Lip Shape Chart: all 9 lip types, compared
All nine shapes side by side with their proper names, a free detector that measures yours, and the liner and finish that suit each one.
Short answer
There are nine commonly used lip shapes: heart-shaped, bow-shaped, full, thin, round, wide, downturned, top-heavy and bottom-heavy. To find yours, relax your mouth and check four things in this order: mouth width, whether the upper or lower lip carries more visible red, how deep the dip in the middle of your upper lip is, and which way your corners point.
Most people match two shapes, not one. That is normal, and an answer like "wide with a bottom-heavy balance" is more useful than forcing a single label.
Lip shape detector
Not sure what lip shape you have? Upload a photo, use your camera, or enter four measurements. You get a named shape plus every number behind it.
Detect my lip shape
Photo and camera trace your whole lip outline from 478 on-device face landmark points, check the photo is usable, then measure ten things. No image leaves your browser. Measurements needs only a ruler and a mirror.
Choose a photo, or drag one here
Best result: straight on, even daylight, mouth relaxed, no smile, little or no lip liner. Your whole face should be in frame.
Start the camera, then face the lens straight on with your mouth relaxed.
The most reliable method. Hold a soft tape or ruler gently against your lips in a mirror with your face completely relaxed. Do not press, smile or purse. Measure the red of the lip only, not the skin above it. For reference, published anthropometric studies put average adult lip width at around 51 mm.
| Measurement | Your value | What it means |
|---|
Makeup that suits this shape
Worth avoiding
Lip care
What this tool does, and what it cannot do
It traces your whole lip outline, measures ten things, and names the closest of nine shapes. Nothing is uploaded. It runs in your browser.
- What it measures: mouth width against face width, lip height against face width, upper to lower vermilion ratio by height and by area, cupid’s bow depth and peak angle, corner height and angle, left-to-right symmetry, and total lip area relative to your face.
- How: 478 face landmark points. The full lip contour is traced, rotated so head tilt cannot skew it, then measured by area rather than single points, which survives an imperfect landmark.
- It checks the photo first: head tilt, turn, chin angle, smile, open mouth and pursed lips are all detected. If any would corrupt the result, it refuses to answer and tells you what to fix rather than guessing.
- Camera mode takes five readings and uses the median, which removes the frame-to-frame jitter a single snapshot carries.
- What you see: every number, next to your result, so you can check the reasoning instead of trusting a label.
- What breaks it: head tilt, side lighting, a smile, a beauty filter, heavy lip liner. Any of these can flip the answer.
- What it is not: a medical assessment. It says nothing about your health and cannot tell you whether a cosmetic procedure suits you.
If a recent or one-sided change in your lip brought you here, see a doctor. That is not a question for a beauty chart.
The lip shape chart: all 9 types at a glance
Thin lips sit at the centre because they are the most commonly reported shape. The other eight orbit it. Each one highlights in turn, and you can tap any shape to jump to its full description.
- Most commonThinLow height in both lips. The most common shape.
- Heart-shapedSharp V dip, fuller rounded lower lip
- Bow-shapedSoft M arc across the upper lip
- FullEven volume, crisp visible border
- RoundWidth and height close to equal
- WideCorners well past the base of the nose
- DownturnedCorners sit below the mouth centre
- Top-heavyUpper lip taller than the lower
- Bottom-heavyLower lip taller than the upper
Thin sits at the centre on practitioner observation, not a counted study. No one has measured lip shape frequency across a large population, so read it as the usual answer, not a proven one.
| Lip shape | Dominant cue | Confirm with this | Best finish | Avoid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heart-shaped | Deep, sharply pointed dip in the middle of the upper lip | The whole outline narrows at the corners, not just the bow | Gloss or satin | Overlining the corners |
| Bow-shaped | Clear but softly curved M arc across the upper lip | The dip is shallow and rounded, not a point | Matte or satin | Exaggerating the peaks with liner |
| Full | Real height in both lips with a crisp visible border | Fullness runs across the whole mouth, not only the centre | Satin | Heavy gloss layered over liner |
| Thin | Low height in both lips | Judge with lips relaxed, never pressed together | Gloss or sheer | Dark flat matte shades |
| Round | Width and height are close to equal | Corners stay near the width of the nose | Gloss or shimmer | Very dark shades |
| Wide | Corners extend well past the base of the nose | Width stays the main feature whether lips are full or thin | Satin with a gloss centre | Colour taken right to the corners |
| Downturned | Corners sit below the centre of the mouth at rest | Still true in a second relaxed photo, not just one | Long-wear liquid | Lining down into the corner |
| Top-heavy | Upper lip visibly taller than the lower | Compare the red of each lip, not the skin above it | Matte upper, gloss lower | Gloss on the upper lip |
| Bottom-heavy | Lower lip visibly taller than the upper | Check from the front, not in profile | Gloss upper, matte lower | Dark colour on the lower lip |
What lip shape do I have? The mirror method
A mirror and one minute. Work through these four checks in order, because each one narrows the lip shape types down.
- Relax completely. Stand in daylight, facing a mirror. No smile, no pout, no pressing the lips together. A smile stretches the corners and pushes almost any mouth toward wide and thin, which is the single most common reason people get the wrong answer.
- Check width against your nose. If your mouth corners sit well outside the base of your nostrils, that points to wide. If they sit close to the nostril line, that points to round or heart-shaped.
- Compare the upper and lower lip. Look at the red part of each lip, not the skin above it. Upper clearly taller means top-heavy. Lower clearly taller means bottom-heavy. Both tall means full. Both short means thin.
- Read the cupid's bow and the corners. A sharp pointed dip means heart-shaped. A soft rounded M means bow-shaped. Almost no dip means round, full or thin. Then check whether the corners sit level with the centre of your mouth or below it. Below means downturned.
Take a photo halfway through if you can. A mirror reverses your face, and small differences between the two sides are much easier to misjudge in reverse.
Lip shape names: why the same shape has several
There is no official medical list of lip shape names. Beauty magazines, aesthetic clinics and quiz sites each built their own vocabulary, so you will see six lip shape types on one page and twenty-eight on the next. Almost every extra name describes an outline already covered here, and this table reconciles them.
| Name used elsewhere | Shape on this chart | Why they differ |
|---|---|---|
| Oval lips | Full, or round if the mouth is compact | Describes a smooth unbroken outline with no sharp bow |
| Rosebud lips | Bow-shaped | Same defined arc, described by its look rather than its geometry |
| Straight or flat lips | Thin | Focuses on the flat cupid's bow rather than the low height |
| Cupid's bow lips | Bow-shaped or heart-shaped | Names the feature, not the whole outline, so it covers both |
| Heavy upper, heavy lower | Top-heavy, bottom-heavy | Identical meaning, different wording |
| Asymmetric lips | Any shape, with a note | A description of left and right difference, not a separate outline |
| Wide-set or broad lips | Wide | Identical meaning |
| Gull wing lips | Bow-shaped, usually with a top-heavy balance | A clinical term for a high, sharply arched upper lip |
| Shelf or sausage lips | Not a natural shape | Terms for over-filled results, not outlines you are born with |
| Pouty lips | Round, or full if the mouth is wider | Describes how the mouth looks at rest rather than its geometry |
| M-shaped lips | Bow-shaped | Names the M arc of the cupid’s bow directly |
| Teardrop lips | Bottom-heavy, often with a soft bow | Describes a lower lip that widens toward the centre |
| Angelic or Hollywood lips | Not natural shapes | Marketing names for filler results, covered in the filler section below |
If a quiz gives you a name that is not on this chart, find it in the table above and read the matching section. The makeup advice is the same, because the advice follows the geometry rather than the label.
All 9 lip shapes explained
Each entry below gives the geometry that defines the shape, how to tell it apart from the shape it is most often confused with, and what to do with liner and finish.
Heart-shaped lips
A deep, sharply pointed dip sits in the centre of the upper lip, and the lower lip is rounded and fuller. The whole mouth is widest through the middle and tapers toward the corners, which is what makes the outline read as a heart rather than just a defined bow.
- Cupid's bow
- Sharp, pointed peaks
- Lower lip
- Rounded and fuller
- Width
- Moderate, tapering
- Most confused with
- Bow-shaped
How to tell it apart: on bow-shaped lips the dip is a shallow curve. On heart-shaped lips it comes to a point, and the taper toward the corners is visible even without makeup.
Makeup: trace the natural bow exactly with a liner close to your own lip colour, and put a rosy gloss in the centre of the lower lip only. Do not overline the corners, because the taper is the feature. Gloss and satin catch light on the peaks; heavy matte flattens them.
Care: the crisp border is the thing worth protecting. A lip balm with SPF every day slows the softening of that border from sun exposure more than any other single habit.
Bow-shaped lips
A clearly defined cupid's bow with soft, rounded curves, like an archer's bow rather than a point. The upper lip shows a readable M arc across the top; the lower lip is usually wider and flatter than on a heart-shaped mouth.
- Cupid's bow
- Defined, soft M arc
- Lower lip
- Wider, flatter
- Width
- Moderate to wide
- Also called
- Rosebud lips
How to tell it apart: if the peaks are sharp and the corners taper in, that is heart-shaped. If the arc is smooth and the mouth stays roughly the same width from centre to corner, it is bow-shaped.
Makeup: follow your own line, do not exaggerate the peaks. Apply colour, then clean the outer edge of the bow with a thin brush and a little concealer to sharpen it without redrawing it. This shape carries saturated reds and berries well, because the defined arc anchors strong colour.
Care: picking at dry skin breaks down the crisp edge that defines this shape. Gentle exfoliation once a week and consistent balm keep the arc readable.
Full lips
Real height in both lips, roughly balanced top to bottom, with a clearly visible vermilion border. The mouth looks prominent without any makeup on it. Fullness runs across the whole width, not just the centre.
- Balance
- Even top and bottom
- Border
- Crisp and visible
- Cupid's bow
- Present but moderate
- Also called
- Oval lips
How to tell it apart: if the volume is concentrated in the centre and drops off at the corners, look at round or heart-shaped instead. Full lips stay full most of the way out.
Makeup: no overlining needed. Line exactly on your own border, then build dimension with a slightly deeper shade at the outer edges and a lighter or more reflective one in the centre. Satin is the most flattering finish. Layered gloss over liner tends to read as overdone in person even when it photographs well.
Care: full lips show dryness more obviously than thin ones, so a richer balm and a weekly gentle exfoliation keep colour sitting evenly.
Thin lips
Low height in both the upper and lower lip, with a less pronounced border and usually a soft or nearly flat cupid's bow. This is the most common shape, and it becomes more common with age as lip volume decreases.
- Volume
- Low in both lips
- Border
- Subtle
- Cupid's bow
- Soft or flat
- Also called
- Straight or flat lips
How to tell it apart: measure with your mouth relaxed. Pressing your lips together to look in a mirror thins them artificially, which is why people who are not thin-lipped often think they are.
Makeup: overline by about 1 mm and no more, using a liner within a shade of your natural lip colour so the redrawn edge does not announce itself. Lighter peachy and pink shades with a reflective centre create visible depth. Dark flat matte shades do the opposite and compress the mouth further.
Care: dryness makes thin lips look thinner, so consistent hydration matters more here than on any other shape. Daily SPF balm also protects the border, which is already subtle.
Round lips
Nearly as tall as they are wide. The corners sit close in, there is little taper, and the cupid's bow is soft rather than peaked. The mouth looks naturally pouted from the front and from an angle.
- Proportion
- Width close to height
- Corners
- Soft, minimal taper
- Cupid's bow
- Soft, no sharp peaks
- Most confused with
- Full
How to tell it apart: both are full, but round lips are compact. If your corners sit inside or level with your nostril line, it is round. If they extend past it, it is full or wide.
Makeup: a liner one shade deeper than your lip, used only across the cupid's bow, adds the structure this shape naturally lacks. Keep gloss in the centre. Warm pinks, corals and rosy nudes suit it; very dark shades visually shrink an already compact mouth.
Care: the curved surface holds product in the centre, so regular gentle exfoliation keeps texture even across it.
Wide lips
The corners extend well past the base of the nose, so the mouth reads as broad relative to the rest of the face. Width is the defining feature, and it holds whether the lips themselves are full or thin.
- Width
- Clearly beyond the nostril line
- Fullness
- Can be any level
- Cupid's bow
- Usually moderate
- Common pairing
- Wide and thin
How to tell it apart: judge it with a relaxed mouth in a straight-on photo. Smiling widens everyone, so a smiling photo will call almost any shape wide.
Makeup: concentrate colour through the centre and stop short of painting edge to edge. A slightly deeper shade at the outer corners blending into a lighter reflective centre pulls the eye inward. Taking a bright shade all the way to the corners does the opposite.
Care: the corners lose moisture faster on a wider mouth, so start balm at the corners rather than the middle.
Downturned lips
The outer corners sit lower than the centre of the mouth when the face is completely at rest. This is the angle of the corner muscles, not a sign of anything, and it can appear on a full mouth or a thin one.
- Corners
- Angle downward at rest
- Lip body
- Full or thin, either
- Category
- A modifier as much as a shape
- Check twice
- Confirm in a second relaxed photo
How to tell it apart: this is the shape most often called wrongly from a single photo, because a slight head tilt tips the corners. Confirm it in two separate straight-on photos before you accept the label.
Makeup: stop the liner just short of where the corner turns down, then redirect it very slightly upward. Long-wear liquid formulas matter here because corners are where colour bleeds first, and a little translucent powder at the corners holds the line. Bright colour through the centre pulls attention away from the outer edges.
Care: the corner fold traps moisture and product, which can lead to cracking. Wipe the corners gently after applying colour and keep a thin layer of plain balm there.
Top-heavy lips
The upper lip is visibly taller than the lower, so the top of the mouth projects and draws focus to the cupid's bow area. This is the less common of the two imbalanced shapes.
- Upper lip
- Taller, more prominent
- Lower lip
- Shorter, flatter
- Also called
- Heavy upper lip
- Goal
- Visual balance
How to tell it apart: compare the red of each lip only. The skin between the nose and the lip is not part of the measurement, and including it is the usual reason people call themselves top-heavy when they are not.
Makeup: a slightly deeper shade on the upper lip and a lighter one on the lower evens the proportion without changing size. Overline the lower lip a fraction, and keep gloss on the lower lip only. Gloss on the upper amplifies the imbalance you are trying to soften.
Care: apply balm to the upper lip first, since it has more exposed surface and dries faster.
Bottom-heavy lips
The lower lip is visibly taller than the upper. This is the more common of the two imbalanced shapes, and it is the proportion most often requested in lip enhancement.
- Lower lip
- Taller, projecting
- Upper lip
- Shorter, often flatter bow
- Also called
- Heavy lower lip
- Goal
- Lift the upper lip
How to tell it apart: judge from the front. In profile almost every mouth looks bottom-heavy, because the lower lip sits further forward.
Makeup: overline the upper lip slightly, concentrating on the outer thirds where it naturally thins rather than the centre. Put the lighter or brighter shade on top and keep the lower lip matte or satin. Gloss belongs on the upper lip only.
Care: the lower lip takes more sun and more friction, so it benefits most from SPF balm and a weekly gentle exfoliation.
How to enhance your natural lip shape with makeup
Five principles do most of the work, whatever shape you have. The per-shape notes above tell you where to apply them. These explain why they work.
-
Line where your lip already is
Liner reads as natural when it sits on the vermilion border and drawn-on when it sits past it. If you overline, 1 mm is the limit before the eye notices the mismatch between the drawn edge and the shadow your real edge casts.
-
Match the liner to your lip, not the lipstick
A liner within one shade of your natural lip colour disappears into the mouth. A liner matched to the lipstick leaves a visible ring as colour wears through the day, which is what makes overlining obvious.
-
Light in the centre, depth at the corners
This is the only reliable way to change apparent volume without changing the outline. Reflective or lighter colour in the middle pushes forward, a shade or two deeper at the corners recedes. It makes thin lips fuller and wide lips more central.
-
Use finish to correct imbalance
Gloss enlarges, matte compresses. That single fact solves top-heavy and bottom-heavy lips: put gloss on the shorter lip and keep the fuller one matte or satin. Gloss everywhere amplifies whichever lip already dominates.
-
Do not fight your cupid’s bow
A defined bow is the feature people pay to have created, so trace it rather than flattening it under thick colour. A soft bow can be sharpened with a little concealer on a fine brush along the outer edge, which is subtler than redrawing the peaks.
What if two lip shapes match?
Then you have two, and so does almost everyone.
The nine labels describe four separate features, so they overlap by design. Width says nothing about fullness. Corner angle says nothing about the cupid’s bow.
Give yourself a two-part answer. Take the strongest cue as your primary shape and treat the second as a modifier, like "wide lips with a bottom-heavy balance". That tells you exactly which two sets of makeup notes to combine.
Small left and right differences are normal. Every face is slightly asymmetric and camera angle exaggerates it. Classify the overall outline rather than comparing halves. If one side changed noticeably and recently, ask a doctor, not a chart.
Natural lip shapes vs lip filler shapes
A natural lip shape is the outline you already have. A lip filler shape is a result an injector aims for. Clinics use the word chart for both, which is why search results mix them.
Filler shapes are named after techniques, not anatomy. They are goals, not categories you fall into.
| Filler shape | What is being aimed for | Usually discussed with |
|---|---|---|
| Classic or natural | Even added volume in both lips, keeping the existing outline | Thin lips, or volume lost with age |
| Russian | Height added vertically so the lip lifts rather than projects forward, with a sharper bow | Lips that already have some structure to build on |
| Keyhole | A deliberate gap or dimple in the centre of the upper lip | A defined cupid's bow as a starting point |
| Heart | Volume concentrated centrally so the outline tapers toward the corners | Wide lips wanting a more central focus |
| Cupid's bow enhancement | Definition added to the two peaks only, with little added size | Flat or soft bows |
| Pillowy | Soft even fullness across both lips with no sharp edges | People wanting volume without added definition |
| Angelic | A lifted, defined cupid’s bow with a softly tapered outline | Marketing name rather than a technique term, so ask what is actually meant |
| Hollywood or glam | Noticeably fuller and wider than the starting outline | A look rather than a method, and the most likely to read as obvious |
Your natural shape is what decides which of these is realistic, which is the practical reason to identify it first. Nothing on this page is medical advice and this site sells nothing. If you are considering any lip procedure, that conversation belongs with a qualified, regulated practitioner who can examine you in person.
The lip anatomy terms behind every chart
Six words do most of the work in any lip shape description. Knowing them makes clinic pages and makeup tutorials far easier to read.
- Vermilion
- The red part of the lip itself. It looks red because the skin there is thin and full of small blood vessels.
- Vermilion border
- The edge where the red lip meets normal facial skin. Its crispness is what people mean by a defined lip. More on Wikipedia.
- Cupid’s bow
- The double peak and centre dip at the top of the upper lip. Its depth separates heart-shaped and bow-shaped from everything else.
- Philtrum
- The two ridges running from the nose down to the cupid’s bow. They set how tall the upper lip looks.
- Tubercle
- The small fleshy mound in the centre of the upper lip, most visible on full and bow-shaped mouths.
- Oral commissure
- The corner of the mouth. Whether it sits level with or below the mouth’s centre line is what defines downturned lips.
When a clinic page says it is defining the vermilion border or supporting the commissures, it is describing work on the exact two features that decide your shape on this chart.
Is there an ideal or perfect lip shape ratio?
No. Search for the ideal or perfect lip shape ratio and you get one number. The evidence gives a range.
- Lip width averages around 51 mm in adults, with most people falling within a few millimetres either side.
- The lower lip is normally taller than the upper. One morphometric study of adult men measured upper vermilion height at about 5.9 mm against 11.2 mm for the lower. Having a fuller lower lip is the default, not an imbalance.
- Upper to lower ratio is most often cited as 1 to 1.6, with roughly 1 to 1.3 through 1 to 1.7 treated as a normal working range.
This is why the detector will not call you bottom-heavy at 1 to 1.6. That is the common average. It only flags bottom-heavy well beyond the range, where the outline is genuinely different.
These figures come from aesthetic medicine and forensic anthropometry, where samples are modest and populations vary. Orientation, not a target.
Does your lip shape change over time?
The outline stays broadly the same, but the proportions shift. Collagen and fat in the lip reduce gradually, so the cupid's bow softens, the vermilion border gets less crisp, and the visible red of the upper lip shortens as the distance from nose to lip lengthens. Most people notice it from their forties onward.
The practical result is that shapes drift toward thin, and a mouth that was bow-shaped at twenty can read as thin with a soft bow at fifty. Sun exposure and smoking both speed this up measurably. Daily balm with SPF and not smoking are the two habits with the clearest effect.
The chart works the same way for men, though the starting point often differs. A thinner upper lip with a fuller lower one is a more common male pattern, so top-heavy is rarer and bottom-heavy and thin are more frequent. The identification steps and the geometry do not change.
What is the most attractive lip shape, and the most common?
No. There is no single most attractive lip shape, and the research is clearer on this than the beauty press is.
The figure quoted everywhere is 1 to 1.6, meaning the lower lip carries about 1.6 times the visible red of the upper. It comes from aesthetic medicine, used as a planning reference.
Newer reviews give a working range of roughly 1 to 1.3 through 1 to 1.7 instead of one number. Studies across different populations report different preferred values, not one shared ideal.
A 2024 eye-tracking study of lip proportions went further and concluded that no single universal ratio exists, and that several different proportions are perceived as attractive. So the "golden ratio for lips" is a useful rule of thumb for someone planning an injection, not a scoring system for your face.
Most common: thin. It also becomes more common with age as vermilion volume decreases.
Rarest: a sharply peaked, closely symmetrical cupid’s bow, which is why heart-shaped and bow-shaped are called rare.
Both are practitioner observation, not measurement. Nobody has counted lip shapes across a large population, so any rarity percentage you see quoted is invented.
The useful reason to know your shape is narrower and more practical: it tells you where to put liner, which finish to reach for, and which two shapes you sit between so you can borrow technique from both.
Lip shape questions, answered
How do I know what my lip shape is?
Relax your mouth completely, stand in daylight facing a mirror, then check four things in order: how wide your mouth is compared with your nose, whether the upper or lower lip carries more visible red, how deep the dip in the centre of your upper lip is, and which way the corners point. Those four cues place almost everyone in one of the nine shapes. Take a straight-on photo as a second opinion, because a mirror reverses your face and small differences are easy to misjudge in reverse.
How many lip shapes are there?
There is no official medical list. Beauty and aesthetic sources describe anywhere from six to more than twenty categories, all built from the same handful of measurements. This site uses nine: heart-shaped, bow-shaped, full, thin, round, wide, downturned, top-heavy and bottom-heavy. Most extra names are the same outlines relabelled, so oval maps to full or round, rosebud maps to bow-shaped, straight maps to thin, and heavy upper and heavy lower map to top-heavy and bottom-heavy.
Can I have two lip shapes at once?
Yes, and most people do. The nine labels describe four separate features, so they overlap by design. Wide and thin is a common pair, and so is heart-shaped with downturned corners. Take the strongest single cue as your primary shape and treat the second as a modifier, for example wide lips with a bottom-heavy balance. A two-part answer is more useful for makeup than forcing yourself into one box.
What is the ideal upper to lower lip ratio?
Aesthetic medicine literature most often cites 1 to 1.6, meaning the lower lip carries roughly 1.6 times the visible red of the upper lip. More recent reviews describe a range of about 1 to 1.3 through 1 to 1.7 as appropriate rather than a single figure, and studies across different populations report different preferred values. A 2024 eye-tracking study concluded that no single universal ratio exists and that several proportions read as attractive. Treat it as a rough reference point, not a target.
What is the rarest lip shape?
Nobody has counted lip shapes across a large population, so any exact rarity percentage you see online is invented. What practitioners report anecdotally is that a sharply peaked, closely symmetrical cupid's bow is the least common outline, which is why heart-shaped and bow-shaped lips get described as rare. Thin lips are the most common, and they become more common with age as vermilion volume decreases.
What is the most common lip shape?
Thin lips. They are the most frequently reported outline, and they become more common with age as volume in the lip decreases and the visible red of the upper lip shortens. Bottom-heavy is the next most common pattern, because a lower lip taller than the upper is the normal arrangement rather than an imbalance. As with rarity, this is practitioner observation rather than a counted population figure, so treat exact percentages you see quoted online as invented.
What is the most attractive lip shape?
There is no single answer, and any page that gives you one is usually selling something. Research on lip preference finds that proportion relative to the rest of the face matters more than any specific outline, that preferred ratios differ between populations, and that several different proportions read as attractive rather than one. Preferences also shift by decade. Knowing your shape is useful for choosing liner and finish, not for ranking yourself.
How accurate is the lip shape detector?
It is an estimate, not a measurement of record. The tool uses face landmark detection to find your lip outline, corrects for head tilt, then calculates mouth width against face width, lip height against lip width, upper to lower vermilion ratio, cupid's bow depth and corner height. Those numbers are real and all of them are shown to you. Accuracy drops sharply with head tilt, side lighting, a smile, a beauty filter or heavy lip liner. The measurement tab, where you enter your own millimetres, is the most reliable option.
Is my photo uploaded or stored anywhere?
No. The image is read by your own browser and the measurement runs on your device. Nothing is sent to a server, nothing is saved, and there is no account. The face landmark model file downloads to your browser the first time you use the tool, the same way an image or a font downloads, but your photo never travels in the other direction.
Does lip liner or a smile change my result?
Both change it, often enough to flip the label. Smiling stretches the corners outward and flattens the lips, which pushes almost any mouth toward wide and thin. Overlining, gloss highlights and dark corner shading move the visible border, which is exactly what they are designed to do. Classify with a relaxed mouth and bare or nearly bare lips, then apply makeup afterwards.
Does my lip shape change as I get older?
The underlying outline stays broadly the same, but the proportions shift. Volume in the lip decreases over time, the cupid's bow softens, the vermilion border becomes less crisp and the visible red of the upper lip shortens as the philtrum lengthens. Sun exposure and smoking speed this up. Daily lip balm with SPF and not smoking are the two changes with the clearest effect.
What is the difference between a lip shape and a lip filler shape?
A lip shape is the outline you already have. A lip filler shape, such as Russian, keyhole, classic or heart, is a target result an injector aims for. The two vocabularies get mixed together in search results because clinics use the word chart for both. Your natural shape is the starting point that decides which filler results are realistic, so identify that first and discuss the rest with a qualified, regulated practitioner.
How can I enhance my natural lip shape with makeup?
Five things cover most of it. Line on your natural border rather than past it, and never overline by more than about 1 mm. Choose a liner within a shade of your own lip colour instead of matching it to the lipstick, so no ring appears as colour wears off. Place lighter or reflective colour in the centre and a deeper shade at the corners to change apparent volume without changing the outline. Use gloss on whichever lip is shorter and keep the fuller lip matte or satin. Trace your cupid's bow rather than flattening it, since a defined bow is the feature people pay to have created.
About this chart
Lip Shape Chart is an independent reference. It runs no ads, sells no products, takes no affiliate commission and asks for no account, which means it has no reason to tell you that your lips need fixing.
The nine shapes come from the four measurements makeup artists and aesthetic practitioners actually use: mouth width, upper and lower vermilion height, cupid’s bow depth, and corner angle.
The naming table exists because different publications use different words for the same outlines. Reconciling them beats adding another name to the pile.
Proportion figures come from published anthropometric and aesthetic medicine literature. Where that literature disagrees with itself, this page says so rather than picking the tidiest number.
Corrections are welcome through the contact page. This page is written for makeup and grooming decisions only. It is not medical advice, it cannot diagnose anything, and it is not a substitute for seeing a qualified practitioner.
Get new guides by email
One short email when a new lip shape guide goes up. No ads, nothing shared with anyone, unsubscribe in one click. You can also browse every guide.
Who wrote this page
