Heart
face shape

How to recognise it

Hair back, mirror, straight on. A heart-shaped face loses width steadily from the top down, and the chin finishes it with a point.

• — The forehead is the widest line, or shares that with the cheekbones, and the difference between it and the jaw is obvious rather than marginal.
• — The jaw is clearly the narrowest of the three widths.
• — The chin comes to a point, or close to one.
• — Length is greater than width, though not always by much.
• — A widow’s peak is common and makes the forehead read wider than its actual measurement, so judge the width at the temples rather than at the hairline.

Heart is confused with two others. Oval also narrows towards the jaw, but by a small amount and with a rounded chin, not a point. Diamond has the same narrow jaw but a narrow forehead as well, with the cheekbones clearly the widest line. If the forehead is broad and the chin is flat rather than pointed, some charts call it an inverted triangle; everything below still applies.

Measure it rather than guess

Whether your forehead or your cheekbones is the wider line is close to impossible to judge by looking, and it is the measurement that separates heart from diamond. The face shape detector takes both widths from one photograph, in your browser, and names the shape they fit. It is free, and the photograph is never uploaded.

Where to put colour

Blush is the main lever, and the direction is outwards rather than upwards. Start on the apple of the cheek and take the colour horizontally out towards the middle of the ear, keeping it low on the cheek. The high diagonal sweep towards the temple that suits a round face does the wrong thing here: it carries colour into the part of the face that is already the widest.

Contour belongs at the top, not the bottom. A soft shade along the upper edge of the forehead at the hairline and into the temples takes a little off the widest line, and it is the one placement worth the effort. The jaw needs no shadow at all, since narrowing something already narrow only sharpens the contrast with the forehead. Highlight the opposite way round to the usual instruction: the corners of the jaw and the sides of the chin rather than the top of the cheekbone.

Lips do real work on this shape. A fuller lower lip and colour carried right into the corners widens the lower third more convincingly than any amount of shading. Brows are better kept moderate in length and gently arched; a brow extended far past the outer corner of the eye adds to the width up top, and a very high arch pulls the eye upwards.

Hair

Volume at the jaw and below it. A bob finishing at or just below the chin puts width exactly where the face has none, and waves that begin at the cheekbone do the same more softly. A side-swept fringe breaks up a broad forehead at an angle; a heavy blunt fringe draws a straight line across the widest part of the face and, cut short, makes the forehead look wider still. Hair pulled tightly back with all the volume at the crown leaves the narrow jaw fully exposed and the wide brow unbroken, which is the one combination worth being deliberate about.

Glasses

Look for frames that carry their weight low: a rimless or pale top rim with a heavier bottom, or a shape wider at the bottom than the top. Round frames and aviators both work, because they finish low on the face and widen the middle third. Light colours and thin metal keep the upper half quiet. What to be careful of is a strong top bar, a sharply upswept outer corner, or a frame wider than the forehead, since all three add width where there is already plenty.

What is a myth

That a heart-shaped face must have a fringe. A fringe is one way to shorten a forehead and it is not the only one, nor always the best: a centre parting with volume at the sides does much of the same work, and so does a hairstyle that simply puts weight lower down. The rule survives because it is easy to print, not because it is true.

The larger myth is that the pointed chin is something to be filled in or corrected. It is the feature that makes this shape photograph well from three-quarter angles, and the honest version of the advice here is about balance rather than repair: if the top third feels heavy to you, add to the bottom third. If it does not, there is nothing to do.