Over the last few years having a perfectly plump pout has never been more in demand.
In the UK, lip fillers are the most commonly searched cosmetic treatment. While in the US, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported approximately 27,000 lip implants in 2015, a 50% increase from 2000.
And if you’re not brave enough to go under the knife (or needle) there’s always that handy trick of over lining your lips to fake a fuller pout.
Angelina Jolie is known for her famously luscious lips.
However, while impossibly plump pouts are continuously portrayed in the media as the ideal, thanks to a scientific study we now know that the “perfect” pair of lips are in fact a lot more realistic looking.
The research was published by the JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery and over 400 women took part in the research, which took place at the University of California.
Image credit: JAMA
Side-by-side images of their lips were shown and ranked from 1 (least attractive) to 10 (most attractive). Manipulated images of women’s overall lip sizes were shown to guide the researches in finding the optimal lip shape and size. Upper and lower lips we shown separately to help researchers get the ‘ideal’ upper to lower lip ratio.
Image credit: JAMA
Surprisingly, the research revealed that the participants preferred lips where the lower part was twice as big as the upper lip.
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They also found that the ‘perfect’ lips were 50% larger than a the regular woman’s natural lip size and took up roughly 10% of the lower part of a woman’s face.
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In visual terms, we’re talking about the lips of classic beauty Sophia Loren.
It is comforting to think that in today’s culture of cosmetic surgery, it is actually a more natural appearance that people prefer!
It’s also important to remember that lips come in all different shapes in sizes, and suit different face shapes, so we can all learn to love the lips that we’ve got!
