by Joan Inong

Created on: May 09, 2009

A hairstyle can either accentuate your facial features or hide them. However, you don't have to ask a rocket scientist what kind of hairstyle you should sport. If you understand the relationship between basic shapes and how they may or may not complement one another, then you can find out which hairstyles are right for your face.

Before you can determine what kind of hairstyles fit your face, you have to first know what face shape you have. There are several face shapes:

The oval face shape is both long at the bottom and at the top. The jaws are not as prominent, and they are softly rounded. The cheekbones are also not as prominent.

The round, or circular, face shape is squatter than the oval face shape and sometimes will include more prominent cheeks (though the cheekbones may not stand out). The round face will not be completely proportionate like a circle, but will be smaller on both ends than the oval face.

The rectangular face is long at the bottom and at the top like the oval face, but the jawbone is very visible. The bottom corners of the face (where the jawbone connects to the neck near the ears) are squared.

The square face is like the rectangular face but is much shorter at both the top and the bottom. The bottom corners of the face are also squared.

The heart-shaped face is made up of two halves: the bottom half is like the bottom half of the oval face, because it can either be pointed or just smaller and thinner than the top half; the half is like the top half of a round face.

Circular (both oval and round) face shapes will benefit with longer hairstyles. The longer hair will frame the face yet elongate it, so that the focus is not on the roundness of the face but on the features themselves. Hairstyles with the hair in a bun or ponytail will also accentuate the face shape and not just simply hide or mask it. Braided hairstyles will also remove focus from the roundness of the face.

Face shapes that have prominent cheekbones and jawbone (rectangular and square) will benefit with short hairstyles. These haircuts will round out the jawbone and cheekbones, and will soften the facial features. As with the circular face shapes, up-dos will benefit the rectangular and square face shapes, as up-dos will soften the sharpness of the face shape.

Keep experimenting with different hairstyles. Whatever face shape you have, the only way you will know what hairstyles will fit your face is through practice and looking at the mirror.

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