Facial asymmetry: classifications through the ages

Francis Galton, once asked “What’s in a face?”His main aim was to understand if there was a similar facial appearance for both. To do this, he made photographic composite images of both faces, he overlaid numerous images of faces onto a single plat creating one final composite face that had characteristics of each original face. He noticed that the composite face was much more attractive than the original faces. “This phenomenon is now known as the averageness effect, where attractive faces tend to be indicative of the average traits of the population. There are two main explanations (that follow the symmetric theory) that explain the attractiveness of the composite face. The evolutionary advantage theory proposes that individuals with symmetric faces tend to be more attractive. It draws upon the fact that they look healthier than those with unsymmetrical faces. Human genes are created to develop symmetrically. Asymmetric faces are formed from defects and small imperfections created before and after birth. Most of the people have slight facial asymmetry which in normal but some people have significant asymmetrical faces. Various etilogical factors contribute to facial asymmetry. It has a wide range of possibilities because of structures involved, structures in question and causative factors. Understanding the etiopathology and classifications of facial asymmetry helps for accurate diagnosis and treatment planning. Various authors have classified facial asymmetry on the bases of etiology or morphology, time of onset, structures involved, whereas some have described facial asymmetry on merely facial measurements. The sole purpose of this article is to provide all the classifications of facial asymmetry by various authors.