Why is this number so special? Well, 17 refers to the age of Hazel-eyed model/actress Koh A-ra(17) as well as the length of her face! So you are probably asking – what’s the deal with having a small face. Well, everything! Having a small face is one prerequisites of beauty in this country – check out all the stars, most have small faces. Small face size is something that is difficult to attain unless you are born with it or have undergone painful jaw reduction surgery (for a rounder/heart-shaped face). So many people talk about face size and compare their size with everyone else’s- including stars. They are fascinated by those who are both beautiful and those who have small faces (the beautiful are assumed to have small faces). Perhaps the small-face phenomenon is a direct result of the stars from the western world having smaller faces. Similarly, the near national obsession with plastic surgery is for the purpose of attaining more western features – larger nose, bigger eyes, and slimmer face. West is not always best. Why can’t we just accept ourselves the way we are?
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If you want to be a star, a small face is a must
Beauty is in the eye of the CD
my post was cut
it was supposed to be:
so that means my face is small..
because i am also 17 cm
but i know of so many people that have ’smaller’ faces..
and i think i have a big head
but i know of people with ‘bigger’ faces who are very pretty
it really depends on how tall you are..
that’s why han ye seul’s face looks really small
doesnt matter. i think this is weird for people to consider small faces to be the most beautiful, but how can one say that when there are so many beautiful people who don’t have small faces?
korea, having so many standards of beauty (thin calves, thin bodies, big eyes, western-like nose, different eye color, small faces?, so many stars going under the knife), i think it’s getting pretty shallow up there. kinda too much.
i nv knew 17 was a size s
i have a 17 face but i always think its too big
like excuse me,
Namie Amuro has a 15 face.
dang! thats small
I have 17cm face and im also 170 cm tall, but Im no beauty. Look at this post got everybody measuring their damn face, I mean how pathetic are we including me. And Im not even Asian.
So is it 17 or 19? Not that I care; her eyes are gorgeous though.
creepy. anyway not only Korea is a world of plastic, the WHOLE WORLD is…natural beauty is just doing ur make up so that it looks like u didnt
HAHA i measured my face… about 16.5 cm-17cm? so by my face size standards. i’m beautiful… too bad i’m not -_-
sure having a small face is considered beauty..but do they really have to measure the face? and i thought making up all those “lines” (D line, S line, B line etc) was going too far…
Is that the chick in the Ailia (or however the hell it is spelled) drink comercial? It looks like her…
I’m sure there are plenty of ugly girls out there with small faces… As others have mentioned, proportion is much more important than absolute size.
I think the 17cm refers to the length between the top of ur forehead and the start of ur jawline.
a crisis indeed
yeah, she may have a small face but she has humongous ears.
Uh… unless I’m blind, the picture shows that her face measured 19 cm. Shouldn’t the width be considered as well? Maybe you should say that having a Proportional Face is considered beautiful.
“Perhaps the small-face phenomenon is a direct result of the stars from the western world having smaller faces. ”
I read it in the celebrity gossip newspapers that hollywood actually prefers actresses with big craniums. it looks better that way on the tv– it gives slimming effect when you see their bodies are small and their head is big.
somehow, western people are transfixed to bobble heads like they are to babies.
estern and asian beauty are both relative.
I’m pretty sure people who continue to spew the rhetoric that “they only get plastic surgery in an attempt to look white” do nothing to help ease the stereotype.
OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH KOREAN PEOPLE? WHY THE HELL AREN’T THEY SATISFIED WITH THEIR NATURAL BEAUTY? WHY THE CONSTANT COMPLAINING, PRUNING, PLASTIC SURGERY? WHY THE INFINITE IMAGE COMPLEXES? FOR CRYING OUT LOUD- ALL YOU SELF CONSCIOUS, SELF ABSORBED, SUPERFICIAL KOREANS OUT THERE- GROW UP!
WHAT’S SO ATTRACTIVE ABOUT SOMEONE WHO CUTS UP THEIR OWN BEAUTIFUL FACE AND PASTES ON A BUNCH OF MAN MADE PLASTIC!
ppl… is she going out with jung il woo? i keep hearing rumors about it..
who the hell wants a larger nose?
eigerfall- i agree
wtf is up with BIG noses? we’re girls for God’s sake… O.O
No wonder Eru’s face looks so massive compared to everyone else’s… BECAUSE HE HAS A NORMAL-SIZED HEAD!!!
When I have heard first time Korean teen fans admiring their idol saying “he has so small face!!!” with so much entiusiasm,
I was so confused.. what small face has to do with male’s handsomeness..
No offence, but this “criteria of beauty” cracks me up!!
))
btw, I am in Korean beauty standard, 17/170 face/height
))
are those her real eye colors?
ummmm like everything here in the west, most stars faces are quite big because having a long defined jaw line is very nice
ummm… the picture says 19cm ==”
either way she has a gorgeous face.
geh my face is 16 cm. i always notice that my face is tiny when i put my hair in a bun for ballet. it doesnt match my height (5′8″). koh ara is pretty!
my face has 16cm and i still think it’s big –”
ithink its Kute.:]
My face is 18.5cm according to my ruler…… so what? I don’t understand the hype about small faces. And the CD-size face I’ve heard… that’s just ridiculous! The diameter of a CD is about 13cm. Even my 10yr old brother has a bigger face than THAT!
Anyways, how could reducing your jawline make your face smaller in any way in the face size is calculated by length?
guess she must be proud . is the colour of her eyes genuine?
17 cm .. what a lie.
Ara’s double eyelids change soo much.
i love her eyes (; their so pretty
but her face is actually 17, if you look at the top it starts at 2 cm.
in reply to one of the posts in August 2007, when they wrote this article, Go Ara was 17, not 15. That would make her Korean age 18, not 17. Get your facts right. Korean ages don’t just add 2 years to a person’s western age.
Anyway, 17cm…Her face doesn’t really seem that small. That’s a hella lot of make up she’s wearing though.
I don’t understand why so many Asian people want colored eyes and wear colored contacts as a result. The same reason why people find Go Ara’s eyes pretty. Because they are hazel. She isn’t that incredible looking but does look nice with all that smoky make up. I think she would look better with darker eyes though. Her eye color makes her look weird at times. Didn’t seem like she had such a small face though.
FYI… Hollywood celebrities DO NOT have small faces. It is a well known fact in the U.S. that our favorite stars have big faces and big features overall. I have met several very popular “Western Stars” (Reese Witherspoon & Halle Berry to name two) and they have big faces. I don’t know where the assumption came from that their faces are small, but it’s not true.
The notion that a small face equals a beautiful face is not only just a Korean thing, it’s a myth.
The small face thing is really an east Asian standard. It’s also prevalent in Japanese culture and probably Chinese culture as well.
Like many beauty myths, I think it exists because a naturally small face is RARE in Asians! And unlike small noses or small lips, there’s not much you can do about making your face smaller. Whatever is harder to achieve and rare at birth seems to become a beauty standard — if only because it’s so hard, if not impossible, for most people reach.
I’ve even spoken to an American plastic surgeon about this (who by the way, said my face “almost exceeded the limits for facial width” hahaha, that bastard) and he basically said the only way to make a face smaller is to excise a section of the orbital lobe and try to seam the two pieces of the face together again. However, it’s extremely risky and imprecise and reserved for SHTF situations, like when your face is destroyed in an accident and you need serious reconstructive (not cosmetic) surgery.
I think Kimora Lee Simmons is a gorgeous woman (oh stop hating people, liking bling doesn’t make a person’s physical appearance any uglier or prettier) and seeing her next to other white and black models and celebrities — her face is really big! Like 1.5 timex bigger than her peers. She has an Asian moon face! But she’s still beautiful.
Nobody in the Western world really cares about facial size, seems to only be east Asians who are even aware of it an d again I think maybe it’s part of an Asian complex? Or because for some reason facial sizes even within Koreans vary so widely?
Actually, more than beauty I think it’s classist. The idea of big faces = big coarse bodies fit for working in the fields and being a servant whereas small faces, small hands, small feet = dainty and aristocratic, fit for staying indoors and being married to scholars. It’s a holdover from Korea’s Hwangini days.
is she mixed?
Small face means beautiful? Thats one of the most fuc ked up ideas I have ever heard. Depends on what you consider beautiful I guess…maybe you can brag in Korea about having small face, but other countries would laugh at you and say WTF?
hei..my face is 15cm, but I don’t think that i’m pretty stunning…O.o coz I don’t have high nose, v-line chin, or s-shape body…lol
whatever. I accept my myself, and I’m happy to be me
my face is 15..HA IM PRETTYER THEN U KO ARA!! :p lol wow wouldnt that be weird
her left eye is smaller than her right eye. she had her crease deeper but why would you want to have double eye surgery, it’s your eyes!!!and it’s bad for you when you get older.
Her eyes are light brown, which is what they look like in all photos I’ve seen and dramas. The only one where they look sort of hazel is that real close up, but I think that might of been photoshopd.
If you want to know what hazel eyes look like, look up Nicole Richie or Rihanna even.
Shes sooooooo pretty dayum..LOL
natural eyes too wooah
she`s NOT 17 cm face size she`s ALL 19 cm
My face is 17 cm from forehead to the tip of my chin and I have a small head.
My sister always made fun of me, but who would have know women in Asia would kill for it.
Hehe my face (measured hairline to jaw)is 16 cm ^^ well 15 to. 16 ish
But gahhh having a small face isnt fun T.T its hard to see your face well in pictures that arent close up!! Which sucks ahhh why the hell would korean women kill for small faces any way T.T everyones pretty in their own way ^^
i measure my face..it’s 14.5 cm..very small and i have also small ears but i have small eyes(not that small) and thin lips.,, my teacher said that my face is most like by the japanese~i dunno why?? but i’m happy to here that because i;m a japanese lover and i have many japanese idols that i like..hahah;))
but i think i’m not that beautiful:))
This sounds so ridiculous, ive seen lots of africans in our university who got a 17 face but instead of looking good, they look pretty funny,i mean, hw bwt f u got that damn small face but ur stout. No offense, but this is just so unbelievable.
Ara got eyelid surgeries and nose surgery to make her nose even narrower. I can also see that she got a nose bridge implant like many koreans celebrities have. Her younger day picture eyes and nose are different. She looks more mongloid than current pictures. I don’t know why she did that to her eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!
mine is also 17cm
but i think my face is bigger lol