ...

2. The space in between the eyes is the width of one eye ...    

3. Upper and lower lips are the same width ...

4. The eyebrows are symmetrical and conform to the line of the nose ...

5. The distance from the lower eyelid to the upper eyelid is the same as between the upper eyelid and eyebrow ...

6. The eyebrow begins on the same line as the corner of the eye nearest to the nose ...

7. The width of the face from cheek to cheek is equal to two lengths of the nose.

Obviously, the crucial thing here is symmetry. No one wants to look at a lopsided face and ugly mugs, we might say, begin where facial regularity ends. 

And yet, studies suggest that - as a matter of fact - most people don't want perfect symmetry; that it's the tiny imperfections and imbalances that add character and charm to a face.

Besides, aesthetically pleasing doesn't always mean sexually desirable; physical beauty of face and form can sometimes bore rather than arouse - does the Venus de Milo cause an erection in anyone other than the most ardent statue fetishist?