Looksmaxxing glossary

This is the working glossary of looksmaxxing measurement talk: bones, orbits, fat, ratios, hair fall, plates. Scene slang is labeled as slang. Anthropometry is labeled as measurement. Ideal numbers from rating apps are not medicine.

Parent pages: Facial skeleton, Orbit, Midface, Hairline, Hair drape, Cranial suture, Growth plate.

Skull and facial bones

Facial skeleton — the bony mask the forums mean by “bone.”
Frontal bone / forehead — upper third; trichion to glabella.
Glabella — skin/bone between the brows.
Brow ridge (supraorbital ridge / torus) — the shelf over the eyes.
Zygomatic bone (zygoma, malar) — cheekbone; bizygomatic width.
Zygomatic arch — the bar from cheek to ear; temporal hollow sits above it.
Maxilla — midface block; recession talk lives here.
Palatine bone — back of the hard palate; palate expansion territory.
Nasal bone — bridge; see nose.
Mandible — lower jaw; ramus, body, gonial angle, chin.
Sphenoid bone — skull-base keystone; pterygoid plates; spheno-occipital synchondrosis.
Temporal bone — side of the skull; temple hollow.
Occipital bone — back of the skull (rarely rated).
Clavicle — not a facial bone; Clavicular took the name from biacromial width. See frame (body).

Cephalometric landmarks the boards recycle: nasion, glabella, trichion, subnasale, stomion, pogonion, menton, gonion, zygion, orbitale, porion, pogonion.

Orbit (all of it)

See orbit for the cavity as a whole.

Roof — frontal bone + lesser wing of sphenoid; supraorbital rim.
Floor — maxilla + zygomatic; infraorbital rim; infraorbital foramen.
Lateral wall — zygomatic + greater wing of sphenoid.
Medial wall — lacrimal, ethmoid (lamina papyracea), maxilla; thin.
Aperture / orbital box — the opening you see; deep-set vs proptotic.
Orbital vector — globe vs rim (negative vector = globe in front of rim).
Palpebral fissure — the eye opening; length, height, almond vs round.
Canthal tilt — lateral vs medial canthus.
Medial canthus / lateral canthus — inner and outer corners.
Hunter eyes / prey eyes — slang bundles, not zoology.
Upper eyelid exposure (UEE) — visible pretarsal skin; hunter-eye talk wants little.
Scleral show — white under the iris; tired/negative-vector tell.
Tear trough / infraorbital hollow — groove at lid–cheek junction.
Orbital fat pads — upper and lower; bags vs hollow.
Canthoplasty / canthopexy — surgery on the outer corner (medicine, not a drill).

Ratios and thirds

Facial thirds — trichion–glabella, glabella–subnasale, subnasale–menton.
Midface / midface ratio — compact vs long midface; several incompatible formulas.
Facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) — bizygomatic width over upper-face height.
Bizygomatic width — zygion to zygion.
Bigonial width — gonion to gonion; jaw width.
Bigonial–bizygomatic ratio — jaw vs cheek width.
Gonial angle — ramus vs mandibular body at the angle.
Mandibular plane — lower-border slope.
Ramus height — vertical back of the mandible.
Facial fifths — eye-width units across the front.
Interpupillary distance (IPD) / inner canthal distance.
Waist-to-shoulder ratio — body V-taper; not a face metric.
Ogee curve — S-curve temple → cheek → hollow.

Fat

Facial fat — compartments, not one blob.
Buccal fat — deep cheek; buccal fat removal is surgery.
Malar fat pad — superficial cheek prominence.
Submental fat — under the chin; neck.
Periorbital fat — lids; too little reads cadaver, too much reads bag.
Body fat — the boring lever that shows or hides bone.

Brow

Brow ridge
Eyebrow — set, thickness, arch vs flat, “brow frauding” (dye/fill).
Glabella

Hair

Hairline — juvenile, M-shape, temples, widow’s peak, fivehead.
Norwood scale
Hair density — follicles per cm² vs hair caliber (shaft thickness).
Hair drape — how hair falls: triangle hair, flow, curtains, 90-degree, weight, connection.
Triangle hair — inverted-triangle mass on top; a barber diagnosis, not a bone.
Haircut, beard, hair transplant, minoxidil, finasteride, SMP

Skin and treatments

Skin
Skin clarity — texture, pores, pigment, redness, “glass.”
Acne, retinoid, isotretinoin, sunscreen
Facials — peels, extractions, devices; softmax, not bone.

Eyes (color and contrast)

Eye color — iris, contrast, catchlights; not a surgery.
Limbal ring
Sclera color (bloodshot vs white)

Plates, sutures, fusion

“Plate fusing” in this scene means two different clocks:

Long-bone growth plates (epiphyses) — height; they close after puberty.
Cranial sutures and synchondroses — skull/face. The ones the forums name:
- Midpalatal suture — palate expansion / MARPE / MSE.
- Circummaxillary sutures — maxilla to neighbors.
- Spheno-occipital synchondrosis (SOS) — cranial base; midface folklore.
- Pterygomaxillary fissure/suture — LeFort territory.
Surgical plates (titanium hardware after bimax) are implants, not growth plates. See bimaxillary osteotomy.

Body (not face, still rated)

Frame (body) — biacromial width, clavicles, wrists, ribcage.
Waist-to-shoulder ratio / V-taper
Physique, height, posture, neck

References

Scene usage as documented on this wiki’s term pages; classical landmarks follow craniofacial anthropometry (Farkas and later cephalometrics). Rating-app cutoffs are products.