How to find a hairstyle that best suits your face shape
Booking in a hair appointment can bring on both feelings of excitement as well as anxiousness. Joy in the hope of getting the best haircut of your life. Anxiety surrounds the daunting task of entrusting your locks over to someone else and not being able to articulate what you’re after. More often than not, though, getting adequate time in the chair to chat through your current hairstyle concerns, what options will bring out your best features and what style you want to go with, is a luxury that doesn’t get the time it deserves. The result of this situation? You leave the salon with a mediocre cut you don’t love.
Before your next haircut, spend time thinking about what suits your face shape. To help you make a considered choice, Over60 spoke to two hairdressers about how to make your locks best complement your bone structure. Aleks Abadia, co-founder and hair director at Esstudio Galleria along with hairstylist, educator and Phillips HairCare ambassador, Lizzie Liros, offer their advice on what hairstyle will work best for you.
Round face
Both Aleks and Lizzie agree that in order to give more dimension to a round face, it’s all about creating layers and texture. Aleks suggests, “A side part or fringe gradually longer at the sides will help your face appear slender”. Lizzie, on the other hand, suggests a slightly more daring cut. “A short, pixie cut helps soften the roundness of the face and draws attention to facial features or the hairstyle itself, rather than the face shape. Or, a long bob that sits at the collarbone is another beautiful style for round faces, helping lengthen the face”.
Whatever style you choose, be sure to work in texture or even colour variation in the form of highlights.
Square or heart-shaped face
For those with a square or heart-shaped face, it’s important to balance out your strong bone structure. Aleks says “layering at the front adds texture. A centre part and longer sides will also help to soften the face shape”.
Lizzie’s ideal haircut for square-shaped faces is a mid-length, layered bob. “This style will help move attention away from the jawline, to the cheekbones. If you want to wear your hair longer, just ensure you add in lots of layers (or soft curls) to soften the sharper angles of a square face shape”.
Oval face
For those lucky oval-shaped beauties out there, we have good news. Aleks refers to this as “The perfect head” because “almost any style will suit and a sweeping bang will always add something a little extra to your style!”
If you want to draw attention away from your “long face”, Lizzie says that any soft fringe with movement helps shorten the face and draws attention to features such as the eyes. “Layers, soft waves or curls on either long or mid-length styles help frame an oval face making the face appear more rounded. An all-in-one length would draw attention to the long facial shape.”
Oblong face
An oblong face shape is longer than an oval shape, so you can get away with heavy, dramatic fringes. Aleks warns about controlling the style though. “If hair is kept at one length, this will make the face appear longer. Layers, texture and volume is the way to go.”
Lizzie agrees, explaining that “The body and wave will help soften the long, straight lines of the oblong face shape and create a really pretty overall finish”.
Diamond face
Lizzie explains, “With a diamond face shape we want to draw attention away from the wearers narrow chin, minimize the wide cheek-bones and shorten the face length”.
According to Aleks, there are a few ways to do this. “They can do both short structured bold cuts or long cuts with lots of layers and movement.”
What really works for diamond-face shapes is long sweeping layers, pulled back styles, deep side parts and soft fringes around the forehead. Just be sure to avoid too much volume at the crown or around the sides of the face.
Triangular face
For triangular faces, Aleks swears by “A blunt bob, with a face-framing bang”. This will soften the face with very subtle layers to add soft movement.
However, Lizzie disagrees, arguing that you want to avoid styles that draw attention to your jawline, so blunt bobs are out! She instead suggests “long, soft layers styled with waves, a short pixie cut (fringe cut very short) or textured mid length styles with a soft layered fringe are all gorgeous styles for this face shape.”
Image credits: Getty Images