Asymmetric (uneven) Face

After googling high and low, I've found my crooked faced brethren!

It's amazing to me that almost everything I have read here about the two-way/three-way mirrors summarizes my exact experience.

I noticed the asymmetry develop when I was about 15, but didn't realize how bad I looked from an angle until I moved into a place with three-way mirrors a few years ago, and saw my face inverted. I was HORRIFIED. I looked like an ogre.

My entire right side of my face looks underdeveloped in comparison with my left, and my features seem to be pulled toward the center of my face on that side (my brow droops toward my cheek, the corner of my mouth lifts upward, and I have no discernable cheekbone. Plus, my nose twists in the opposite direction, and from a particular angle, my eye looks significantly lower and skewed). For me though, the problem exists throughout my body, including my ribs. I even gain more weight on my left (normally developed) side. No idea how this came about, since no one in my family reports similar problems.

I've been very self-conscious about it for a very long time, often feeling as though I must be the ugliest person on earth. My features themselves are also a little 'ick' in my opinion, so combine that with my asymmetry, and my amazing neuroses, and I don't always feel so great. ;o) I've even had a few small children point and stare, to their parents' chagrin.

I haven't read through the whole thread yet, but just a few comments so far:

1) Kiarrabeachbum - I see the asymmetry you're talking about. Your jaw is more square on your right side, and your nose is slightly deviated, but it's really not that significant and it's not something that the average person would notice, if you hadn't pointed it out. I had to study the pics before I began to see it.

2) biana - you also don't look very asymmetrical. i can see very minor asymmetry and again, it's something that no one would notice.

3) there was another poster whose name escapes me (the artist?) - I can see the asymmetry there as well, but you have cool eyes. I think the asymmetry in your eyes gives you a great, unique quality.

That said, can't wait to come back and read more of this thread.

Hey Gimlet! well, thanks for your comment. Maybe you could post pics of yourself too?

I have a feeling I'll regret posting this on the internet, but here goes!

I posted some pics here. Click on each individual photo for descriptions of the asymmetry shown in each photo.

The pictures with my hair back were taken after I'd come back from the gym, hence the messy hair.

http://s 309.photobucket.com/albums/kk362/denofneur oses/

I think I officially take the cake for most asymmetrical face on here!

Hey Gimlet! i really don't think you take the cake, lol. Sorry to say but i think i'm more crooked than you.

Okay, i saw your pics, and got to analize the profile ones, (#2 & #3), i think that on #3 your head is slightly tilted... ugh... how do i explain this? lol. Anyway, i do see that the distance from your ears to your jaw line is longer, but only after flipping one pic and superimposing both pics and drawing lines on them. With the naked eye i really thought both sides looked fairly the same. I think i have something like this going on too, i haven't posted anything straight from the side... i'll get around to that, so you guys can give me your opinion too, i also think i look like a different person from one side to the other.
Anyway, back to your pics, after flipping back and forth from 2 to 3, it looks like an animation of you tilting your head to the other side a little and raising your eyebrow. Nothing too shockingly different.

On pic #4, from the bottom up, i do see your nose points to your left? side. (i'm kind of bad with that whole right-left thing, haha) And that your left cheekbone is a little bit fuller than your right, but not that big of a deal. Also, your mouth and jaw look perfectly fine, from this pic i would say the only crooked thing is your nose, and if you say you have a deviated septum, well, that explains it. Same goes for pic 5, from the top it is obvious your nose is deviated to your left.

I think you look fine in pics 6,7, 8 and 10. Though a little bit better on 8 and 10, i agree it's your good side. I don't see what you mean about your eye sliding off...

On number 9, i think it's a little deceiving... 'cause you're not facing straight forward, your head is slightly turned to your right. So in this pic, it would seem your nose is straight and that what's a little off is your mouth and jaw... Although it does seem to me that your mouth is a lil' bit skewed, the right corner of your mouth is a little bit higher than your left. Nothing noticeable without tracing lines on your face though.

Ok, well, that's my opinion!!

OKay, check out your pics. Your face is right on par with mine, the nose is VERY SLIGHTLY DEVIATED, and only on close inspection can I see that your jaw may be lower on one said, but this requires me to really inspect your photo, especially the one with you facing forward, I think the only one.

Check out Owen Wilson's headshot on google.com. Yea his nose is crooked but look at his jaw as well. And Tom Cruise's nose is also asymmetrical. I had a photoshoot for headshots yesterday and I had neve rmet my photographer and I asked her to tell me which side of my face was the good one and which was the bad one, and she studied my eye size and my face, and said my bad side (in my opinion) was my good side. She also liked photos that were on my bad side a lot. And she said her nose was deviated as well and her jaw crooked, so I looked at hers, and I saw what she meant after close insepctin, something I would have never seen otherwise. She also mentioned that most if not all people's faces are asymmetrical.

Well, that's my two cents for now.

hey grimlet it's not lettin me see your pictures because it says I need a password to see em.

And I also see you say that you feel that your body is asymetrical as well. I feel the same way but I think it's because I inherited very slight scolisosis from my mom. It makes my right shoulder hang slightly lower than my left, my right shoulder blade to stick out more and be a bit lower than the left one, and causes a slight "dent" on my left side right above my hip bone.

To check if you have scoliosis have someone stand behind you and bend down only at the waist in front of them, keeping your knees straight. Then have the person look for an "s curve" or "c curve" in your spine or one set of ribs sticking out more than the other.

JBNJ - sorry about that! I've removed the password protection so that you can see them. I had deleted a few of the pictures, so I've put them back up so that you can take a look. The first few may not be in the original order. I'd love to hear your opinion. I'll go back in the thread and take a look at your photos too, if I can find them.

I'll look into the scoliosis thing. It never occurred to me before! For me, my right rib cage is actually smaller and almost has a caved in look, not just lower or higher. Could be that way because the left side houses the heart? not sure. I've never met anyone else with an asymmetric ribcage.

Biani + Kiarra - thanks for your thoughts! Remarkably, I feel a bit better. I was worried that this might make me more obsessive. Maybe it's not as noticeable as I'd imagined/built up in my head. I thought my eye and cheekbone were visibly "off", but if you can't see it, then I guess I have nothing to worry about there!

My nose definitely is (as you saw), as is my jaw, but it may be more obvious in motion/when I'm speaking. My jaw pulls to the right when I open my mouth, but it's maybe not as obvious in still photos. I'll try and post a video and/or better forward-facing pic in the next few days so that you can see the difference. It's like I have too much jaw bone on one side, and not enough on the other.

It's true that a lot of people are a little asymmetrical. I have a feeling that men can get away with it a little more than women can, as I don't *think* than men have the same kind of pressure to be perfect, though I could be wrong. I think in my case, I'm a bit of a perfectionist (in all the wrong ways), and won't be happy until I have the healthiest looking face I can! In the end though, it's the whole package that we notice, I suppose, not the minor imperfections.

That said, I think two/three-way mirrors should be banned! I think they're the cause of too much misery and obsession.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

lol, definitely! those three way mirrors have brought me so much misery and obsession... although... pictures have too, haha. I wouldn't want those banned. I like pictures, just not of my face facing front, lol.

I'm glad my opinion helped to make you feel a little better! I'll wait for other pics or videos that you want to share with us.

And I agree, men can get away with more than women on this matter.

About the scoliosis thing... well, i've read about jaw problems. Supposedly those can make you adjust your posture accordingly, like to compensate for the deviation, so one shoulder is higher than the other, and the hips too, etc... It messes up everything else. Maybe that has something to do with it... although in your case Gimlet, i don't think that's the problem, cause i didn't see anything off with your jaw.

My weekend WAS great! Hope yours was too!

Alright gimlet I looked at your photos and yes I can see that your jaw pulls slightly to the right, left eye is slightly higher than your right, and the nose thing I could only tell from the top/bottom pics not the straight on ones.

But the only reason I can see those things is because me and you are very much the same except reversed. My jaw pulls to the left, is longer on the right, and my right eye is higher than the left. If I stand back and look at the whole face though then I really can't notice anything and once those braces come off you'll be a very beautiful young woman.

And yeah your right, guys can get away w/ looks more because women are more attracted to men for how they carry themselves over looks but men are mainly visual creatures. It all goes back to men being the "pursuers" and women being the "pursued" but thats a topic for another discussion.

Hmm..I would go out with a girl with an asymmetrical face because honestly it doesn't make a sizable difference. I think most people's faces are asymmetrical. If you guys look at the WTA men's tennis rankings, most of the top 100 men have asymmetrical faces, noses, jaws, etc. I haven't looked at the women's yet but I suspect it to be similar.

JBNJ: Thanks for your thoughts! I think obsessing over this has been really unhealthy, and although I (still) think that my asymmetry is more noticeable than the average person's, I'm starting to realize how pointless and unhealthy it is to blow it up so massively - I can't change it!

I looked at your pics too and don't see much in the way of asymmetry, aside from your right jaw, but only because you pointed it out (I think this is becoming my standard comment! lol). I totally can't see it at all in the 2nd pic, I actually thought your friend looked a little more asymmetrical than you did. And aside from your face looking slight more rounded on your right, I don't see any other asymmetry (not eye, eyebrow or cheek).

If there's one thing I've learned from this forum, it's that asymmetry really doesn't detract that appreciably from someone's appearance, counter to what we're taught about looking perfect. I find for most of the people here, it gives them an interesting uniqueness.

My former manager has a crooked smile (never had a chance to examine the rest of the face that closely! lol), and it's probably his best physical trait!

Ok, enough rambling.

Kiarra, I looked up some female models (because, let's face it, they're often considered the benchmark for beauty) to see if they have any asymmetry and was surprised to find several that do! They still have a lot less than the rest of us do, but it goes to show that even models aren't perfect.

I thought it might be useful for others who may stumble in here in the future, so I listed a few of them, with a link to a photograph:

Cindy Crawford has very minor asymmetry. Not sure if it's that the right right side is slightly smaller than the left, or if it's just her eye and eyebrow.

Kim Alexis: - one of the first supermodels in the 70s. Often cited as the most beautiful woman in the world.

This is actually only apparent when she closes her mouth, which explains why she used to pose with her mouth open. I suspect her asymmtry is muscular.


Chanel Iman: Newbie, but is becoming increasingly well-known. her right cheek looks smaller than the left in first two images on the bottom.


Aline Weber: Also a newbie, but did very well last season.
Her left jaw looks bigger than the right. Her cheekbones and eyes look perfect, though.

And finally, my favourite supermodel of all..
Gia Carangi . I suspect that the asymmetry seen in this photo has more to do with the way she's smiling, since I found no evidence of anything but a perfect face in all other photos I found.


I think that's about all I can muster for now.

Interesting...

Cindy's is barely there... her chin looks a little off center, but that's about it.
Kim Alexis... wow. One side of her face is a LOT wider than the other, and her mouth does look quite deviated.
Aline Weber seems to have some issue with her jaw too, not as pronounced as some of us here, but still...

Thanks for the pics gimlet!
I don't know why but seeing that the so-called 'perfect' people have asymmetry issues too.

when i go to see gimlet's pics, it asks me for a password. so i dunno what u guys are talking about haha.

only update i got is that i went and got the bone scan. but they didnt tell me anything about it. i guess the surgeon will get the xrays/results and then he will call my parents. and we will know if if the next step is to proceed with the braces or having to wait another year and then proceed with another bone scan afterwards.

by the way would u guys by chance know of any good muscle relaxers i can get? seems that when i stress out or am very anxious my tongue and jaw muscles go all crazy. and its like if my jaw wants to go out of place or something. like if its just uncomfortable. which i think is all just stress. cause once im distracted im fine and have little to no discomfort. but if i dont get enough sleep, i just freak out cause my jaw muscles are all tense and it causes alot of discomfort.

so far i use tylenol extra strength,and it sorta helps but im not in any pain to begin with, just really stressed out.

as far as female celebs, i noticed that
Summer Glaus nose goes one way and her upper teeth and chin seem slightly slanted. for those that aren't familiar with her, she plays the female terminator in the new Terminator tv series that is on FOX.

OMG Methos, you're right! i had seen the previews of that show and i thought she looked very pretty, but looking at the pic, well, the asymmetry is obvious. Wow.

Let us know how things go with the bone scans and everything. My update is that i've been wearing a splint to de-program my bite. The doctors want to see just how different i can bite without having any problems and then decide if braces could help or not.

About the muscle relaxers... sorry, don't know about any... hope you find something that works for you soon.

Hey Methos... you know, i just remembered that a member of the forum, tmddyan, had recommended some sort of ointment, for tmj... let me see if i have the name either in a private message or on the thread...

Well, the thing with me is that my bite has to do with my jaw deviating... if i could bite down the center without having problems with my jaw, or headaches, etc... they could go ahead and put braces. I don't remember if i mentioned this, but my teeth are kind of a mess, aside from having some crowding, they're not straight... instead of being like this " I I ", they're more like this "/ /"... well, i'll let you know what happens with all this.
So far i have noticed i can bite a little to more to my right with no discomfort, now that i'm wearing the splint.

Ok... i'll get back to you on the ointment thing, i don't remember it being expensive, but i think that it's sold online only or something...

dr.christophers joint and tissue ointment. That's the name of it. I haven't tried it and am not sure what it does exactly, but... recommended by tmddyan. She does seem to know a lot about issues with the joints and muscles in the jaw area. You should check it out, see if it seems fitting.

what does the ointment do?