About Likeness

Likeness is a small, independent educational publication about replacing missing parts of the face, jaw and palate with made prostheses, a craft with a long history and a quiet present. It is written in English for people living with a facial difference and their families, and for students and curious readers. The editors write it. There is no named author because the publication speaks as a whole, and because nothing on these pages rests on a personal credential.

What we believe

We hold three views, and they shape what the site does. First, a prosthesis is a made part, not a disguise, and the people who make them practice a real craft with a record going back centuries; the timeline follows it. Second, prosthetics and surgery are two answers to the same problem, often used together, and neither is a failure of the other; prosthesis or reconstruction sets out how teams think about it. Third, people deserve plain explanations that say what is known, what is disputed and what nobody has measured yet.

These are editorial positions about framing. They are not medical claims, and nothing on the site is intended to push anyone toward or away from a treatment.

What we are not

Likeness is not a business, a clinic, a laboratory, a charity, a society, a school or a research group. It is not affiliated with any university, hospital, professional body, manufacturer or practitioner. It offers no services, makes nothing, sells nothing and cannot give personal advice. Nothing here replaces the judgment of your own clinical team, who know you and can examine you. Where this site names a hospital, journal or agency, it is as a source or a part of history, not as a partner or a recommendation.

Readers sometimes want a name or a place to go. We do not provide one. If you need care, speak to your doctor or the clinical team already looking after you; if a change in the face is sudden, the page on facial nerve problems describes the emergency signs.

How it is written

Every page rests on sources the editors actually opened, and each page lists them. The method, including how we handle disagreements between sources and what we leave out, is on how we check facts. The pages are written for adults at a general reading level and updated when we find an error or a better source. We do not run advertising, and the site uses no analytics or trackers.

In brief

Likeness is an independent educational publication that believes in plain, sourced writing about a craft that deserves it. It is unaffiliated, offers no services and gives no personal advice.