Oblong
face shape

How to recognise it

Hair back, mirror, straight on. An oblong face is the one where the three widths barely differ and the length does all the talking. It is also filed as long, or as rectangular when the jaw turns a corner.

• — Length is clearly greater than width, often by half again or more.
• — Forehead, cheekbones and jaw are close in width, so the sides run near parallel.
• — The forehead is often tall, the chin often long, or both.
• — Divide the face into three horizontal thirds — hairline to brow, brow to nose tip, nose tip to chin. On an oblong face at least one of those thirds is noticeably deeper than the others.

Oblong is routinely called oval, and the two are genuinely different: an oval face narrows towards the jaw and curves the whole way round, where an oblong face keeps its width all the way down. If the jaw also turns a clear corner, the shape sits between oblong and square, and the notes here still hold.

Measure it rather than guess

Being told you have a long face is common; knowing the actual ratio is not, and the ratio is what decides whether the advice below is worth following. The face shape detector measures length against width, and the three widths against each other, from one photograph in your browser. Free, and the photograph is never uploaded.

Where to put colour

Every placement runs horizontally. Blush goes across the cheek: start on the apple and take it straight out towards the ear, staying below the top of the cheekbone and never angling up to the temple. That single change breaks the vertical line of the face at its midpoint, and it is the most effective thing on this page.

Contour goes at the two ends rather than the two sides. A soft shade along the top of the forehead at the hairline, and another just under the chin and along the jaw, shortens the face at both ends. The advice to run contour down each side of the face to slim it is precisely wrong here: narrowing a face that is already narrow makes it longer, and two vertical stripes are the last thing a long face needs. Highlight across the cheekbones, horizontally, rather than down the bridge of the nose.

Brows should run long and fairly flat, with a low arch, because a flat brow is a horizontal line across the upper face and a high arch is a vertical gesture. Extend them outwards rather than lifting them. Lips read better full and taken wide into the corners than built up in the centre.

Hair

A fringe is the biggest single change available, because it removes an inch or two of visible forehead and turns one of the three thirds into something shorter. Beyond that, width at the sides and length that stops somewhere between the chin and the collarbone. Waves and volume around the cheekbone add width at the midpoint. Long, straight, flat hair with a centre parting is the combination that lengthens most, and a very high ponytail or top-knot adds height to a face that does not need it.

Glasses

Depth is the measurement to shop for. A frame that is deep from top to bottom covers more of the vertical run of the face and shortens it; a shallow frame leaves the length uninterrupted. Decorative or contrasting arms draw the eye sideways, and a low bridge shortens the apparent length of the nose. Wide frames help. Small round frames and rimless styles are the ones that do least, because they add almost no horizontal line at all.

What is a myth

That contouring the sides of the face is the fix. It is the most repeated instruction given to long faces and it works against the shape every time. The reason it persists is that slimming and shortening get treated as the same goal, and here they are opposites.

The other myth is that an oblong face should hide behind length and never show a forehead. Nothing about the shape needs hiding. A long face carries strong brows, horizontal colour and a centre parting perfectly well once the placement stops fighting the proportion, and the point of knowing the shape is to choose a direction rather than to be handed a list of prohibitions.