Diamond
face shape

How to recognise it

Hair back, mirror, straight on. A diamond face is narrow at both ends and wide in the middle, and the middle is high: the widest line sits on the bone rather than on the fullest part of the cheek.

• — The cheekbones are the widest measurement by a clear margin.
• — The forehead and the jaw are both narrower, and roughly similar to each other.
• — The chin is often pointed, and the hairline can be narrow or curved.
• — Length is usually greater than width.
• — Looked at as a silhouette, the outline changes direction twice on each side, at the temple and again at the cheekbone.

Diamond is most often mistaken for heart, and the difference is one measurement: heart is widest at the forehead, diamond at the cheekbones. It is also read as oval by people who assume high cheekbones mean oval, but an oval face narrows only slightly towards the jaw and has no second angle at the temple.

Measure it rather than guess

This is the shape most commonly misidentified, because the whole diagnosis rests on comparing two widths that are close together on a face and hard to compare by eye. The face shape detector takes the forehead, cheekbone and jaw widths from one photograph, in your browser, and says which shape they fit. Free, and nothing is uploaded.

Where to put colour

The standard cheek routine — blush high on the bone, highlighter above it, contour beneath — is designed to build a cheekbone. You have one, and it is the widest thing about your face, so following that routine widens the widest part further and deepens the two hollows either side of it.

Place blush a little lower instead, below the highest point of the bone and blended outwards and slightly down towards the jaw. It softens the transition between the wide middle and the narrow lower third. Skip contour under the cheekbone entirely, or use a trace on the outer edge only if you want the bone quieter; a hard line in the hollow is the one thing that makes this shape read gaunt. Highlight the centre of the forehead and the chin rather than the top of the cheekbone, which borrows light for the two narrow areas.

Brows are the cheapest width you can add up top: a fuller brow carried slightly further towards the outer corner broadens the upper face, while a thin brow with a high arch narrows it. Lips full and balanced rather than overdrawn at the centre, which would pull attention back into the middle of the face.

Hair

Width at the two ends, and nothing added at the cheekbone. A fringe, full or side-swept, broadens a narrow forehead more than any other single change. Volume at the jaw — a bob ending at or below the chin, layers that turn outwards at the ends, waves starting below the cheekbone — fills in the lower third. What to watch for is volume sitting exactly at the cheekbone, which adds to the widest line, and a severe centre parting with flat hair, which narrows the forehead further.

Glasses

Frames that carry detail along the top are the useful ones, because they add a line across the narrow part of the face: a browline frame, a strong or coloured top rim, or an outer corner that lifts. Oval and rimless frames sit quietly and work well too. The measurement that matters is width: a frame wider than your cheekbones will look wide-set, and a frame that grips the temples will underline how narrow they are. Aim to finish just inside the cheekbone line.

What is a myth

That high cheekbones should be contoured to bring them out. Contour exists to suggest a bone where the light does not already find one. On a diamond face the light finds it from every angle, and adding shadow beneath reads as hollowness rather than structure. The single most useful instruction on this page is to put the contour brush down.

The second myth is that diamond and heart are the same shape under two names. They share a narrow jaw and nothing else, and they take opposite advice at the forehead: one wants width added there, the other does not. Getting them the wrong way round is how people end up with a fringe that makes the problem worse.