You hear it all the time, from clients and from stylists: you cannot have short hairstyles with fat faces and double chins.
I hear that all the time and you know what I’m gonna do in this article – I’m gonna prove that all wrong!
I’m tackling a major question that I get asked, a major thing that I hear from not just clients, but from stylists and that is: I’ve got a round face shape, my face is full, I can’t wear short hair.
Not true!
In fact by the end of this article you are gonna learn my tips and tricks that will not just help you be able to wear short hair, but it’ll be able to help you love short hair.
I have a client Elizabeth and we decided to take her hair shorter. I actually cut it into a bob shape. One of the reasons that I like the idea of doing this in a bob is because that’s probably one of the shapes that I hear the most often that there’s no way I could wear a bob shape because it’ll just make my face look full or too full.
That’s not necessarily true!
So I figured it’d be a good opportunity to show that. More importantly, the techniques that I’m gonna teach you are actually used on any medium length to shorter length that will work for all of those different shapes. So it works on a bob as well as it works on other shapes.
Table of Contents
Length
Tip number one is length is key!
In a bob shape or in any shorter shape where we’re dealing with a full-face, we want to be aware that any length going directly into the chin is going to accentuate more fullness or more roundness.
It’s important that we leave that length longer than the chin, just enough, it doesn’t have to be a lot, but just enough that it can help to offset the fullness and actually start to elongate the face shape.
Double Chin Eliminator
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Volume
The next tip is all about volume.
Where we put volume is key when dealing with a full face shape. We have to remember that any volume we add through the sides is going to actually enhance the roundness in the face. It’s going to add more width.
What we instead want to do is make sure that we create enough volume in the top. Volume in the top is going to help elongate the face.
We also have to remember that the more volume we have in the sides, the flatter the top is going to look and vice versa. If we get a little volume in the top, then the sides will start to look like they have a little less volume and we can get away with having a little bit of volume on the sides as long as we have enough on the top to offset that and still help to elongate the face shape.
Bangs
The next tip is all about bangs!
If your client has a fat face or you have a fuller face and you’re wanting to do bangs, I’m not here to say that you can’t do them. What I am here to say is that you want to understand that many times a strong thick square bang can add more emphasis to your cheeks and actually add more fullness to your face shape.
It has a tendency to close your face off and really bring the emphasis down to the cheeks. Just be aware of that before you do bangs.
My personal recommendation is that if you’re gonna wear bangs, you utilize a thinner bang, a piece of your bang or some bangs that are broken up, so you can still see your forehead through the bangs, allowing yourself to be still open and not so closed off and not accentuate the cheeks quite so dramatically.
Styling
The next step is all about how we style our hair.
The question is do we style that back off the face or do we style it into the face.
Typically what will happen when you’re dealing with any face shape is that when you bring it back off of the face, it’s going to open the face up more. Bringing the hair into the face is going to close it off a little more.
Many times when you’re dealing with a fuller face, if you bring the hair into the face, sometimes it can close it off a little too much and actually make it look fuller and more round.
In my opinion, I have a tendency to say you can wear some pieces into the face, but typically bring it back off of the face and allow a few pieces to fall but don’t try to bring everything into the face because it can be too closing.
Last Tip
My last tip is really important, so don’t miss this!
Where we create volume is really important. We want to accentuate face structure. It’s kind of like we want to accentuate cheek structure not just cheeks, we want to lift the eye up, we want to lift the face up.
We’re into all these great things and one of the easiest ways to do that is to create volume in the temple area.
The way we achieve that is we relieve volume from the sides, we push that volume up into the crown, like we talked about before and help to allow the sides to lay in a little bit more, which follows the face structure, follows the face lines, does all the things we want to do, lifts the eye up, all that great stuff. But most importantly, it helps to elongate and it helps to create a solid, soft open face structure.
It’s one of the reasons that so many women like their hair when they pull their hair back, it kind of creates that same illusion.
That’s all my tips, I hope that helped you a little bit.
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Samantha is a hairstylist with over 12 years of color and stylist experience. She enjoys using her knowledge to create what her clients really want when they sit down in her chair. Her passion is creating unique looks that her clients feel great in.