Looksmaxxing guide
Looksmaxxing: what it means, the terms, and what actually works
Looksmaxxing means trying to make yourself as attractive as you can, from skincare and a better haircut (softmaxxing) to surgery and riskier fixes (hardmaxxing). It started on men's forums in the mid-2010s and brought a vocabulary of face measurements with it. Here is what each term means, which ones you can measure from a selfie, and which changes have evidence behind them.
What is looksmaxxing?
Looksmaxxing is the practice of optimizing your appearance, and its ending comes from gamer slang: “min-maxing” means pushing one stat as high as it will go (Dictionary.com). The suffix has spread to sleepmaxxing, gymmaxxing, and nearly everything else, and Dictionary.com named “maxxing” its 2026 Word of the Year (Good Morning America).
The earliest use the etymologist David Wilton has found is a 2015 thread on Lookism.net, followed months later by the double-x spelling on 4chan (Wordorigins.org). Those forums sat in the online world of incels, and the word stayed there until TikTok and streamers carried it to a far wider audience over the last few years (NBC News). Today it covers everything from a skincare routine to jaw surgery, and the community splits it in two.
Softmaxxing
Everyday changes that are low-risk and easy to undo: skincare, sleep, hair, grooming, fitness, and clothes. Basic hygiene counts too, such as brushing and whitening your teeth and removing face and body hair (The Conversation).
- Skincare
- Sleep
- Haircut
- Fitness
Hardmaxxing
Changes pursued “by any means necessary”: surgery, hair transplants, and steroids (The Conversation), plus do-it-yourself fixes such as bone smashing. Many are permanent, and some are dangerous.
- Surgery
- Steroids
- Bone smashing
Looksmaxxing terms: the glossary
Looksmaxxing has its own vocabulary, and most of it is borrowed from anatomy and orthodontics. Here is what each term means, what the research says about it, and whether you can measure it yourself. The terms with a glowing tag can be read from a straight-on selfie with one of the free tools; the ones marked side view need a profile photo or an X-ray.
Eyes
Canthal tiltpositive or negative canthal tilt
The angle of the line from the inner corner of your eye to the outer corner, against a level line. Outer corner higher is a positive tilt; lower is negative. Most adult eyes tilt up a few degrees, and published averages run from about 2 to 8.5 degrees. Judges in one experiment preferred women's faces with the tilt slightly accentuated 93% of the time (Bashour and Geist, 2007), but the most attractive tilt differed between ethnic groups (Rhee et al., 2012). The corner is held by a tendon fixed to bone, so exercises don't move it.
Measure it: Canthal tilt calculatorHunter eyes and prey eyes
Hunter eyes is the looksmaxxing name for deep-set eyes under a low, straight brow, with a positive canthal tilt and little visible upper lid. Prey eyes are the opposite: round, open eyes with plenty of lid showing and a level or downward tilt. Neither is a medical category, and most of what creates either one is bone structure.
Read the hunter eyes guideInterpupillary distance (IPD)eye spacing
The distance between the centers of your pupils. Opticians measure it to fit glasses; in face analysis it is the width half of the midface ratio. When Pallett and colleagues moved the eyes around on real faces, the versions rated most attractive had the pupils about 46% of the face width apart, which is the spacing of an average face (Vision Research, 2010).
Measure it: Face proportions calculatorProportions and symmetry
Facial thirdsand fifths
Your face split into three heights: hairline to brows, brows to the base of the nose, and nose to chin. The artists' canon says the three are equal, and its partner, the fifths, says the face is five eye-widths across. Real faces rarely follow either: when Leslie Farkas measured 153 young adults, the vertical canons held least often of all (Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 1985). A long lower third is a description, not a flaw.
Measure it: Face proportions calculatorMidface ratiocompact midface
The distance between your pupils divided by the height from your pupils to the top of your upper lip. Online, a ratio near 1.0 is called a compact midface and treated as ideal, but that cutoff has not been tested in published research. The tested version comes from the same Pallett study: faces looked best with the eyes about 36% of the face length above the mouth.
Measure it: Face proportions calculatorFWHRfacial width-to-height ratio
Face width at the cheekbones divided by the height from your brows to your upper lip. In the 2008 study that made it famous, women averaged 1.80 and men 1.86 (Carré and McCormick). Claims that a high FWHR signals testosterone or dominance rest on mixed evidence, and the same face's number can shift between photos and expressions by more than the gap between two people (Kramer, 2016).
Measure it: Face proportions calculatorGolden ratiophi, 1.618
The number 1.618, and the idea that beautiful faces follow it. Its best-known form is the “phi mask”, a face template built from golden ratio proportions. A review in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery found the mask fits the masculinized faces of white fashion models best, fits many other faces poorly, and shouldn't be used as a goal for surgery (Holland, 2008).
Measure it: Golden ratio face calculatorFacial symmetry
How closely the two halves of your face mirror each other. Symmetry is one of three things people tend to find attractive across cultures, with averageness and features typical of your sex (Rhodes, 2006). Real faces differ by millimeters, though, and a perfectly mirrored face often looks less like a person than the real one.
Measure it: Face symmetry testFacial harmonyaverageness
How your features work together, rather than one at a time. The best-tested idea behind it is averageness: a composite blended from many faces is rated more attractive than almost all of the faces in it (Langlois and Roggman, 1990). That is also why an average face beats a golden ratio one in experiments.
Measure it: Attractiveness testJaw, chin, and profile
Gonial anglejaw angle
The angle at the back corner of your jaw, below the ear, between the rear edge of the jawbone and its lower border. It is measured from the side, on an X-ray or a profile photo, and a smaller angle reads as a sharper, squarer jaw. In a study of 304 young adults, men averaged 121 degrees and women 123, a gap so small that the angle guessed someone's sex correctly only 56% of the time (Belaldavar et al., 2019).
Side view only: a front photo can’t show itBigonial and bizygomatic widthjaw to cheekbone ratio
Bigonial width is the width of your jaw across its two back corners; bizygomatic width is the width of your face across the cheekbones. Dividing one by the other gives the jaw to cheekbone ratio. In a study that edited photos of women's jaws, a jaw about 75% of the cheekbone width was rated most attractive and anything above 83% read as square (Wu et al., 2021). Men's jaws run wider relative to their cheekbones on average (Liu et al., 2023).
Measure it: Face proportions calculatorForward growthand chin projection
Forum shorthand for an upper jaw and chin that sit well forward in profile. Orthodontists can steer jaw growth in children, but the American Association of Orthodontists says growth appliances guide development “in ways that aren't possible once the bones have matured”, and that adults with a marked jaw mismatch may need jaw surgery (AAO).
Side view only: a front photo can’t show itMewing
Holding the whole tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, on the theory that steady pressure reshapes the jaw. The American Association of Orthodontists says there is no current research showing mewing benefits the jawline or oral health, and that pushing on your teeth with your tongue can move them out of place (AAO).
Philtrum
The vertical groove in the middle of your upper lip, between two ridges, running from the base of your nose to the edge of the lip (NIH Elements of Morphology). Looksmaxxing forums prize a short one. Its length depends on ethnicity, age, and sex, and even clinicians find it hard to measure precisely.
Cheekbones and midface
Zygomatic archhigh cheekbones
The bridge of bone along the side of your face, formed where the cheekbone (zygomatic bone) meets the temporal bone; the cheekbone itself forms the prominence of your cheek (Kenhub). “High cheekbones” means that prominence sits high and wide under the eyes, and the width across the arches is the bizygomatic width used in FWHR.
Measure it: Face shape detectorOgee curve
The S-shaped line of the cheek, where the curve of the cheekbone flows into the hollow of the mid-cheek, seen from the side or at an angle. Aesthetic doctors treat it as a sign of a youthful cheek, because losing cheek volume with age flattens it (Moradi et al., 2024). In men, the lower half of the S is usually flatter (Goel and Rai, 2022).
Side view only: a front photo can’t show itBuccal fat
A pad of fat deep in each cheek, below the cheekbone. Buccal fat removal is surgery to thin the cheek hollows, and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons notes it is usually not done on thin, narrow faces, because it may make the face look more gaunt with age (ASPS).
Slang and scales
Moggingto mog
To mog someone is to be noticeably better than them, in looks or at anything else. Dictionary.com traces it to AMOG, “alpha male of the group”, early-2000s manosphere slang that incel forums shortened into a verb in the 2010s (Dictionary.com).
PSL scale
A forum rating of facial attractiveness, usually out of 10. The letters come from three now-defunct incel-adjacent forums, PUAhate, Sluthate, and Lookism.net, and researchers at the University of Portsmouth found PSL hashtags have been viewed billions of times on TikTok (University of Portsmouth). A PSL number is a rating, not a measurement: there is no agreed method behind it.
Sexual dimorphismdimorphism
How strongly a face shows the features that differ on average between men and women. Cheekbone width is one of the clearest: across 6,068 US Army adults, men's faces were markedly wider at the cheekbones even after allowing for body size (Caton and Dixson, 2022). A review found feminine female faces consistently rated more attractive, while preferences for masculine male faces vary from study to study (Little, Jones and DeBruine, 2011).
Halo effectpretty privilege
The habit of assuming attractive people have other good qualities too, first named “what is beautiful is good” in a 1972 study (Dion, Berscheid and Walster). A review of 11 meta-analyses found attractive children and adults are judged and treated more positively, even by people who know them (Langlois et al., 2000). That payoff is what looksmaxxing is chasing.
Measure your face with free tools
Every term above with a glowing tag can be read from one straight-on selfie. Each photo tool places 478 points on your face in your browser, draws the lines it measures on your photo, and shows what studies found next to your number. Nothing is uploaded.
What no front photo can show is your profile: the angle at the back of your jaw, how far your chin and upper jaw come forward, and the curve of your cheek from the side. Treat any app that scores those from a selfie with suspicion.
Looksmaxxing that has evidence behind it
The changes with the best evidence are the least dramatic ones. None of them moves a bone, and all of them change how your face reads to other people.
Skin: sunscreen first
Skin is the part of your face that responds most to what you do. Daily sunscreen is the best-proven step: in a trial of 903 adults, the group told to use it every day showed no detectable increase in skin aging over 4.5 years (Hughes et al., 2013). Treat acne early and keep the rest simple; our guides to clear skin and a skincare routine for men lay it out step by step.
Sleep
People photographed after a night without sleep were rated less healthy, more tired, and less attractive than the same people rested (Axelsson et al., 2010). Two nights of four hours did the same, and raters were less keen to socialize with them (Sundelin et al., 2017).
Body fat
How much fat your face carries predicts how healthy and attractive it looks to others (Coetzee et al., 2009), and it is why a jawline appears after weight loss: the bone was there all along. Diet and exercise change it; jaw workouts don't. Puffiness from salt, alcohol, or short sleep is a separate, short-lived thing, covered in our guide to face bloat.
Hair, brows, and beard
A haircut chosen for your face shape, tidy brows, and a beard shaped to your jaw change how your proportions read more than any ratio does. Our guide to face shapes for men covers the cuts and beards for each.
Your expression
How attractive a face looks depends strongly on how much it smiles, enough that a happy expression can make up for a less attractive face (Golle et al., 2014). It is the one looksmaxx that every measuring tool, ours included, asks you to switch off for the photo.
What doesn't work, and what can hurt
Some of the most shared looksmaxxing advice has no evidence behind it, and some of it causes real harm.
Mewing, jaw workouts, and jawline gum
No research shows mewing reshapes an adult jaw, and a review of facial exercises found the evidence too thin to say they work (Seraj et al., 2025). Chewing dense gum for long stretches can bring on jaw pain and headaches and raise the risk of jaw joint (TMJ) disorders, the American Dental Association warns (ADA).
Bone smashing
Tapping or hitting your cheekbones or jaw, often with a hammer, in the hope the bone heals back bigger. Plastic surgeons warn it risks nerve damage, a changed bite, and likely permanent disfigurement (Mater Hospital Brisbane), and in the worst cases airway obstruction and blindness (CBS News). Don't do it.
Surgery to hit a number
Canthoplasty, jaw implants, and buccal fat removal are real operations with real risks, from a misaligned eye corner and scarring (EyeWiki) to a face that looks gaunt later (ASPS). The targets they get sold against, a 1.618 face or a “compact” midface, mostly aren't backed by research. If you're considering one, see a board-certified surgeon and bring your reason, not a ratio.
Chasing your ratios photo after photo
Your bone structure doesn't change from one week to the next, so when a ratio moves between photos, it is measuring the camera: its distance, the tilt of your head, and the light can shift a number by more than the difference between two faces (Kramer, 2016). Measure your proportions once, straight on and in good light. Track the things that do change, like your skin, and take each photo the same way so the comparison is fair.
Is looksmaxxing bad for you?
It depends which end you're on. More sleep, daily sunscreen, and a haircut that suits you are good habits with a new name. The trouble is the rating culture the word grew up in. A 2025 study of 8,072 comments on a large looksmaxxing forum found members casting each other as “failed men” and sometimes encouraging self-harm, and concluded these communities harm the health of the men who take part (Halpin et al., 2025). Researchers at the University of Portsmouth describe the same forums repackaging incel ideology as self-improvement (University of Portsmouth).
Looksmaxxing also overlaps with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a mental health condition in which you spend a lot of time worrying about flaws that other people often don't notice (NHS). People with BDD often seek cosmetic procedures, but surgery hasn't been shown to improve the symptoms (Cleveland Clinic).
Measuring is useful when it points you at something you can change. That is the idea behind GoodSkin's AI skin analysis: it scores your skin, the part of your face that responds to what you do, and shows the trend month by month.
Frequently asked questions
How do I start looksmaxxing?
Start with the changes that have evidence and cost little: a simple skin routine with daily sunscreen, enough sleep, a haircut chosen for your face shape, and groomed brows. Take a photo in the same light each month to see what changed. Measuring your face with the free tools is fun, but most of the numbers describe bone you can’t change.
Can looksmaxxing change your bone structure?
Not after you stop growing, short of surgery. Mewing, chewing, and facial exercises have no good evidence of reshaping adult bone. What does change is the soft tissue over it: body fat, swelling, skin, and hair all change how your jaw and cheekbones read.
What is the best looksmaxxing app?
Looksmaxxing apps such as Umax rate your face and suggest a routine; our GoodSkin vs Umax comparison covers what each one does. GoodSkin itself doesn’t rate attractiveness. It scores your skin on 14 traits from one selfie and tracks them over time.
Does GoodSkin rate how attractive I am?
The GoodSkin app reads your skin, not your looks. On this site, the free attractiveness test gives a face score out of 10 from your proportions and symmetry, measured in your browser from your own photo.
