Pretty Scale: The brutal site that ranks on looks

SADLY around 10,000 women take to Google each month to ask “Am I ugly?”

And the top link on the search engine when you ask the question is a “dangerous” site which brutally rates your looks and points out imperfections on the face, The Sun reports.

Pretty Scale was launched in 2011 and works by analysing photos to provide a number from one to 100 — ugly to beautiful.

Not only does it give you a cruel label, but it also breaks down your face to reveal exactly how you are falling short of being beautiful, from your nose size to your facial symmetry.

The site was created by a programmer in Pakistan called Aqueel and initially started as a simple site to “prank co-workers”.

It quickly boomed in popularity and now gets 20,000 to 40,000 hits a month, but a body image charity has slammed it as “dangerous”.

Fabulous Online spoke to the creator of the “face beauty analysis test” site about why he felt the need for the site.

Aqueel said: “There are people who believe in astrology and palmistry and other things. People always want to know about themselves from others. Why not try my website as well? That was the idea.

“It started as a prank website but some of my co-workers took is seriously so I made it look more serious and even added things as golden ratio and other stuff.”

Aqueel revealed that the “prettiness” ranking is based on many factors.

The creator added: “Then it compares proportions of face features like is nose too big for lips etc.

“It also checks for symmetry of face features. How does it decide what proportions are good or bad?

“That data is based on average proportions of people considered beautiful in media. The data is different from males and females but not for different ethnicities.

“The algorithm to measure beauty has been changed so many times to fit all ethnicities but I cannot claim it fits for all ethnic backgrounds.

“The app ignores all those colours and things and focus on face features and proportions only.

“But then there are problems with some ethnicities who have bigger noses or wide space between eyes.

“How can they complain about it when they resort to plastic surgery for such things.”

Although the Pretty Scale creator called it a “stupid website”, the YMCA’s Be Real Campaign believes that sites like theirs are extremely dangerous.

Liam Preston, Head of the body image campaign, said to The Sun:

“Today’s beauty pressure is completely unrealistic and puts way too much pressure on people to look a certain way.

“Seeing ‘perfect’ bodies and faces on TV, in magazines and online all the time means many people are feeling unhappy with their looks because they feel they can’t keep up.

“The last thing we need is a website to compare our looks, telling us that we are not pretty enough. This is really dangerous for young people as more than half are already bullied about the way they look.

“We should all care a little less about what we look like and more about our health and overall happiness.”

The Pretty Scale creator said that despite maintaining the web page, they are aware of the dangers themselves.

They admitted: “Yes, I’m always worried. Specially about young people who take things like that seriously. Based on feedback I have put warnings and information that this is not a serious face analysis. It is done by a dumb computer program who cannot even see you so don’t take it seriously.

“Moreover, You have to be very, very out of proportion to be called ugly.

“Since the site cannot actually see your face features, it asks you to put lines for example at the corners of your lips etc. It’s most probably your fault if you don’t inform it about your face features right.”

According to the creator, the only way to achieve 100 per cent beauty on the site is to be mathematically perfect, according to the software’s standards.

However, they did say: “There is no reliable standard. If you are worried about your looks, ask about it from those who matter in your life, not some stupid internet website.”