About YourFaceShape

YourFaceShape is a free face shape tool and guide site. It offers two ways to estimate whether a face is oval, round, square, heart, oblong, diamond or triangle: an eight-question mirror quiz and a photo detector that reads facial landmarks in the browser. It also publishes a guide for each shape and support pages for hair, glasses and beards.

What the site does

The face shape detector reads one straight-on photo and estimates a shape from facial landmarks. The face shape quiz asks eight questions about a mirror view and needs no photo. Both return a shape and, when the top two results are close, a blend such as "between oval and heart".

A result is a starting point for a haircut, glasses or beard. The site does not rate attractiveness, score a jawline, or diagnose a medical condition. A shape names which of the forehead, cheekbones and jaw is widest and how face length compares with width.

The seven face shape guides describe those outlines. Each shape page links to hairstyle, glasses and beard guides, including 21 long-tail pages for individual shapes and topics.

Why the site exists

Many face shape pages publish a tape formula with a single cut-off and present the result as fact. The common formula asks for a length-to-width ratio near 1.65 for an oblong face. That target rarely appears in labelled photos, so it labels almost everyone oval.

YourFaceShape was built to state the method and the error rate on the same page. It also avoids the usual upload step: the photo tool analyzes a picture in the browser, so a face photo does not need to reach a server. The methodology page records both decisions, including the parts that remain uncertain.

Quiz versus photo detector

The two tools use different rulers, so they can disagree.

The quiz measures length from the center of the hairline to the tip of the chin, as judged in a mirror. Answers add points toward the seven shapes, and the shares are compared.

The photo detector measures length from a forehead landmark to the chin, multiplies that distance by 1.12, and divides by cheekbone width. Forehead width and jaw width are each divided by cheekbone width. The 1.12 scale moves the landmark length nearer a face length; it does not recreate a hairline-to-chin tape.

The photo detector scores five shapes from labelled photos: oval, round, square, heart and oblong. Diamond and triangle are rule-based additions because the public dataset has no labels for them. The quiz covers all seven shapes.

When the top two shares differ by less than 0.15, either tool says "between A and B" rather than forcing one name. A difference between the quiz and the photo is a difference in method, not a grade.

The 58.8% figure and the dataset

On 1,000 held-out faces, the shipped photo detector matched the dataset label 58.8% of the time across five shapes. Chance is 20%. The five-shape model alone scored 60.2% on the same 1,000 faces; the diamond and triangle rules had no labels and did not raise the score.

The source is the Kaggle Face Shape Dataset by niten19, released as CC0. The labelled shapes are heart, oblong, oval, round and square. Training used 3,386 photos where a face was detected. The 1,000 held-out faces are detected test photos only.

Labels in the set are noisy, especially oval versus heart, which limits any method that uses landmark ratios alone. The figure is a limit of that test, not a promise about a particular photo. Pose, camera height, lens distortion and hair can move the estimate. The full method and its limits are on the methodology page.

Photos stay in the browser

The privacy policy and the detector both state the rule: a photo is read in the browser and is not uploaded to YourFaceShape servers. Closing the tab discards it. The quiz uses no photo at all.

The site does not ask for an account to use either tool. Analytics, when enabled, is separate from the photo flow and starts only after a visitor allows it.

Who the site is for

The guides are written for people choosing a haircut, glasses frames or a beard who want to know how the recommendation was produced. The same seven shapes apply to men and women; the men's guide collects beard, haircut and glasses advice in one place.

The site is not a substitute for a professional assessment. A hairstylist, optician or barber can account for hairline, growth pattern, prescription and fit in ways a landmark estimate cannot.

Corrections and contact

Corrections, source notes and questions can be sent through the contact page. A message about a specific result is easier to check when it includes the shape pair shown, the tool used, and whether a photo or the quiz produced it.

The site publishes no medical advice and no attractiveness rating. A shape is a description of bone proportions, not a diagnosis or a verdict on appearance.