Objective: The aim of this study was to identify laypeople’s preferred facial profile aesthetics in order to obtain standard cephalometric measures that correlate with lay judgements of facial aesthetics.
Materials and methods: The study participants were adult Italian laypeople (aged ≥ 18 years) with no prior knowledge of dentistry, recruited in a shopping centre in Italy. A silhouette was created for each cephalometric value (SNGoGn angle, SNA angle, SNB angle, Ls-E, Li-E and G’Sn-SnPg’ angle), then the initial values were increased and decreased by one and one and half times the standard deviation to obtain four other silhouettes for each group, creating six groups of five silhouettes. The primary outcome measure of the present study was the examiners’ personal preference out of the 30 silhouettes, rated on a visual analogue scale ranging from 0 to 100.
Results: The highest-rated silhouettes from each group were Silhouette C (GoGn, 32 degrees) for the GoGn group with a mean visual analogue scale score of 71.5 ± 16.4 mm; H (SNA, 82 degrees) for the SNA group with 64.3 ± 20.1 mm; M (SNB, 80 degrees) for the SNB group with 71.4 ± 17.4 mm; R (Ls-E, −4 mm) for the Ls:E group with 66.2 ± 18 mm; W (Li-E, −2 mm) for the Li:E group with 65.9 ± 19.8 mm; and BB (G’Sn-SnPg’, 12 degrees) for the G’Sn-SnPg’ group with 72.6 ± 16.7 mm.
Conclusions: The profiles with average values were rated as the most attractive. The age of the observers had a significant impact on the evaluation of profile features, influencing the scores for all parameters. Vertical characteristics seemed to influence profile perception more than anteroposterior features.