While there are thousands of gorgeous Kpop idols debuting every year, netizens believe
no one could beat the following names when it comes to their perfectly aligning with
the strict criterion of South Korean beauty standards.
Of course, it’s hard to deny that the beauty standard of South Korea is rather extreme,
but on the flip side, it also helps single out the prettiest faces in the industry thanks
to its widely accepted benchmark.
Small face: Karina and Sullyoon If you have been in the Kpop community for
long enough, you will certainly know that if one idol is recognized as pretty, their
faces must be the size of a fist.
While such a feature is not well celebrated in Western countries and some Asian nations,
like Hongkong for example, are also not in favor of such a standard as Jacksong Wang
once explained complimenting someone’s small face was nothing but a diss saying their brains
were just as small, South Koreans still widely embrace this beauty standard.
As extreme as it may sound, this widely held belief is actually scientific proof because
according to the Fibonacci sequence, named after its Italian mathematician, Leonardo
Fibonacci, a small face will increase the chances of one’s having a golden ratio body
of 1:6.
Besides, it also increases the likelihood of having a golden ratio of face since a small
face will pull facial features closer, making them look bigger and more prominent.
Among the infinite pool of beautiful idols in the Kpop scene, Karina and Sullyoon remain
unbeatable with their unimaginably small faces.
Until now, there have been countless times these two girls took the Internet by storm
just for the size of their faces.
Especially when standing next to other iconic visuals of Kpop, the striking difference between
Karina and Sullyoon’s faces versus others made people wonder even more about whether
they were humans or CGI characters stepping out of utopian universes.
When aespa debuted, Karina had already made headlines for her unbelievably tiny face accompanied
by the rare quail-egg face shape, making her features even more appealing.
While Winter was implied to be the act’s visual through the way SM Entertainment introduced
the girls, it was such a small face and surrealistically stunning features of Karina that people kept
questioning if SM Entertainment had selected the wrong visual this time.
When aepsa came back with GIRLS, Karina stirred up the Internet again for looking exactly
like a CGI-character as her head-to-body was too bizarre.
Some funnily said they thought her fancam thumbnail at Music Core was overly edited
but as they played the video, they quickly realized that she simply looked like that.
In raw photos, especially this one, her face stood out so ridiculously small that people
had to question if the AirPods were fake because there was no way they could look that big.
Similarly, Sullyoon has also made headlines countless times for her improbably small face
and while everyone had already known she had the tiniest face size in NMIXX, it wasn’t
until she stood in the same frame with Jang Wonyoung that people started to go into a
frenzy as her face appeared even smaller than Jang Wonyoung’s.
On Pann that day, threads discussing her face size all went to top trending and in the comment
section, netizens kept calling Sullyoon the queen of gen4 visual.
Later, she went viral again when raw photos of her at ISAC surfaced on the Internet as
her face size was literally half of that of an ordinary human and when she appeared at
the airport wearing a kid-size mask, people found it even more mind-blowing as to how
an adult’s eyes, nose and lips could fit into such a teeny face
Long, straight legs with noticeable thigh gap: Wonyoung & Yujin
Starting as a beauty trend most popular among teenagers in the States in 2013, thigh gap
being dubbed as one of the most crucial beauty standards gradually expanded to Asian countries,
and South Korea was no exception.
However, a bit different from the West where people started to grow out of the thigh gap
trend as the public gradually went into the slim-thick appreciation era, the belief that
thigh gap is one of the most crucial beauty standards quickly gained momentum in South
Korea, eventually becoming one of the criteria that female idols should check to be called
pretty.
That’s why in the Kpop industry, literally all idols have thigh gaps but when netizens
are asked to pick the names representing this beauty standard, most think of Jang Wonyoung
and Yujin right off the bat because one, their legs are just surrealistically thin and straight
and two, they were literally born like that instead of forcing themselves into a harmfully
harsh diet to check off the standard.
As for Jang Wonyoung, she has already been famous for her Sailor Moon legs since the
very first appearance on Produce48 as regardless of the dumpling, bunny-check face, her legs
had already been thin and long.
When debuting with IVE, she hit the headlines again for the unbelievably thin legs that
people had seen only in anime.
Her legs were so slender that there was criticism pointing at Jang Wonyoung all the time, accusing
her of implicitly promoting an unhealthy beauty standard to young fans.
However, those who have been following her since day one all know that the hate was all
BS as she was born that way.
Similar to Jang Wonyoung, Yujin was also blessed with enviably straight and thin legs since
she was a kid.
However, it wasn't until most recently when IVE made a comeback with I AM that people
started to notice how surrealistic Yujin’s legs were.
In the raw video recording the catwalk scene of IVE in I AM, Yujin has received countless
praises for her crazy slender legs and in the comment section, most agreed that she
could have debuted as a professional model already since her proportion was insane.
Not long ago, Yujin also went viral when appearing at the airport in a short dress as her long,
slender legs made up such an uncanny body ratio that people couldn’t believe they
were looking at a real human.
Snow-white skin: Chaeryeong and Shuhua In Kpop, even when one idol doesn’t check
off many beauty criteria according to the strict standard of South Korea, they can still
make headlines for having an extremely fair complexion.
Explaining such a great preference revolving around white skin from a scientific point
of view, many believed this wasn’t a mere result of the influence of multi-billion dollar
skin-whitening product companies; but rather a result of severe colorism.
This dates back centuries ago to the prevalence of white supremacy in the era of European
colonization.
People of lighter skin were deemed superior and more powerful than those who were darker
and thus, skin color was an implication of social and economic status.
As time passed, such an implication has proven to be less and less relevant as many wealthy
people nowadays even go tanning their skin.
Still, considering the fact that a fair complexion would help idols pull off literally all types
of outfits, the Kpop industry still favors this over olive complexion and often chooses
Shuahua and Chaeryeong as the standard.
As for Shuahua, her complexion is so fair that whenever a list of palest female idols
of Kpop was created, she would always be at the top.
She actually looked so white that when wearing white, her skin and the outfits would actually
blend.
Most recently when Shuahua dyed her hair blonde, reactions toward her fair complexion exploded
even stronger as it literally seemed like she was carrying a glowing beam on her head
24/7.
Similarly, Chaeryeogn has also frequently been featured in the list of fairest idols
in Kpop and when she dyed her hair pure black in July last year, everyone naturally went
into a frenzy as she looked no different than a real-life version of Snow White.
Questionably, Chaeryeong used to think of getting tanned skin as she stood out too much
when standing next to other members in the thumbnail but after listening to Lia’s advice,
she made up her mind to take pride in her own skin.
90-angle shoulders: ITZY’s Lia & STAYC's Yoon
Being a trend starting to take over the industry after Jennie flaunted her slender highlighted
by the surrealistically transerve shoulders, this is considered one of the hardest trends
to check-off as idols need to be either born with such shoulders or take lots of botox
to relieve the trapezius muscles, which considerably, and adversely to be more exact, impacts their
capability to execute moves sharply and neatly.
Also for such an endowment quality, only a few idols in Kpop have this feature naturally
and among them, Lia and Yoon stand out as two salient gen4 names that effortlessly slay
this trend.
Whenever netizens talk about idols with the most perfect shoulders line, Lia’s almost
always tops the list and regardless of how much people don’t like her for the alleged
lacking competency compared to other members, no one could ever deny she is the one to turn
all clothes into stylish designs thanks to the perfectly transverse shoulders.
Seemingly ITZY’s coordies are also well aware of Lia’s goddess shoulders line as
throughout their debut era, Lia would always appear in off-shoulder or thin strapped tops
to best flaunt her figure.
While not being mentioned as frequently, Yoon’s shoulders line is actually just as perfect
as Lia.
First appearing in the teaser photos released by High Up Entertainment, she quickly hit
the headlines for not only the doll-like visual but also the shoulders as straight as being
carved.
STAYC’s coordies also seemed to be well aware of Yoon’s goddess shoulders as out
of the six members, Yoon is often picked to wear the most experimental outfit as they
knew regardless of designs, Yoon could still make everything fashionable with her dream-like
shoulders line.
Slim hour-glass body line: ITZY’s Yuna & aespa’s Winter
As idols are expected to be as skinny as possible since their image on camera would often look
fifteen-kilogram chubbier, netizens still want to see idols, especially females, with
defined curves on their figures.
That’s why in Kpop, especially in gen4 where idols bear a heavier burden visual-wise than
ever, many have opted for hip pads to achieve such an unattainable beauty standard set by
the public.
However, there are still idols managing to check off these criteria to the surprise of
everyone and here, I’m talking about Yuna and Winter.
As for Yuna, her figure is so unbelievably perfect that before this iconic stage, lots
of people had accused her of being obsessed with hip-pads, tacitly encouraging young fans
to pursue such an unrealistic beauty standard.
Plus, since her body line of the debut era looked rather different, netizens had even
more reasons to consolidate their assumption.
However, after the legendary U-Go-Girl cover where Yuna causally flaunted her well-rounded
hips, her hip-pads allegation suddenly vanished into thin air and people constantly praised
her for having the best body line in Kpop.
More fortunately for Winter, as she debuted with an inherent slim hour-glass figure, netizens
have always been saving the most flattering words for her.
Only several days into the industry, she had already gone viral for the perfect figure
and as some joked, she must have been destined to become a top idol as she was already born
with a physique of a superstar.
Even when raw photos of Winter’s daily life moments were posted, they still quickly went
viral as people have barely seen such an idol born with a slim hour-glass figure like her.
So, a there any other beauty standards that I haven’t mentioned and who do you think
would be their representative faces?