Florence Colgate was 18 when she stood in front of the cameras without a drop of makeup.
It was 2012, and the “Lorraine Naked” contest, run by Lorraine Cosmetics and ITV’s Lorraine program, was looking for Britain’s most natural and symmetrical face. No surgery, no Photoshop.
Some 8,000 contestants entered. She, a student from Deal, Kent, who worked at a fish-and-chip stand on Saturdays, took home the title.
What caught people’s attention were the numbers. The distance between her pupils is equivalent to 44% of the width of her face, while the cited scientific ideal is 46%. And the distance between her eyes and mouth is 32.8% of the vertical measurement of her face, nearing that perfect third considered the ideal proportion. Her face almost fit the theory.
The prize was a contract with a London modeling agency. According to British media, experts noted that, beyond her classic features, symmetry was the key.