Round
face shape

How to recognise it

Hair back, mirror, straight on. A round face measures close to the same in both directions and curves continuously from the temple down to the chin.

• — Length and width are within roughly a tenth of each other.
• — The widest line is across the fullest part of the cheek, lower than where you would point to name a cheekbone.
• — Forehead and jaw are similar in width, and both curve.
• — The jaw has no corner. Run a finger from below the ear to the chin and it travels a curve, never a turn.
• — The chin is short and rounded rather than pointed.

Round and square have the same proportions and are separated by one thing only: whether the jaw turns a corner. If you are unsure, photograph yourself straight on and look at the silhouette rather than the features. Round is also confused with oval, and the test there is the ratio: oval runs noticeably longer than it is wide, round does not.

Measure it rather than guess

Whether your own jaw counts as soft or angular is exactly the judgement you came looking for, so being asked it by a quiz is no help. The face shape detector measures the four ratios and the sharpness of the jaw corner from one photograph, in your browser, and says when round and square fit almost equally well. Free, and nothing is uploaded.

Where to put colour

Blush is the decision that changes the most, and the change is one of direction. Colour placed as a circle on the apple of the cheek restates the roundness, because it is the same shape in the same place. Start it instead level with the outer corner of the eye, on the bone, and sweep it diagonally up and back towards the top of the ear. The difference between those two placements is larger than the difference between two blushers.

Contour follows the same logic. A cool shade in the hollow under the cheekbone, angled up towards the ear rather than pulled in towards the mouth, and a soft shade along the temples where the hairline curves. If you use only one placement, use the one just under the chin and along the top of the neck: shortening the face from the bottom does more for the proportion than anything applied to the cheeks.

Highlight vertically. Down the centre of the nose, the centre of the forehead and the middle of the chin, in a narrow line rather than a broad sweep. Brows carry real weight on a round face: a defined arch with a visible peak above the outer third of the iris introduces the only angle in the upper half of the face, while a flat brow drawn straight across reads wider.

Hair

Two things decide it: where the hair ends, and where the volume sits. A blunt cut that stops at the widest part of the cheek puts a horizontal line exactly where the face is widest, and that is the one length worth avoiding. Ending below the jaw, or above it at the cheekbone, both work. Volume belongs at the crown rather than at the ears, which is why tight curls sitting at ear level are harder to wear than the same curls with length beneath them. A side parting cuts a diagonal across the forehead and does more than any layering; long soft layers starting below the chin lengthen the whole frame.

Glasses

Angular frames give a round face the straight line it does not have. Rectangular and square shapes, or a browline frame with a strong flat top bar, sit well, and a frame a little wider than your cheeks balances the width lower down. A high bridge lifts the whole face. Round frames of roughly the same width as the cheeks are the one combination that doubles the shape.

What is a myth

That a round face is a heavy one. Round describes the proportion between the length and the width of a skull and the absence of a corner at the jaw. It is present at every size, it was there before any weight was gained or lost, and it will still be there after. Reading it as something to be reduced is where most of the bad advice on this subject begins.

The second myth is that contour can produce a cheekbone. It can suggest one in a photograph taken from the front in flat light, and that is the limit of it. Shadow on skin reads as shadow in three dimensions and from the side. Placement chosen to change direction is worth doing; sculpting chosen to change bone structure is the thing that ends up looking like an attempt.