Should facial thirds be equal?

The facial thirds split the face at the brows and at the base of the nose: hairline to brows, brows to nose, nose to chin. Artists used equal thirds as a way to place features when drawing a face, and facial analysis borrowed the idea as an ideal. It was never derived from measuring which faces people find attractive. The same is true of the golden ratio and the other neo-classical canons.

• Camera pitch. A lens below eye level stretches the lower third; above eye level compresses it. This is the biggest distortion.
• Hairline. The top of the upper third is a soft edge. A fringe shortens it; a receding hairline lengthens it.
• Beard. A beard extends the visual chin and lengthens the lower third.
• Lower-third details. The split between nose and lip, covered in can your philtrum get longer, and fat under the chin both change how long the bottom third reads.

The bones that set the thirds are structural in adults. No routine lengthens or shortens them, and BecomeTen does not recommend surgery. What you can control is the photo and the frame around the face, which is often enough to move a third from long to balanced.

The free facial thirds calculator compares the middle and lower thirds from one photo; the top third is approximate because a face mesh cannot find the hairline reliably. Take the photo at eye level, arm's length or further, with a neutral mouth. If one third reads long, treat it as a framing question: a fringe shortens a long upper third, and the hairstyle by face shape guide shows how volume and fringes play with the vertical proportion. For the middle third on its own, see is the midface ratio important.