WHY DO I LOOK SO DIFFERENT IN PHOTOS COMPARED TO HOW I LOOK IN THE MIRROR?

Photos can catch you from all sorts of angles, some less flattering than others, and in the midst of a multitude of emotional expressions, whereas you usually look at yourself straight on in the mirror, with a neutral or posed expression.

But there’s more to it than that. Most people’s faces are surprisingly asymmetrical, whether it’s a curve to the nose, a parting in your hair, a mole on a cheek or some other quirk. When you look in the mirror, these left-right discrepancies are reversed, unlike in photos. Selfies can be especially distorting, making your nose and face look longer, for instance.

Crucially, it’s the mirror image that you’re used to – most of us see ourselves in the mirror many times a day, such as when brushing our teeth, shaving or washing our hands. So, it’s this reversed image that we’re familiar with and come to see as our true appearance. This fact then interacts with a psychological phenomenon called the ‘mere exposure effect’, which describes the way we tend to develop a liking for the familiar. This can influence how you feel about your appearance as you see it in the mirror, compared to photographs. The reflection staring back at you might not be perfect, but at least it’s what you’re used to.

A recent study used a special ‘non-reversing mirror’ (that simulates your appearance in photos) and a normal mirror to test how people contemplating cosmetic surgery felt about their looks. The researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation found that patients felt more positively about their faces when using the normal mirror rather than the non-reversing kind. This could be important because cosmetic surgeons typically use photos of a patient to discuss their appearance, which is likely to negatively bias their impression of themselves and encourage more drastic surgery.