Facial structure
Neoteny
Retained youthful facial traits: large eyes, full cheeks, small nose, smooth skin. In male faces it splits two ways depending on the look you are selling.
What Neoteny means
Neoteny means the retention of juvenile features into adulthood. On a face that is large eyes relative to the face, a rounder forehead, fuller cheeks, a smaller nose and jaw, and smooth skin, the cluster that signals youth. Research treats some of these as cues people read warmth and approachability from. In looksmaxxing the word comes up in the tension between a boyish, soft look and a hard, masculine one, since the same neotenous traits push a male face toward the first and away from the second.
What it actually does to the first impression
Neotenous traits read fast as youthful, warm and non-threatening, which is genuinely an asset for some men, the soft, approachable, boyish read that a lot of people respond to. The catch is that the same traits sit opposite the dimorphic, masculine cues, so a heavily neotenous male face can read as younger or softer than its owner wants when the goal is gravitas or edge. Neither read is better in the abstract. It is a positioning question: the first impression a baby-faced man makes is different in kind, not worse, than a hard-featured one.
Reality check: the forums vs the data
Forums often code neoteny as a male flaw, which is too simple. There are two functioning markets here, the boyish lane and the masculine lane, and plenty of well-liked men live in the first. Where the cope creeps in is people trying to surgically de-neotenise a face, chasing jaw and brow hardness when the soft version was working fine for them. Some neotenous features are just leanness and grooming away from reading differently anyway. The honest take: figure out which lane your face is already in and lean in, rather than fighting your own structure.
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Related terms
Reference data on this site