These are the most desirable pair of lips in the world, according to science… so do YOU agree with the results?
Big boobs, a big ass and big lips. Exaggerated features have been 'in' for the better part of a decade.
But several studies conducted by DailyMail.com in recent years have shown that bigger is not always better when it comes to breasts and butt.
And now research has shown that lips can be added to the list of features that are better in moderation – a blow to Kylie Jenner and the millions of women who use high doses of lip filler.
Researchers asked men and women to rate five pairs of lips, of different sizes, placed over the same woman's face. They felt that moderation was key: not too big and not too thin.
ADD RANKINGS: The above shows the lips that ranked fourth (left) and the lips that ranked least attractive (right). Researchers said people preferred more natural-looking lips
Dr. Sebastian Cotofana, an anatomist formerly at the Mayo Clinic who was involved in the study, said: 'It's all about proportion.
“If you take big lips and put them on a slimmer face… it might not look nice.”
For the study, researchers in Germany recruited 59 men and women – most with no medical background, white backgrounds and in their 30s.
Participants were shown five digitally altered images of a woman 'in her twenties' – each with different sized lips.
They rated the images from one to five based on how attractive they were, with one being the least attractive and five being the most attractive.
Kylie Jenner is pictured above in 2010, left, and in 2023, right. She is known for using a large amount of lip filler
Their answers were then averaged to reveal which lips were the most attractive.
The winner was the woman's natural lips, which received an average score of 4.56 out of five.
In second place were lips that were 15 percent larger than her natural size, with a score of 4.48.
And in third place were lips that were 15 percent smaller than her natural size, with a score of 2.52.
In last place were the largest lips – a third larger than normal – with a score of 1.56.
The study also tracked the participants' eyes to try to determine which ones they found most attractive.
This showed that people stared at bigger lips longer, but Dr. Cotofana said this could indicate that they found them less attractive.
He suggested that people have an “inner ideal of beauty” and that if something doesn't fit it, they need to gather more “visual information” – stare at it longer – to understand the “mismatch.”
A number of celebrities are known for filling their lips with filler to give them a much fuller and plumper appearance, such as Kylie Jenner and Ariana Grande.
And their star power is pushing others to get the shots — with nearly 1.4 million American women getting the shots in their lips last year alone to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons annual report.
No age analysis of patients is available, but the fillers are not only a hit with young people.
Ariana Grande, pictured left in 2010 and right in 2018, has previously tearfully admitted to having tons of lip filler
Jessica Simpson pictured above in the early 2000s and again this year with a much fuller set of lips
Andrea Ivanova from Sofia, Bulgaria, and a former philosophy student, started her transformation in 2018 and says she has no fear of her lips ever cracking
Doctors say older women are increasingly coming forward to get fillers to make their faces look younger.
The latest study has many limitations.
First, all lips shown in the study had a ratio of 1:1.6 – meaning the lower lip is about 60 percent larger than the upper lip – which is considered the “golden” or most attractive ratio among white women. .
The fact that the sample woman already had perfect rations may have skewed the findings, the researchers admit.
Dr. Cotofana told DailyMail.com that the scientists used a stock photo of a woman who appeared to be in her 20s for the study.
“We set the standard that the lips that belong to the face are 100 percent,” he said, “we went from 100 percent and went down to 70 percent or more.”
'But we haven't changed the facial proportions. We just changed the lip volume.”
In the paper, led by scientists from Ludwig-Maximilian University in Germany, they wrote: 'Our results could potentially indicate that measures of attention may not be associated with the 'beauty' or 'aesthetic appeal' of the presented contents.
'Rather, it could be a reflection of the observers' cognitive processing (the time it takes to adapt).
'Less attractive content attracts the observer's attention more quickly, but takes more time to be processed.
“Similarly, receiving substantial attention in real life after an aesthetic procedure may not reflect a 'beautiful' outcome.”
The research was published in the journal of Plastic and reconstructive surgery.