What is it that makes a face look beautiful? What are the differences between very attractive and less appealing faces? For every historical period and every human culture, people have always had their own ideal of beauty. But this ideal has never been constant and is still subject to changes. In our research project we adopted an empirical approach and created prototypes for unattractive and attractive faces for each sex by using the morphing technique. For example, the prototype for an unattractive face ("unsexy face") was created by blending together four faces that had previously been rated as very unattractive. The "sexy face" was created by blending together four of the most attractive faces, respectively.
In order to find out the characteristic differences between attractive and unattractive faces, we presented pairs of one "sexy" and one "unsexy" image for both sexes to test subjects. The task was to report which facial features were perceived to be different between the two faces. For the results see the list below.

Characteristic features of the female "sexy face" in comparison to the "unsexy face" :

1. Suntanned skin
2. Narrower facial shape
3. Less fat
4. Fuller lips
5. Slightly bigger distance of eyes
6. Darker, narrower eye brows
7. More, longer and darker lashes
8. Higher cheek bones
9. Narrower nose
10. No eye rings
11. Thinner lids

Characteristics of the male "Sexy face" in the comparison to the "unsexy face":

1. Browner skin
2. Narrower facial shape
3. Less fat
4. Fuller and more symmetrical lips
5. Darker eye brows
6. More and darker lashes
7. Upper half of the face broader in relation to the lower
8. Higher cheek bones
9. Prominent lower jaw
10. More prominent chin
11. No receding brows
12. Thinner lids
13. No wrinkles between nose and corner of the mouth

Cuteness