Face shape detector

Most face shape charts are drawn by eye and then described in adjectives, which is why no two of them agree. These six outlines are drawn from the ratios of real faces: for each shape, the reference face nearest the middle of that shape, at one fixed cheekbone width, so they are directly comparable to each other and to your own result. Each one carries the rule that produces it.

The rules read where your face sits among 158 reference faces, and they run in order: length in the longest 15% reads Oblong; then a jaw in the widest 20% against the cheekbones reads Square; then length in the shortest 15% reads Round; then temples wider than the jaw by more than 85% of faces show reads Heart; then temples and jaw together in the narrowest 15% read Diamond; anything else is Oval. A wide jaw is checked before a short face, so a face that is both reads Square rather than Round. When a reading sits within 5 points of a cut, your result names the shape on the other side of it as a close second.

Face shape is the input for a whole styling stack, which is why "what is my face shape" is worth measuring rather than guessing. Glasses frames counterbalance the face’s dominant quality (angular frames on soft shapes, curves on angular ones). Haircuts add or remove width wherever their volume and cut lines sit. Brows, blush placement, contouring, hair partings and even earrings each have shape-specific versions of the same counterweight logic, and every one of those tools on this site chains from the measurement this page makes.

The measured readings matter more than the label: two round faces, one in the shortest 2% and one at the 14% line, need different amounts of the same corrections. That is why your result shows the ratios and where each sits among the reference faces alongside the shape.

Men get the same six shapes from the same rules and the same 158 reference faces; there is no separate male chart, so the differences show up in the shares. Among the 158 faces, the 85 men read 40% Oval, 24% Square, 16% Oblong, 11% Round, 6% Heart and 4% Diamond; the 73 women 32% Oval, 18% Heart, 15% Oblong, 14% Square, 14% Diamond and 8% Round. Men read Square more often because their jaws are wider against their cheekbones, one of the best-measured sex differences in the face.

For men the shape mostly decides three things. The haircut: height on top lengthens a round or square face, and fuller sides widen an oblong one. The beard: round and square faces suit short sides with more length at the chin, oblong faces the reverse, and diamond and heart faces fullness along the jaw to balance wider cheekbones or temples. And frames. The hairstyle finder and the glasses finder take your result from here.

Four readings come off the 478 points: face length (from the top of the face mesh, about halfway up the forehead, to the chin), cheekbone width, jaw width at the jaw corners and forehead width at the temples. Length, jaw and temples are each divided by the cheekbone width and placed among 158 reference faces of public figures, 85 men and 73 women, read as a phone at arm’s length (45 cm) sees them.

Camera distance moves these readings more than faces differ, because a close lens shrinks the sides of the face. Seen from 30 cm instead of 45, 60% of the same reference faces read Oblong; seen from 60 cm, 27% read Round. So hold the phone at arm’s length, level with your face. Two versions of the same photo (mirrored, rotated 2°, half the resolution, cropped, saved again as a JPEG) read the same shape 82% of the time, and the same shape or its close second 96% of the time.

Mirror self-assessment fails for predictable reasons: hair covers the true face outline, the mirror flips left-right asymmetries into unfamiliar positions, and the classic tracing method measures the reflection at whatever distance and angle you happen to stand. The usual confusions are oval against round and square against oblong, which happen to be the boundaries where styling advice diverges most.