Round face? Diamond? Oval? What am I anyways!?

You may have heard it before "She's got an oval face, she can wear her hair any way that she likes!" or maybe you've seen a haircut you really love in a magazine and you get it, the stylist turns you around and....you hate it.  It looks awful!  It looked so cute on her...why didn't it look as good on me!?  It's probably as simple as your face shape. 

The shape of your face can make or break your haircut, it can make style "shopping" simple, and yet we don't really know much about it. 

What face shape do you have?  There are 2 fairly simple ways to find out...you can either upload a picture of yourself and trace around your face, starting with your hairline, down your cheeks to your chin, then look at the shape and see which one it closest resembles.  The other option is to stand in the mirror with some lipstick and trace around your face, step back and take a look at the remaining shape.  It may not be 100% dead on with the shapes listed below, but it should resemble one more than the others.

Now I'm sure you can see in the illustration above, there are 7 primary face shapes. 

• The oval shape is slender, narrower across than it is tall. The cheekbones are of an average definition, the jawline is soft, and the hairline is about as wide as the jawline. 
• The round shape is almost as wide across as it is tall, more like a circle.  The cheekbones aren't very defined, and the jawline isn't very strong.  
• The square is just that, very square.  The temples are strong and cornered, the jawline is cornered, and the face isn't very long.  
• The oblong is like a rectangle; very similar to the square, except elongated, almost masculine.  
• The pear shaped face is narrower at the hairline than it is the jawline, giving a bottom heavy look.  
• The diamond is narrow at the hairline as well as the jaw line; the cheekbones are quite defined and prominent.  
• The heart shaped face is like an inverted triangle.  Unlike the oval, the hairline is wider, the cheekbones slender, and the jawline slightly narrower than the hairline.

Once you know what kind of shape your face is (which can vary by weight gain, so sometimes those styles you can't get go of suddenly don't look as nice) you can determine what kind of haircut is flattering.

Without being insulting, we all strive to have an "oval" appearing face.  It's symmetrical, and we as people find beauty and comfort in symmetry.  Don't believe me?  Try rearranging a bookshelf sometime in to something that makes no sense - tall books next to short books, hardcovers mixed with paperbacks, etc - and see how you feel about it later.  Things that stick out bother us.  However, with hair (and makeup) we can create the illusion of balance. 

Let's take a look at a whole body comparison of balance...

In the full figured body, the addition of volume through the hair and around the head creates the illusion that she is slimmer because her head no longer looks tiny!  The skinny girl, her straight hair makes her body look more "normal" and not so tiny.  Does this explain why starlets have all that crazy hair and curls? Ha!

So now that you see how balance can change an overall look, let's look at it by each individual face.

Oval

As you can see, the oval face can easily wear her hair on or off her face either sleek or with lots of volume.  Oval really can wear just about everything...(Idk about a mullet...)


Round

This is one of the more common face shapes...blame genetics or your diet, but a lot of women have a hard time with a round face shape.  Fear not!  There are lots of haircuts that will flatter a round face!
 

Stay away from width.  What is width?  Well, in the picture above it's 2 things...one I'm sure you're noticing is the volume...the other which you may not see at first is the length of her hair.  It hits at the fullest part of her face creating the illusion of more width and weight.  (A haircut that's cut straight across will appear heavier and wider than a haircut with soft layers)  So, if you have a round face shape, avoid getting your hair cut around your cheek bones, and avoid lots of layers that create too much volume.  Opt for a longer, smoother cut.

Square

 

If you recall, in the round image I made a note about blunt cuts creating weight and width?  This is a prime example in the "avoid" image as above.  A person with a square face is already dealing with weight and width in her face, she doesn't need it from her hair also.  A rounder, softer shape from her hair can really take the edge off of her facial features.  Also, with the square face, the face is very short, keeping the length short will help make her face look longer.


Oblong

Like the square face, the oblong face has some very strong features, but this shape doesn't have the problem of being short; instead, this face shape is very long and angular.  Soft layers are the way to go for this shape.  There are things that can be done so that it's not just one haircut to be stuck with...like the angle of the layers, the color of the hair, the overall length...either way, it should stay soft.

Pear

 

The pear shape is one of my favorite.  Maybe it's because I love short, glamorous, soft feminine cuts.  Who knows.  Either way, you can see all the width and weight is in the jaw area, to balance that, keep the hair above that line and keep it full as it will help balance the lower half of the face out.  I just LOVE her hairstyle in this picture and she's not even a real person!

Diamond

The diamond shape is one of those that you don't see so often in celebrities.  Amanda Peet is likely a diamond shape, Rhianna, and Scarlet Johansson is in some pictures.  For a diamond face shape, you'll want to balance the width in the middle by creating volume above and below the cheekbones.  Layers on top with soft lengths on bottom are very flattering.

Heart

The heart shape is one of my favorite shapes...it always seems so romantic and flirty with such a big space for eyes...but the jawline is narrow and some may not like that, however for an every day haircut, adding width and volume around the chin can help balance out the wider forehead.

Now that you've seen all of the shapes in illustrated practice, what does this mean for real people?  Is it THAT effective?  Lets take a look at some celebrity makeovers and what their hair did for them.

Christina Ricci has what I would consider a heart shape face...in the first image her hair is long and sleek and doesn't do much for her in general.  The second image she has some nice softness around her jawline and neck, the hair above the shoulders, and a softer color.  Look at how much more flattering her hair looks.  Not only does her wide forehead no longer look like it's overpowering her chin, there is some width and volume at her jawline to balance her face out. 

Katie Holmes has a pretty square face shape.  If you do a google search of her, you'll see a lot of pictures of her tilting her chin down to make her face look longer and to reduce the squareness of her jawline.  As you can see in the image above, her face is not very long, her temples hit at the same place as the corners of her jaw, and you can connect those two dots without her cheekbones standing out much further.  She's rather square.

 

As you can see in these two images, the first shows just how square and angular she is, and the second is totally different!  Her hair falls in a nice round shape, her bangs brushed off to the side create movement on an diagonal line drawing your eyes to move around the shape instead of focusing on one point, and the length softly covers her jaw without creating a hard line.

So that's about it!  As you can see, your hair can be your most versatile accessory and can make or break your look.  Spend some time figuring out your face shape, look for pictures of haircuts on people whose face shape resembles yours, and ask your stylist if they have any recommendations when you bring pictures in.  Good luck and hope you enjoyed reading.  For those of you who are in the market for a new hair cut, I hope you reset the standards and take a chance on that cut you just weren't sure you could pull of but now feel confident that you can! 

Face shape images from Salon Fundamentals - Pivot Point International (taken by myself out of my textbooks)
Celebrity images are not owned by me - images are pulled from google search for demonstrative purposes only.