Frame Styling

You should consider three main points when choosing a frame for your face shape:

Eyewear should repeat your personal best feature.
The frame shape should contrast with your face shape.
The frame size should be in scale with your face size.

Also, while most faces are a combination of shapes and angles, there are seven basic face shapes: round, oval, oblong, base-down triangle, base-up triangle, diamond and square.

Round

A round face has curved lines with the width and length in the same proportions and no angles. To make a round face appear thinner and longer, try angular narrow frames to lengthen the face, a clear bridge that widens the eyes, and frames that are wider than they are deep, such as a rectangular shape.

Base-down Triangle

A base-down triangular face has a narrow forehead and widens at the cheek and chin areas. To add width and emphasize the narrow upper third of the face, try frames that are heavily accented with color and detailing on the top half or cat-eye shapes.

Diamond

Diamond-shaped faces are narrow at the eye line and jawline, and have broad cheekbones that may be high and dramatic. This is the rarest face shape. To highlight the eyes and soften the cheekbones, try frames that have detailing or distinctive brow lines, or try rimless frames or oval and cat-eye shapes.

Square

A square face has a strong jaw line and a broad forehead, plus the width and length are in the same proportions. To make a square face look longer and soften the angles, try narrow frame styles, frames that have more width than depth, and narrow ovals.

Base-up Triangle

This face has a very wide top third and small bottom third. To minimize the width of the top of the face, try frames that are wider at the bottom, very light colors and materials and rimless frame styles (which have a light, airy effect because the lenses are simply held in place by a few screws, with no surrounding frame material).

Oval

An oval face is considered to be the ideal shape because of its balanced proportions. To keep the oval's natural balance, look for frames that are as wide as (or wider than) the broadest part of the face, or walnut-shaped frames that are not too deep or too narrow.

Oblong

An oblong face is longer than it is wide and has a long straight cheek line and sometimes a longish nose. To make an oblong face appear shorter and more balanced, try frames that have more depth than width, decorative or contrasting temples that add width to the face, or a low bridge to shorten the nose.

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Colour Analysis

The three keys to colour analysis are:

All people have either a cool (blue-based) or warm (yellow-based) colouring
Everyone looks best in his or her own colour base.
Eyewear colour should complement personal colouring.

The main factors to determine the best colour palette are the colours of the skin, eyes and hair.

Hair

Hair colours are also considered warm or cool. Strawberry blond, platinum, blue-black, white, salt-and-pepper and brown are cool. Warm hair colours include golden blond, flat black, brown-gold, ginger and grey.

Eyes

Eye colours are usually a secondary element in determining colouring because of the wide range of eye colours. For example, blue eyes can range from a cool almost-violet to a pale blue-gray, which is warm. Brown eyes can vary from a light cider shade (warm) through a medium-brown to a cool almost-black.

Skin

Skin tone is the prime element in determining colouring. All complexions fall into one of two color bases blue (cool) or yellow (warm). A cool complexion has blue or pink undertones, and a warm complexion has a "peaches and cream" or yellow cast. Olive skin is considered cool because it is a mixture of blue and yellow. (cool, blue-based complexions are more common than the yellow-based warm complexions.

Once you have determined if you are "warm" or "cool," then you can find the frame colors that will suit you the best. Some examples of frame colours best for warm colouring are: camel, khaki, gold, copper, peach, orange, coral, off-white, fire-engine red, warm blue and blond tortoise. For cool coloring, the best hues are black, rose-brown, blue-gray, plum, magenta, pink, jade.

If you see a frame you like in the practice, but the colour doesn't suit you, always ask whether other colours are available.