Glasses for every face shape

The first rule is contrast. A frame repeats whatever lines it shares with your face and offsets the ones it does not, so a soft, curved face gains from straight edges and corners, and a face built on angles gains from curves. The same logic covers proportions: a long face looks shorter behind a deep lens, and a face that is wide at the top looks more even in a frame that keeps its weight low.

The second rule is width, and it wins whenever it disagrees with shape. Look for a front that matches the width of your face at the temples, so the hinges sit roughly where the sides of your head begin. Too narrow, and the face spreads out around the frame; too wide, and the frame slides down the nose and makes small features look smaller still. The numbers printed inside the temple tell you how wide a frame is before you try it, and our guide to choosing frames explains how to read them.

The third rule is the brow line. The top rim should run along your eyebrows or just under them and follow their angle: straight brows sit well over a straight top, arched brows over a curved one. A rim that slices across the middle of your brows gives you two competing lines, and one that floats high above them leaves a strip of forehead showing, which makes the frame look perched.

To use any of this, you need your shape. Pull your hair back, stand square to a mirror and compare four measurements: the width of your forehead, of your cheekbones and of your jaw, and the length from hairline to chin. Which width is largest, and how the length compares with it, points to one of the six shapes below. If you would rather not measure, a selfie on our glasses try-on shows your shape at no cost.

Plenty of faces sit between two shapes, such as round with a slightly squarer jaw. Then follow the feature people notice first and treat the rest as detail: if it is the jaw, start with the advice for a square face; if it is the fullness of the cheeks, start with the round one.

On a round face, the distance from hairline to chin comes out close to the distance across the cheeks, and the outline curves all the way around with no clear angle at the jaw. Frames help most when they bring the corners it lacks and lead the eye sideways: a lens noticeably wider than it is deep, a straight top rim, and a front at least as wide as the cheeks. Small circles and deep, rounded lenses work against it.

Our page on glasses for a round face goes through every frame worth trying, from faceted hexagons to browlines, along with the ones to wear with care.

Trace the sides of a square face and the line barely moves inward from forehead to jaw, which turns at a visible angle under each ear. Here the contrast rule runs the other way: curved lenses, soft corners and a light lower rim keep the jaw from being underlined. Width still counts, because a broad face makes a narrow frame look too small for it.

The page on glasses for a square face covers the round, oval, aviator and cat-eye frames that suit it, and how to soften an angular frame if that is what you love.

An oval face is the shape the others get compared with: longer than it is broad, with no single area that dominates and an outline that narrows gently toward the chin. Nothing needs balancing, so the choice moves to the other two rules, width and brow line, and to your features. Fine features suit thin metal and slim acetate; a strong nose, brow or jaw can carry a thick rim.

See glasses for an oval face for frames to try and the two kinds of size mistake to avoid.

A heart-shaped face carries its width up top: the brow and temples are the broadest part, and the face narrows below the cheekbones to a small, sometimes pointed chin. The aim is to move visual weight down. Look for a thin or clear top rim, no decoration at the brow, and a lens at least as wide at the bottom as at the top, with the front about as wide as the forehead and no wider.

The heart-shaped face page lists the frames that do this best and explains which cat-eye wings to approach with care.

An oblong face is long and fairly narrow: its length clearly exceeds its width, and its sides run almost parallel from temple to jaw. Frames shorten it in two ways, by covering more of it from top to bottom and by drawing lines across it. That means taller lenses, a visible top bar, and temples that are thick or in a contrasting color. Small, shallow frames leave more length on show above and below the lens.

The oblong face page compares the deep frames worth trying, from oversized pairs to bold square glasses.

On a diamond face, the cheekbones reach out past both the forehead above them and the jaw below, and the chin comes to a defined point. The frame has to widen the top of the face to meet the cheekbones: weight or lift along the upper rim, a light or rimless lower edge, and a front at least as wide as the cheekbones, so it does not stop short of them.

The diamond face page walks through the browline, cat-eye, oval and rimless frames that work for this shape.

Sunglasses follow the same three rules, with two differences. They are usually larger and deeper than eyeglasses, so they cover more of the face and often the eyebrows too, which relaxes the brow-line rule and makes width count for more. And they have a job to do: a lens that leaves gaps at the sides or below lets glare in, so settle the coverage before the shape, with lenses labeled UV400 or 100% UV protection.

Shape by shape: a round face looks sharper in square sunglasses or rectangular ones; a square face softens behind round lenses, aviators or a rounded cat-eye; a heart-shaped face suits aviator sunglasses and thin metal rounds; an oblong face looks shorter in oversized sunglasses or deep squares; a diamond face gains width at the brow from cat-eye sunglasses; and an oval face can wear almost any of them, sport wraparounds included.

The frame we pick as your best fit is always an eyeglass frame, because clear lenses show how it sits on your eyes and brows. Every pair of sunglasses in the gallery is still there for you to try on your own photo.