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Choosing new glasses frames can be very overwhelming when faced with the task on your own. There are so many styles, colours and shapes to choose from, let alone the varieties of different materials and what works best for your specific prescription. It’s always best to ask the experts for help and use their advice, but it’s nice to be able to have an idea of what you want beforehand. Read our tips for choosing the right glasses to suit you, straight from our Accredited Eyewear Stylist!
1. Your face shape
First things first, your face shape is important when considering glasses frames. The easiest way to figure this out is by measuring it. This website is really helpful for figuring out your face shape: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-find-your-face-shape#how-to-determine-your-face-shape
After you have determined your face shape, this chart is helpful to choose the best frames for you.
Foreyes.com
Analyzing your facial features is important because a great looking frame must compliment and work in harmony with your natural shape and individual features including eyebrow shape, jaw width and cheekbone position. To keep it simple, lets talk about general face shapes.
If you have a round face, a square or rectangular frame often works well, rather than a round frame. A round face typically is as wide as it is deep, with the horizonal widest part of your head being the top of your cheekbones. A wider frame with a shallower lens will elongate the face to create balance. A deeper frame will drown your face and make it look shorter, and will likely sit on your cheeks.
A square face typically has harsh angles, most noticeable at the jaw, which is often the widest part of a square face. The perfect style will be as wide as your jawline, with soft curves and rounded edges to counteract the angled points of your natural shape. The perfect ladies style would be a soft upswept/cat eye, and a gents being a rectangular frame with soft edges, or panto-oval style. If you have a square face shape, we recommend avoiding deep, vertically accentuated frames and dark frames with harsh angles. These can make the face look harsher and take up a lot of space, depending on your individual face depth.
Heart shaped faces often have a wider forehead and cheekbones compared to jawline. A large, dark, thick frame will accentuate the wider aspects and minimize the narrower aspects. To create balance, heart shaped faces often benefit from light styles, or a more accentuated bottom part of the frame as this can balance out the whole face. Upswept styles for this face shape will call more attention to the wider top of the head, making your face look unbalanced.
An inverted heart shape is almost the opposite of a heart shaped face, and therefore if you have this face shape, a cat-eye or upswept frame can be the best as the width of the top part of the frame will match the jaw width, creating balance. We can also create a balance effect by having a frame with a darker colour on the top rim, and a lighter colour on the bottom rim.
If you have an oval face, then count yourself lucky! An oval face is known as a face shape that suits anything, so try out whatever takes your fancy.
2. Eyebrow Line
Arguably more important than face shape, this trick is often not talked about by opticians without style training. A glasses-hack to ensure you choose the right from shape for you is to ensure that the top rim of the frame follows your eyebrow line and shape, and that it sits on or very slightly below your eyebrows. If you have very rounded eyebrows, a harsh straight frame top will create conflict and confusion. A low, straight brow with a rounded frame top will make the frame appear likes it's sitting too high, with the top rim flying over your eyebrows with a contrasting line.
3. Colours
The colour of your frame is important, a great style with the wrong colouring can make you look ill or drowned out, it can also make your eyewear stand out for all the wrong reasons.
There are all sorts of versions of colour theory, but the colour palette that suits you can be determined by the underlying tone of your skin, the depth of colour, your hair colour, eyebrow colour and eye colour. Discovering your colour palette through eyewear styling can change your view on the colours you dye your hair, the colour of the clothes and jewellery you wear, or the makeup styles you use.
A basic overview is that every colour personality has a light and a deep version, which will require similar colours but at different levels of depth. A light cool colouring will look great in pure, crystal colours but will look totally drowned out in a black, but a deep cool colouring will look fabulous in black, grey and darker cool tones.
A warm colouring would be defined as someone who has a general warm glow to their appearance, with glowing skin and warm eye and hair colour. If you are a light warm you would typically have warm porcelain skin with blue, green or hazel eyes and warm chocolate, golden blonde or lighter red hair tones. A deep warm palette will have deeper, warm, tanned skin with a beautiful glow and dark brown or hazel eyes and be complimented by deeper, darker shades of warm tones. This colour tone shouldn't touch cool or black eyewear, the most popular colour, and instead opt for a tortoiseshell or chocolate brown as the darkest tone. Warm, earthy tones will make the skin glow and eye colour pop.
Most of us will err towards the side of a cool colouring as we get older due to losing the pigment in our skin, eyes and hair. Cool tones would be defined by someone who has icy skin, hair and eyes, with little warmth. A light cool will have snow white skin, with very little warmth, with light cool hair such as grey or platinum and blue or green eyes. They should keep to light cool colours and look great in cool, clear crystal tones such as blues, violets, pinks and greens.
4. Your personality
The most important thing is that you like the frame! Your new glasses are a great way to show off your personality and style, and it’s important that you take that opportunity. There are so many different styles available, and in the process of learning how to select your frames, you cannot forget to choose those that show off your personal style. You can find the perfect shapes, colours, or patterns, but those qualities mean very little if you aren’t comfortable in them!
Choosing new glasses doesn’t have to be daunting. At Berkhamsted Eyecare we want to make it a fun and easy process. We have so many different styles available, and our Dispensing Opticians are qualified in finding you the perfect frame. Give us a call to book in on 01442 865852.
