ABSTRACT
In the process of writing this chapter I found it difficult to put into words just what a human face is, how it should be, what it can do, and what it means for a face to be ‘wrong’ and another to be ‘right’. It seems to me that written descriptions of the face are far removed from personal face-to-face experience. And yet many individuals and collective groups in society would strongly disagree with me, and argue there are words-and indeed numbers, formulae, and geometric configurations-that portray the human face in the way it needs to be understood, the way it ought to be, and what it means to have a face that differs from prescribed cultural standards.
