"The triangles of beauty" by Patrick Treacy

March 22, 2009 - PRLog -- So what is beauty and how do we define it? The Wikipedia definition of Beauty is a characteristic of a person, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction. For all intensive purposes let us just deal with beauty of person. For centuries there have been many attempts to find a universal mathematical formula that determines a perfect ‘baby-like’ face. These have often been related to the ‘Golden Ratio’, which has fascinated intellectuals for at least 2,500 years. The Golden Ratio was used to build the Parthenon and the Pyramids. It dictates the ideal height and width of a face. If the distance between the two cheeks is 1, then the ideal height is 1.618. However, Dr Mike Comins in his article ‘The Science and Treatment of the Aging Face’ puts it a little simpler. He says that the youthful face can very simply be defined by dividing the face into 1/3s. This means that the hairline to the eyes forms the upper third, the middle third from the eyes to the tip of the nose and the lower third, the tip of nose to the chin. Dr. Comins freely admits this formula is not totally accurate but provides cosmetic doctors with a type of platform to understand the aging face.

At the risk of sounding more mathematician than cosmetic doctor, more recent MRI studies show that the lower part is again further subdivided into an upper third from nose tip to top lip and lower two-thirds from the lip to the chin. In a recent lecture to the BACD in London, Mr Danny Vleggar elucidated to this further sub division by stating “As we age these proportions change especially the lower part of the face. The result is the middle third tends to decrease in length causing the distance between the nose and top lip to lengthen and of the lower lip and chin to decrease. This is due to bone changes but result in the face taking on a more rectangular look as opposed to the upside down triangle associated with a youthful face.

Triangles of Beauty

As people age their faces tend to sag and become square rather than following youthful aesthetic triangles. This results in an inversion of the ‘triangle of beauty’ framed by the cheekbone and the chin. Everyone in their fifties knows the signs. The fat pad drops and we get jowls squaring off our nice round features. We also get drooping of the lip edges as a result of pronounced marionette lines and this makes us look unhappy and sad. We should know the aging process is slow, relentless and irreversible. It occurs at different rates from individual to individual as well as in each person at any given time. All of these changes result in the face taking on a more rectangular look as opposed to the upside down triangle associated with a youthful face. It is now clear that underlying tissues, including the fat, muscle and bone all change over time and contribute to the aged look.

This is where Dr. Brandt’s techniques or those of advanced fillers come into their own. We now know that if we solely treat the lines and wrinkles of the face with Botox and Hyaluronic acid fillers we will get results more suitable for those in their thirties, but as you get into your forties and fifties additional advanced procedures of volumisation are clearly required. These advanced, modern techniques aim to restore volume, tighten and treat the skin and underlying tissues and remove unwanted deposited fat.
Cosmetic doctors have been studying the aging face for decades and it is now
acknowledged that fat shrinkage and redistribution of deep facial tissues lie at the heart of all these changes. This diagram below shows the progression of facial fat pad loss from 1-5. In our mid thirties fat around the eyes and cheeks begin to shrink and gravitates downwards. In our 40s and 50s fat is lost from the sides of your face and jowls and lastly from your mid 50s fat diminishes from the forehead. As the fat pads diminish and gravitate down the face the surrounding facial muscles react to the volume loss by contracting. Over time the contracted muscle loses is strength and becomes lax, resulting in increased lines around the nose to lips and onwards towards the jawline.  

In many ways most cosmetic doctors spend their days in aesthetic medicine trying to restore baby like features by correcting the inverted triangles of aging. We use dermal fillers or fat to augment the cheek or infra-orbital area in an attempt to restore the ratio of the Golden Triangle. Every time we use dermal fillers to upturn the lip edges or a Nefertiti botox lift to relax the platysmal muscles and stop them pulling on the jowls we slowly unawares to ourselves inch the ratio back towards 1.618.

Maybe, we are all just cosmetic engineers at heart!.

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The Ailesbury Clinic opened in Dublin in 2002. It was awarded Best Medical Practice at the 2005 Irish Healthcare Pharmaceutical Awards. It was selected as runner-up in the finals of the Best Aesthetic Medical Clinic in the UK and Ireland. The Ailesbury Clinic is the only Irish clinic to have the honour to be selected.

Medical Director of the clinic, Dr. Patrick J. Treacy is a world-renowned exponent in all areas of cosmetic dermatology and minor surgical procedures. Dr Treacy recently formed the Irish Association of Cosmetic Doctors and he is Faculty member of the British Association of Cosmetic Doctors.