Face Shape Detector: What Is My Face Shape?

Most face shape guides ask you to hold a tape measure to your face or trace your outline on a mirror. This detector takes the same measurements from a photo. MediaPipe Face Landmarker finds 478 landmarks on your face, in your browser, and the detector reads five measurements from them. Every width is divided by your cheekbone width, so the numbers do not depend on how big your face is in the photo or how far you stood from the camera.

Those five numbers are compared with a typical profile for each of the six shapes. The closer your measurements are to a shape, the larger its share of 100%. You see the closest shape, the runner-up and the share of every shape, together with the lines that were measured on your own face, so you can check the reading instead of taking it on trust.

Face shape names describe proportions, not features. Two people with very different eyes, noses and skin can share a face shape, and the same person can look rounder or longer depending on weight, hairstyle and camera angle. The table below lists what the detector looks for in each shape and how it is told apart from the shape it is most often confused with.

For a closer look at a single shape, read the guides to the oval, round, square, oblong, heart and diamond face shapes, or see all six side by side.

Real faces do not come in six boxes. Many people are close to two shapes at once, for example oval with a slightly pointed chin, which sits between oval and heart. That is why the detector reports a share for every shape instead of a single label. A reading of 45% oval and 30% heart means your measurements are closest to oval and also share much of what makes a face heart-shaped; if a hairstyle or glasses guide fits either shape, both are worth reading.

When the top two shares are within about ten points of each other, treat the result as a blend. When one shape is well ahead, the reading is clear. In our tests the closest shape stayed the same when a photo was mirrored, resized or rotated by a few degrees, so a close call reflects the face, not noise in the photo.

The result also shows your jaw width ratio: the width of your jaw near its corners divided by your cheekbone width, and divided by your forehead width. These are measurements, not a rating. A ratio close to 1.0 means your jaw is nearly as wide as your cheekbones, which pushes the reading toward square; a lower ratio means the face narrows toward the chin, which pushes it toward oval, heart or diamond.

Across the 22 front-facing portraits we used to calibrate the detector, jaw width ranged from about 0.75 to 0.85 of cheekbone width. Where you fall in that range says nothing about attractiveness; it is one of the proportions that, together with face length and the chin, decides which shape your face is closest to. The golden ratio face test measures more facial proportions from the same photo.

Face shape is mostly about outlines, so anything that hides or distorts the outline of your face changes the result:

• Pull your hair back from your forehead and the sides of your face. A fringe or hair over the temples hides the forehead width.
• Hold the camera at eye level and at arm's length or farther. Close-up selfies make the middle of the face look wider and the face rounder.
• Look straight into the lens with a neutral expression and your mouth closed. Smiling widens the lower face; tilting the head up or down shortens or lengthens it.
• Use even light from the front. Strong shadows along the jaw can move the detected jawline.
• Take two or three photos and compare. If they agree, the reading is reliable; if they differ, your face is close to the boundary between two shapes.

The detector measures what the photo shows. The top of the detected face is usually close to your hairline in a clear, front-facing photo, but it is not the hairline itself, so very high or low hairlines and receding hairlines can shift the length measurement. Beards change the visible jawline, and weight changes can move a face between round and oval over time.

This is an estimate from geometry, so we do not claim that it is 100% accurate, and no photo-based face shape detector can be. No face shape is better than another. Oval is often called the most balanced shape in styling guides because many hairstyles and frames suit it, but that is a styling convention, not a measure of beauty. FaceCoda is for curiosity and style ideas, not a medical or professional assessment.