The best glasses for a square face shape

by Michelle Lievense, June 7, 2022

How To Identify a Square Face?

Not everyone realizes that face shape plays a key role in understanding which frames will look best on you. Whether you love bright colors and bold shapes or minimalistic frames with a barely-there aesthetic, you still choose a shape that will compliment your face and accentuate your best features.

To find out which face shape you have, you can take just a couple of simple steps.

1. Pull your hair back, or make sure it's out of the way so you can see your entire face.
2. Stand in front of the mirror with your feet flat on the ground and your shoulders and hips squared. This will prevent you from turning too much and getting too much of your profile.
3. You’re going to trace the shape of your face in the mirror. If you don’t want to use the mirror, you can just take a photo of yourself and draw your face shape.
4. When drawing your face shape, begin at your forehead, trace downward toward your chin, and then up the other side. Skip your ears. Just trace the edge of your face.
5. Look at the shape without the distraction of your face. There are several face shapes, such as diamond, heart, oval, round, rectangle, and square. If you think you’re a square face shape, you’re lucky! Read on to find out more.

A square face shape will have alignment between the edges of your forehead, your cheekbones, and your jawline. The real deciding feature is your jawline. While other face shapes have a jawline that blends into the face, square face shapes have a jawline that is strong and prominent.

A square face and a round face may be similar in how they line up, but the jawline in a round face is a soft feature. The jawline in a square face stands out and has an obvious angle below the cheekbone as it leads to the chin. Square faces are more about the angle and less about curves.

Best Frame Shapes

Given the angles of the square face shape, rounded frames are best to help soften your features. Look for frames that are about as wide as the broadest part of your face, your cheekbones, and have rounded corners and details. Rounded frames will soften the natural angles of your face.

You may also choose thinner frames that won’t weigh your face down and compete with your robust features. Consider rimless or semi-rimless frames as a starting place.

Because a strong jawline defines your face, you’ll want to look for frames that tend to sit higher on the nose. This will help to add length, which is flattering for square shapes.

Several frames are perfect for square faces.

1. Cat-eye glasses. Cat-eye glasses can’t be pulled off by just anyone. With the wide top rim extending to your face's widest point at the cheekbones, and the rounded details, cat-eye frames are great for square face shapes.
2. Oval and round glasses. Both oval and round frames have a softening effect on faces with strong lines and angles instead of curves. Make sure the frames extend to the width of your cheekbones, or you’ll look cross-eyed or pinched. Don’t go too small if you choose round lenses.
3. Browline. These are great for square-shaped faces. The top-heavy rim on a browline frame helps accentuate and compliment your wide cheekbones, but the thin rims or rimless lower half of the frames will soften the rest of your face and keep people looking upward toward your eyes, rather than drawing the gaze downward.
4. Rectangle. It’s not always wise to go with rectangle frames for a square face. Because of their strong angles, rectangle frames can clash with your strong features. However, if you opt for rimless or thin frames and choose a rectangle shape that is as wide as your cheekbones and doesn’t drop too far down the face, like square frames), then you can find rectangle frames that complement your face rather than burden your look.

Frames To Avoid

The frames to avoid, first and foremost, are square frames. These will fight with and burden your existing square features. Instead, aim to complement your angles with a rectangle frame or to soften your features with rounds and ovals.

Watch out for aviators and oversized glasses. They may unnecessarily shorten and square off your face. Look for frames that will soften and lengthen your face.

Watch out for very dark, thick frames. They’ll look heavy and out of place. If you love brighter colors, try to strike a balance. The brighter and more bold the color, the thinner the frames should be. For example, bright, flashy red rectangle frames should be wireframes. Light tortoiseshell frames may be slightly thicker than acetate round or cat-eye frames.

Michelle Lievense

Michelle is a contributing writer for Overnight Glasses. Much of her career as a veteran content writer has been in... "Read More"