Smiling ‘adds six years to your face’
CELEBRITIES who refuse to smile for the cameras in favour of a stony-faced pout may be on to something.
For smiling makes you look up to six years older, a study has found – thanks to the telltale wrinkles around your eyes.
When photographs of 70 smiling volunteers were compared with their neutral faces, they were judged to be more than a year older on average if they looked happy. For some participants, the difference was as much as six years.
The study, led by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, also found that when volunteers pulled a surprised face they looked almost a year younger than with a neutral expression.
Lead researcher Dr Tzvi Ganel said: ‘I know from a previous study I conducted that it is the wrinkles around the eyes, and not the mouth, or any other region, which are important.’
Co-author Dr Melvyn Goodale, of the University of Western Ontario in Canada, added: ‘It is interesting that some celebrities opt for a poker face when they are having their photo taken. Of course, youth is often an important commodity for many of these individuals. Perhaps they, or their publicists, have also noticed they look
older in photos where they are smiling.’
Explaining the benefits of looking surprised – smoothing the skin around the eyes – he added: ‘It certainly does explain why people who have facelifts look sur- prised, as well as younger.’ Celebrities rarely seen smiling include supermodel Kate Moss, fashion designer Victoria Beckham and James Bond star Daniel Craig.
The researchers, whose work is reported in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, asked around 40 volunteers to assess pictures of 70 others pulling surprised, smiling and neutral faces. Those in the photographs were aged 22 to 35.