Intercanthal : nose width
The gap between your inner eye corners compared to the width of your nose (neoclassically, they should match).
Why it matters
Alignment of the nose base with the inner eye corners is a classical harmony cue for the central face.
What this ratio compares
This metric compares two widths in the centre of the face: the gap between the inner corners of the eyes (the inter-canthal distance) and the width of the nose at the nostrils (the alar width). The tool divides the inner-corner gap by the nostril-to-nostril width, so a value near 1.0 means the two spans are roughly equal.
The comparison comes from a neoclassical canon which holds that the base of the nose should line up with the inner corners of the eyes, making the two widths match. It is a single relationship between two features rather than a measure of either feature on its own.
Why the central face uses it
Aligning the nose base with the inner eye corners is a long-standing harmony cue for the central face, because the eyes and the nose share that vertical column and a clear mismatch between them is easy to notice. Farkas et al. 1985 and Farkas 1994 are the references behind this canon, drawn from detailed anthropometric measurement.
The cue describes how the features relate, not whether a nose or an eye spacing is good or bad in isolation. A face can depart from the match and still be perfectly harmonious overall.
Typical range and its honest caveats
The scored band runs from about 0.85 to 1.02, with a mesh average near 0.90, so the ideal of equal widths sits at the top of the band and most faces measure a touch under it. This canon is one of the most ancestry-dependent of all, because nasal width varies widely across populations while the neoclassical canons were originally derived largely from North American Caucasian samples.
Farkas et al. 1985, in revising those canons, specifically found that these neat equalities often fail to hold in real adults. Read the match as a rough guide for one population's average rather than a universal target, and do not attach any judgement of worth to it.
Interpreting your number and what can change it
Because the ratio sets the inner-eye gap against the nose width, a value outside the band can come from either feature, so it is worth looking at the face as a whole rather than blaming the nose alone. A front-on, relaxed photo keeps both widths read accurately.
The inner-eye corners are fixed structure, so the changeable side of this ratio is the nose. Contouring makeup can slim the apparent width of the nasal base at no cost and reversibly. Alar base reduction is the surgical procedure that narrows a wide nasal base permanently; it is listed here as a factual option only, to be considered with a qualified surgeon and never as a recommendation from this report.
Typical range
~1.0 (equal; mesh sits a touch under)
Neoclassical canon: the gap between the inner eye corners should roughly equal the width of the nose.
What your reading means
- Typical
- Your inner-eye gap and nose width are well matched.
- Less common
- These are close to equal, with a small mismatch.
- Distinctive
- Your nose base is wider or narrower than the inner-eye gap.
How we measured it
We divide the inner-corner gap by the nostril-to-nostril (alar) width.
The evidence
intercanthalNose.caveat
References
- Farkas, L. G., Hreczko, T. A., Kolar, J. C., & Munro, I. R. (1985). Vertical and horizontal proportions of the face in young adult North American Caucasians: revision of neoclassical canons. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 75(3), 328-337.
- Farkas, L. G. (Ed.). (1994). Anthropometry of the Head and Face (2nd ed.). New York: Raven Press.