How to Pick The Best Haircut For Your Face Shape
Photo: Collective Haus
There are over 15 How-To articles on this blog.
None of them are like this one, and here’s why.
Sometimes there’s one way to do something; There’s only one way to shave your head. There’s only one way to drive stick. There’s only one way to elude a distant shark. If you’re wondering, you’re supposed to swim backward while keeping the thing in site, and calmly so. Smooth strokes and no splashing, or you’re asking for it.
But unlike those things, there’s no right or wrong way to pick the best haircut for your face (and head) shape. This presents one of our favourite phenomena since the aurora borealis—a paradox: While there’s no universally recognized and uniform set of haircuts to match every type of face shape, a man must still learn which ones will suit his, nonetheless.
There are no rules, yet there is a way to do this right. And yes, there are plenty of guides addressing the same subject online, and a lot of ‘em are textbook in delivery. Not ours.
In other words, every man ought have his own, barber-advised set of haircuts through which he can rotate to his taste. But two guys with similar faces don’t always need the same cut to look their handsomest.
As we’ve said before, these matters are best tackled by the pros. That’s why we consulted a couple barber friends of ours for this piece. And it’s maybe one of the most important ones we’ve published. No pressure and all that.
Ready? Let’s go.
I. The Ruthlessness of Symmetry
Why does all this even matter, right?
Humans love facial symmetry, and they prefer it over non-symmetry. It’s one of nature’s most unforgiving of facts, and studies like this one back it up.
Look at it this way: If your face shape’s symmetrically agreeable to someone checking you out, chances are their lizard brain’s thinking, “Son of a gun has good genes. He’d be a good mate.”
Sure, exceptions to this rule exist. But there’s no denying many of us judge physical traits, and we judge them hard.
Therefor, wearing the right cut for your face shape lends your an evolutionary advantage, whether it be in the dating arena or the perpetual battle that is a businessman’s life.
Why the hell wouldn’t you want that?
II. Know Thy Face Shape
There are six basic face shapes, and often, there’s a seventh.
Spoiler alert: The shape of your face does matter when picking a haircut, but it’s not the all-dictating factor in the matter. Keep that in mind.
Oval
The most common of face shapes, and the easiest to work with for barbers and stylists. If you have an oval mug, rock many a style of cut, you can.
Round
If your cheekbones run wider in length than your forehead and jawline, and everything looks a little “rounded,” chances are you’ve got a round face.
Square
Let’s say everything from your jawline to your forehead to your cheekbones is damn near equal in length, and all angles are stark. In that case, you’ve got a square face.
Triangle
You can tell you have a triangle shaped face if your jawline’s wider than your cheekbones and your cheekbones are wider than your forehead.
Diamond
Got a sharp chin? Are those cheekbones wider than that forehead? And is that forehead wider than your jawline? Diamond.
Heart
When your forehead’s wider than your cheekbones and your cheekbones extend past your jawline, it’s likely you have a heard shaped face. You scoundrel, you.
The seventh is Oblong, though this aren’t as common as the aforesaid shapes. A face that’s longer in length denotes an oblong face.
If you want to know your face shape, it’s easy: Stand in front of a mirror, pull your hair back (if you have any), and pay close attention to the natural outline of your mug. We’re talking the top of your hairline right down to the bottom of your chin, and note the distance between the outer edge of both cheekbones.
III. The Selection & Execution of Your Optimal Haircut
Photo: Collective Haus
Remember how we started this piece off with the whole counterintuitive thing?
Here’s where we’ll make good on it.
“Really, there are multiple factors I consider when cutting a client’s hair,” says Giancarlo Fagundes, a native of Toronto with well over 15 years of cutting men’s hair to his name. “But the first and most important one I look at is the client himself—who is he as a person? What does he do for a living? How much time can he afford to spend styling his hair every morning? Do they have any goals for their hair? I’ve had clients show me celebrity haircuts they’ve wanted, but that doesn’t mean the texture and follicular density of their hair is the same as that celebrity’s hair.”
Unlike a lot of hair experts, Fagundes doesn’t prioritize face shape, but he will take it into account if it needs to be taken into account.
“Look, if someone has a narrow face, going skin tight on the sides may not be their best bet as you’d be narrowing it further,” says Fagundes. “In this case, I’d leave a little more length on the sides.”
“For someone with a round face, I’d do the reverse of what I just mentioned—I’d go quite close to the scalp [in length] around the temple area and downward,” says Fagundes. “Then, I think something a little more square shaped that starts from the temple upward would look good.”
“Basically, you want to offset whatever facial shape the client has,” confirms Fagundes. But the man’s nothing if not realistic. “50% of the time, this rule gets broken, particularly when you have a client who’s adamant on having a certain cut.”
He’s right, it’s a paying client’s call in the end. But like we always say, barber knows best.
“While at one time hairstyle recommendations were given based on face shape, we feel it’s important to go a fair bit beyond just that,” declares Jimmy Giroux, Co-Founder of Collective Haus in Sudbury, Ontario and one of a few our resident barbering experts here at Crown.
“The way a style is cut and tailored to a person is often more important than the chosen style itself, though obviously there are exceptions,” says Giroux. “Also, a person’s overall style and fashion inspirations may require a haircut you’d think wouldn’t fit the their face, but you can trust it will if the style’s tailored to the persons head and face shape. There are a few things to consider here.”
“Going too high on someone with an oblong face could have them looking like Dan Aykroyd in Coneheads,” says Giroux. “That said, I apply the same thinking to any haircut, and I’ll pay most attention to where the head begins to round and tailor it fit the client from there.
Take a look at that pic Giroux sent us. You’ll notice his client has a slightly narrow face and head, yet he finessed the cut like it was nothing.
“I kept the sides square where the head begins to round, the fade is high and tight, and we left some length on the bangs so they can either cover the forehead or get parted to the side,” says Giroux. “The cut was finished it off with Crown’s Matte Clay, which added just the right amount of texture up top.”
In Sum
We’ll leave you with this: Picking the right cut for your face isn’t the same thing as picking a cut that’ll suit you. The former’s a topic boasting stories aplenty online, each with no shortage of haircut lists, and each proclaiming their list as the list. But the reality is there’s no set of “correct” haircuts for any given guy. The latter, on the other hand, is a complete way of looking at this. It includes a man’s face shape in the cut selection process, but doesn’t make it the focal point.
After all, a man’s style’s more than just his haircut.
But don’t ever call it “just a haircut.”