What makes a beautiful breast?

Updated: May 1, 2023

Beverly Hills is a city known for fashion, flash, and entertainment, bigger isn’t always better. At least that’s the case when it comes to breasts. The most attractive breasts are youthful, not necessarily big, in shape. What defines a youthful breast? Well, volume is a factor. Many patients always feel that breast augmentation is only for increasing breast size, but it can also be performed to improve breast shape as well.

We can all recognize young beautiful SMALL breasts just as easily as we can identify perky double D’s hidden behind a tight t-shirt. Youthful breasts possess certain characteristics. Understanding these characteristics is helpful when one is asked to recreate beautiful, young-looking breasts. And of course, breast augmentation or mastopexy are the tools a plastic surgeon is armed with to recreate beautiful bosoms.

Here are some common traits of beautiful breasts:

The areola is generally smaller than 40 mm in diameter. Here, smaller is generally better!

The nipple sits above the breast fold. In fact, the most attractive breasts as studied by plastic surgeons puts the nipple approximately 6.9 cm above the fold. Go ahead, get your tape measurer! If the nipple is BELOW the fold, then the breasts are droopy. Not attractive.

The two nipples should form an equilateral triangle with the notch above the sternum. That is, the distance from the nipple to nipple and each nipple to the notch should all be the same. Typically, that range is 19 to 21 cm in perky, young breasts. And you though your highschool trigonometry would be useless in the real world!

What about size? Good question! I’m not sure size is the most important factor in defining beautiful breasts. Almost universally, large droopy breasts are not considered as attractive as small, perky breasts. But to each his (or her) own! Both silicone breast implants and saline breast implants function well to add volume.

Symmetry! Sure, the closer in size and shape between the two breasts the prettier the pair!

Projection! On profile, the nipple should sit directly behind the part of the breast mound that projects the fullest. If the nipple is above that, the breasts have a bottomed-out appearance. (Big, old implants with that rock-in-a-sock look. We’ve all seen it). If the nipple is below that most projected portion, then the breasts are droopy! That is called ‘ptosis’, and will be the topic of another blog.

There it is! Now go find a mirror, take your measurements, and report back to your favorite plastic surgeon.