Why Your Face Shape Shouldn’t Determine Your Next Haircut
If your face shape is the only factor influencing your next haircut, it’s time to reboot the way you approach salon appointments and how you wear your hair on any given day.
While there are galleries upon galleries filling up space on the Internet about “the best haircut for square face shapes” or “the most flattering cut for heart-shaped faces," it turns out that your face shape is only one teeny-tiny part of determining the ideal personalized and flattering haircut for you. In fact, just looking at that characteristic is a little antiquated, explains celebrity hairstylist Riawna Capri, a pro that works with stars like Ruby Rose and Nina Dobrev.
When Capri teaches her Beauty Coach education courses on hair cutting, she makes sure to inform hairstylists that face shape is simply one of many elements. "If we’re talking about cutting, you want to talk about nose, cheekbones, lips, jawline, chin, all those things," she explains. "Sometimes jawline and chin make up a face shape, but you have to take into consideration the nose or the eyes or the density of the eyebrows. That is really going to give you your best shape in terms of cutting."
She likes to compare this approach to buying jeans. "You and three of your friends might be a size 8. You might all be the same as that size, but there's a size 8 with a longer length, a size 8 with a wider hip, a size 8 with a longer top. There’s so many different size 8 jeans. That’s how I feel about face shape."
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Still, the concept of "haircuts for certain face shape" is widely googled, and it's a question that's brought up in salon chairs all the time. Capri's advice for stylists? Redirect the question and ask clients what they love about their face.
If a client absolutely loves their eyes, Capri says that stylist should give them a haircut with fringe that puts all the focus and energy towards that feature. "If you think about Goldie Hawn as an example, you think about her beautiful blue eyes. They’re so happy and infectious, but her bangs are drawing attention to that."
For Capri personally, she says that because she smiles all the time, she wants her own haircut to draw attention to her smile.
"It’s more about not focusing on the negative and focusing on the positive, focusing on what you enjoy and like about your face. Let’s talk about the positive and put the direction to the things you actually do love about yourself."
And that's one beauty philosophy we can get behind.
