According to a recent 2018 article in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, the authors lay out a recent phenomenon exacerbated by the selfie boom. Specifically, a growing rate of ‘nose jobs’. Boris Paskhover, a surgeon and assistant professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, sometimes has patients pull out their selfies to prove that their noses are too big  – despite having the obvious right under their noses (pun intended).

The authors stated it is because your nose is closer to the lens than the rest of your face. They found that a nose would measure about 30 percent wider in a photograph taken from 12 inches away than in one from five feet away.

While we should never consider a camera to be reality (remember the 10 pounds rule for TV personalities or when you see Tom Cruise in person and you realize he is not as tall as you think), neither should we consider selfies to be real either. However, you can like the finished result, without resorting to surgery, with a couple of key steps.

Need a great cover for your phone for those mirror selfies? Check out this find!

Tips for Taking a Great Selfie

1. Use a Selfie Stick. You can have the camera further away and thus make your nose its ‘regular’ size. It is probably worth getting used to using it where and when you can.

2. Look up. Angle the phone up higher so the lighting hits your face. Yet, not so high that you are looking up in the sky. Just enough so your chin lifts a little. This way, the selfie does not cast shadows (under eye bags anyone?) or give you a double chin.

3. Get a new phone. If selfies are your thing, it is worth getting one of the new smartphones. The iPhoneX, for example, has portrait modes and even portrait lighting. No more worrying about the right lighting!

4. Get speciality lenses. Playing with lens angles and length can give you that elongated look you want. For example, the olloclip is something to consider attaching to your iPhone.

Have other selfie tips to share? Leave a comment below!