RealSmile measures 17 things about a photo of your face and tells you what the numbers mean — including the ones you can't change. No mystery score, no hidden price, no photo kept without your say-so. This page is the whole deal, written down.
RealSmile is a measuring instrument. Point it at a front-facing photo and it finds 68 landmark points on your face, then computes 17 measurements from the geometry — canthal tilt in degrees, facial width-to-height as a ratio, symmetry as a percentage. Real units you can check, not a vibe dressed up as a number.
One thing matters more than anything else on this page: every number we show is a read on a photo, not a verdict on a person. Change the lighting, the angle, or the lens distance and some of your numbers move — because the photo changed, not your face. That's why the scan comes with a retake coach instead of pretending one snapshot is the truth about you.
We're also strict about the word "validated." The 17 geometry readings are honest measurements, but a measurement is not a rank. The only number we call validated is Your Face Score — free with every scan — which we tested against 5,500 human-rated faces and published how well it tracks what people actually perceive, so you can judge the claim yourself. Everything else is labeled for exactly what it is. You can read a full sample face report end-to-end before paying for anything, and the price of the paid report is shown before you even upload a photo.
Most tools in this category sell you the same story: everything about your face is a problem, and every problem has a product. We split your results differently — every measurement is marked fixable, partially fixable, or structural. Structural means bone: no routine, no supplement, no 30-day plan moves it, and we say so in plain words.
That costs us money. "Your gonial angle is set by your skull and that's normal, not a flaw" sells fewer reports than "unlock your jawline potential." We write it anyway, because the entire value of a measurement is that you can trust it — and you can't trust an instrument that always finds something to sell you. When something is fixable, the paid report says exactly what to do about it; when it isn't, the honest answer is the product.
A measuring instrument needs a reference, and ours is people. Real people rate volunteered photos 1–10, anonymously — no comments, no usernames attached, numbers only, every photo human-reviewed before it enters the pool. The average of 10+ votes becomes a Human Score, and every vote cast makes that reference a little more useful for everyone who comes after.
Contributing is opt-in only, adults only, and reversible: your photo enters the pool when you explicitly say so, and you can delete it whenever you want. Nobody's photo is rated because they ran a scan — scanning and contributing are separate decisions, and the second one is always yours. If you'd rather just rate photos and never show your own, that's a real contribution too.
The looksmaxxing test runs all 17 metrics at once. The individual metric pages let you explore each one in depth.
17 facial metrics in one analysis: symmetry, canthal tilt, FWHR, jawline angle, hunter eyes, golden ratio, and more. Scored against population averages with a personalized improvement plan.
Genuine vs. fake smile detection based on Duchenne smile research — measures eye muscle engagement vs. mouth-only smiles.
Upload two photos and see which one scores higher. Useful for picking the best dating app or LinkedIn photo.
Facial proportions vs. the golden ratio (1.618). Analyzes facial thirds, eye spacing, and nose-to-mouth ratios.
Beauty score based on facial proportions, symmetry, and expression. Includes what's pulling the score up or down.
Honest AI analysis of what actually makes a face score high or low — and why you look worse in photos than real life.
Bilateral symmetry comparison across jawline, eyes, brows, and mouth. Measured in percentages, not vibes.
Individual Metrics — also measured in the looksmaxxing test
Gonial angle in degrees + definition score
Eye angle — positive tilt is rated most attractive
Lid hooding, tilt, and brow ridge prominence
Facial width-to-height ratio — key masculinity metric
Oval, square, round, heart, oblong, or diamond
All 5 key markers of facial masculinity scored
A computer-vision model locates 68 key points on your face — eyes, brows, nose, mouth corners, jawline, and chin — from a single photo.
From those points we calculate real measurements: symmetry percentages, angle degrees (canthal tilt, gonial angle), distance ratios (FWHR, golden ratio). Math, not opinions.
Each reading is placed against population averages and research-backed ranges, and labeled fixable, partial, or structural — so you know what a number means before you react to it.
The landmark model is @vladmandic/face-api (iBUG 300-W 68-point scheme), built on TensorFlow.js — open tooling you can inspect, not a black box. On desktop, analysis runs entirely in your browser. On mobile, your photo is processed in memory by our scan server and deleted immediately after the landmarks are measured — it is never written to disk, never stored, and never used to train anything.
Every metric we measure is grounded in published research. Here's the key history.
Luca Pacioli, with illustrations by Leonardo da Vinci, published "De Divina Proportione" — applying the golden ratio (1.618) to human facial proportions. This is the mathematical foundation of our golden ratio analysis.
French neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne showed that genuine smiles activate two muscles: the zygomaticus major (mouth) and orbicularis oculi (eyes). Posed smiles use only the mouth. This is the basis of our smile analyzer.
Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen catalogued every human facial movement into Action Units. Their research confirmed humans detect fake smiles in 33 milliseconds — faster than conscious thought.
Studies establish that facial width-to-height ratio (FWHR) correlates with perceived dominance, and positive canthal tilt (+3° to +8°) with perceived attractiveness. These became core looksmaxxing metrics.
Modern AI detects 68 facial landmarks in milliseconds and computes measurements that once required manual analysis by researchers. RealSmile puts this in your browser — free, private, instant.
Four rules, in order. Everything we do with a photo follows from them.
Desktop analysis runs entirely in your browser. On mobile, the photo is processed in memory by our scan server and deleted the moment the landmarks are measured — never written to disk. Close the tab and the free scan is gone; no account, login, or email required.
Nothing about you persists unless you explicitly ask it to. Saving results to a dashboard, volunteering a photo for community rating — each is a separate, clearly-labeled choice. We never quietly convert a scan into stored data.
Delete a contributed photo and it leaves the rating pool. Delete your account and your scans, audits, and contributions go with it — deletion means deleted, not hidden.
Free-scan photos are never used to train anything, full stop. The only images that can ever improve the scoring model are photos people deliberately contributed under the community consent terms — and withdrawing consent withdraws the photo. Your facial data is never shared with advertisers or data brokers; our analytics count page views, not faces.
Every metric and correlation we cite references a peer-reviewed study. We link to the original research so you can verify claims yourself. Our research page lists every citation with journal, year, and key finding.
We use face-api.js (68-point iBUG 300-W model) for landmark detection and publish our measurement methodology. We disclose limitations: 2D photo analysis is inherently less precise than 3D imaging, and scores are relative, not diagnostic.
Articles are reviewed and updated when new research is published or when tools we review change their features or pricing. Last updated dates are shown on every article.
When we compare our tools to competitors, we disclose that we built RealSmile. We test competing tools ourselves and report both strengths and weaknesses. We don't fabricate competitor shortcomings.
RealSmile is built by Randy and the RealSmile team — a deliberately small operation, which is exactly why the rules above are written down. A small team can't hide behind "policy"; the person who wrote the honesty rules is the person who ships the code, reviews the community photo pool, and answers the support inbox.
It started as a Duchenne-smile analyzer — the genuine-vs-posed smile research was too good to sit in journals — and grew into the 17-measurement scan as people asked for more. The philosophy never changed: established research, real units, and the honest answer even when a flattering one would sell better. Every metric maps to a published source you can check on this page.
Questions about a result, a metric you don't understand, or feedback on the tools — we read every message and respond within 24 hours.
17 metrics, real measurements, no fluff. Takes about 60 seconds.
No signup required. Photos processed in memory and deleted instantly — never stored.