Oval Face & Small Facial Features

Q: I'm a teenaged girl and I just want some advice so I can choose a style that's original & matches my personality. I would classify my face as oval. My facial features are fairly small - especially my mouth - which I really hate. My hair is naturally straight & I prefer long to medium styles.

I want to draw attention to my eyes, cheekbones, or nose, but definitely not my mouth. How can I draw attention to these features, & draw attention away from my small mouth? Would bangs work for me? I need some suggestions/advice.

A: As I’ve explained before with others who ask for suggestions, there is no way I can give you specific hairstyle recommendations without being able to perform a visual examination of your hair, head and face. I can, however, give you a few of the basic guidelines concerning style choices, which will hopefully give you a starting point from which to begin.

If your face is truly oval, then you are lucky in that most hairstyles would be flattering for you as a rule. As long as your facial features are balanced in their placement the smallness isn’t overly problematic.

As to drawing attention to specific features and areas, this is generally accomplished by having lengths of the hair stop in the same vicinity of the feature. Very short hairstyles tend to bring out the eyes, while many bob haircuts are noted for accentuating the mouth.

In your case, a style with a layered bangs area would be good for drawing attention to your eyes, cheeks and nose provided you keep the bangs’ layers short enough to keep attention off the mouth.

You may also want to consider a multi-tiered style, or one with box layering to give you some varying points of attention on your face. Avoid single-length styles and those with heavily graduated layering.

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Photo: Siamionau Pavel/Shutterstock

See also:

Very short hairstyles

The different face shapes