Face shapes
Oval, round, square, heart, diamond, oblong and triangle: the outlines stylists work from. 3 face guides on EveryFaceShape so far.
Face shape is the outline of a face from the front: oval, round, square, heart, diamond, oblong or triangle. Stylists, barbers and opticians use the shapes as shorthand when they suggest frames, beards, brows and haircuts. They are a working tool, not a science, and they say nothing about a person. Most faces sit between two shapes, and the same face can read differently with a new haircut or beard.
How the shapes are found
A face shape comes from four measurements: face length from hairline to chin, and the widths of the forehead, the cheekbones and the jaw. A face about one and a half times as long as it is wide, widest at the cheekbones, reads as oval. Equal length and width with soft angles reads as round; with strong angles, square. A wide forehead over a narrow chin reads as heart-shaped.
What builds a shape
The outline is set mainly by bone: the frontal bone of the forehead, the zygomatic bones of the cheeks and the mandible of the jaw. Muscle, fat and skin add to it, which is why faces change shape with age and weight. Hair matters too: a hairline, a fringe or a beard can change which shape a face seems to be. Every shape is normal and found everywhere.
Using the shapes
Most advice follows one rule of thumb: to balance a shape, choose the opposite, such as round frames for an angular face; to echo it, choose a match. Neither is right. The shapes are useful for talking to a barber or optician, but personal taste, comfort and what a person feels like themselves in matter more than any chart.
Famous face shape face guides
Still to be written: Jaw.
Further reading
WorldNasolabial fold
Skin folds running from the nose to the mouth corners.Face shape
WorldZygomatic bone
The paired irregular bone forming the cheek and part of the eye socket.Face shape · Most faces
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Forehead: Faceofwiki, Public domain, source
- Facial symmetry: Hermann Braus, Public domain, source
- Chin: User:Tizio cropped the original to show just the cleft chin, to be sho, Public domain, source
- Nasolabial fold: Mikael Häggström ,, Public domain, source
- Widow's peak: Kuebi = Armin Kübelbeck, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Zygomatic bone: Anatomography, CC BY-SA 2.1 jp, source