Authors Note: I’m sure I missed 1000s of descriptions that can be used on the face. Thus, the first person who finds 20 or more descriptions that I missed and puts them in comments gets this chapter dedicated to them. Please use the find function first to make sure I didn’t bury it in my wall-o-text and specify what body part.

Another issue a lot of authors (myself included) tend to struggle with is the ability to describe facial features. In our brains, it is a lot easier to just describe eye color or hair color rather than trying to describe the contours of one's face. This guide is here to help you more successfully describe people by giving you ideas on how to describe them.

This will not be an easy chapter. Ideally, it would include hundreds of different faces, allowing you to easily visualize what each face actually looks like. Regrettably, I can’t do that. What I can do is break the face down into a couple of categories, then give you key descriptions that fit in each category. If you have trouble imagining what a feature looks like, google it to get an idea.

Face Shape –

The general face shape is occasionally used to describe someone. The common one I’ve heard is a “Heart-shaped face”, simply because it sounds cute and rolls off the tongue well. However, there are a good nine different face shapes you can choose from when describing someone.

There is the heart, the long face (also rectangular), the oval face, a triangle face, a square face (typically described by have a square jaw), a round face, a diamond face, an oblong face (also long), and a pear face.

You can describe the person as having a certain face shape, or you can show their face shape by describing other features. A person with a small face, high cheek bones, and a pointy chin would probably be a heart-shaped face.

There are also other full face descriptions not part of the 9 types…

Baby-faced, Chiseled, Craggy, Fine, fresh-faced, full-face, furrowed, good-looking, handsome, hatchet-faced, made-up (with make-up), sculpted, seamed, snub-nosed, thin, un-lined, weak, weather-beaten, curved, wrinkled, decrepit.

Nose –

Google Noses and it’s typically agreed there are 14 types of noses. Why 14? I have no clue. But every single site names all 14 with their own unique name of choice. Which is…. Well… silly. If you put someone had a fleshy nose… well, that’s a description I’ve never heard to describe a nose before. Instead, I’ll just give you general descriptions that can associate with noses, and you can match whatever descriptions you want to make up your individuals nose.

Large, Small, Strong, Broad, Straight Bridged, Crooked, Sloped, Curvey, Button, Pointed, Thin, Pug, Aquiline (hooked like a beak), Delicate, Muscular, Broken, Hooked, Petite, Wide, Up-turned, Flat, Sharp, Sloping tip, Bulbous, Pinched, pierced

Nostrils-

Flared, Wide, Small

Cheeks –

Cheeks don’t have nearly as much to describe as a nose, however, unlike a nose, they dictate the rest of the structure. You can’t have someone with high cheek bones and a square face, Its almost contradictory. They also dictate how people will see your character. A person with high cheek bones might be perceived as being more noble, stronger, better. It gives the impression they are happier and more jovial as well.

So how can you describe cheeks? High, Wide, Low, Rosy, apple, pear, and soft. You can also describe them based on emotional descriptions (cute cheeks, beautiful cheek, ect…). But yeah, that’s about all you can get out of cheeks.

Eyes (and eyebrows) -

The go to response is always to describe the color. That’s cool, I guess, but at some point you need to describe a little more than color. Of course, they can be big and round if you want your character to appear cute. They can be slanted if you want your character to appear suspicious or Asian. Slited eyes for a catlike person.

You can describe the emotional vibe coming from the eyes. Downcast eyes, cold eyes, glittery eyes, bright eyes, vacant eyes… all of these give you a feel for the characters personality, which can be useful for quickly showing and not telling that they are happy/sad/stoned.

In the same way, you can have the eyes performing some kind of action. That shows what’s on a characters mind…

Dancing, Darting, Flashing, Glinting, Glittering, Glistening, Hard, Narrowing, Rolling, Sparkling, Squinting, Stony, and Twinkling eyes.

You can also get more into where the eyes are placed in the head. Wide-set eyes, sunken eyes, close-set eyes, buggy eyes and inset eyes.

You can describe their size. Big eyes, small eyes, beady eyes, squinty, bulging

And yes, there is also color too. There are 9 in all. Brown, Hazel, Gray, and Blue are the common eye colors. Amber, Green, Violet, Red (such as from an albino), and Black being the considerably rarer ones. Although, in truth, any variation of the colors brown, blue, or green can be used if your desperate to spice up eye colors. From Hazelnut to Cyan to Emerald, if you want a plain eye color to sound more interesting, you can find a list 50 words long for alternatives to blue. Use a thesaurus. On top of that eyes can be heterochromatic (two different color eyes) or (central heterochromia) two different colors on the same iris.

Here’s some more I hadn’t thought of yet: almond-shaped, bloodshot, boss-eyed, bug-eyed, clear, cross-eyed, dead, deep-set, doe-eyed, heavy, hollow, hooded, lidded, liquid, Plastic, piggy, pop-eyed, rheumy, and shuttered.

But wait, there is more, don’t forget to describe the eyebrows. Look at any picture of a person, then a picture of them with digital removed eyebrows, you can see how important they are to the look of a person’s face…

Colors such as brown, white, black, blonde, red, ect…

The positions – Furrowed, raised, arched, or lowered.

And finally their appearance…

arched, curved, shaped, waxed, patchy, bushy, shaved, colored, bleached, unruly, plucked, waxed, joined, furry, cottony, strips, high, bald, pierced, thick, thin, dark, pale, pencil-thin, angled, bent, scarred, tattooed, lined, uni-brow, symmetrical; tinted; over tweezed, dirty, scaly

Chin (Jaw)-

A chins a chin. Like cheeks, there are only a handful of ways they will look. Combining a chin and a cheek usually defines the face structure, so make sure they actually match. A heart-shaped face would never have a strong square jaw…

Chiseled, broad, wide, pointy, strong, weak, square, masculine, feminine, double, narrow, hooked.

You can also add hair to the chin, then you can add all kind of words describing the beard or lack thereof. A grizzled chin or unshaved jaw, so on….

Ears-

Aw ears, what can be said about ears. You can always describe the shape…

Pointy, Round, small, big, large, huge, sticking out, attached lobes, unattached lobes, flat, petite, long, slanted, bent, sharp

If it’s a girl, you can attach earrings and describe those or simply say she has pierced ears.

The types of piercings are standard, transverse lobe, upper lobe, outer conch, orbital, snug, Industrial, helix, rook, forward helix, Daith, tragus, inner conch, and anti-tragus. You’ll have to google them, there are plenty of images that describe the positions.

Finally, like eyes, you can describe a more emotional description of ears…

Pretty, cute, sexy, beautiful…

Lips-

Thick, Full, Thin, Narrow, tight, broad, tender, soft, luscious, sexy, pouty, tender, kissable, warm, moist, plump, puckered, Big, cherry, strawberry, rosy

Forehead-

Foreheads are pretty straight forward as well.

High, Low, Wide, Narrow, Bumpy, Smooth, Sloping, wrinkled, spotted

You can also describe the brow-ridges as prominent, defined, or nonexistant.

Hair-

The descriptions for hair are a mile long. Like seriously… And like nose, there are a million and one names for hair styles, many of them obscure, regional, and probably best to avoid. Of course, most people know “bald” or “balding”. I’m sure you’ve probably heard of the Mohawk. But really, I’m sure I could fill a small novel with every variation would can describe hair as.

Along with bald, you can have a bald spot, receding hair, or receding hairlines. Hair can be short, medium-length, or long.

It can be curly, wavy, straight, spiky, frumpy, messy, oiled, combed, clean, cut, clean-cut, parted, frizzy, fair, dark, full-bodied, bouffant, bristly, bushy, close-cropped, coiffed, coiffured, crinkly, curled, disheveled, flowing, flyaway, fuzzy, glossy, hairless, lank, loose, luxuriant, matted, nappy, scraggly, shaggy, shoulder-length, sleek, split-ends, swept-back, thin, thick, tidy, tousled, unkempt, wind-blown, windswept, wiry, blow-dried, wet, flat, and slick

Hair Color is literally infinite. Every color imaginable can be someone’s hair color these days. You’d describe their hair is dyed if you have someone (who is human) with blue hair or the like. But still, any color of hair is game. White, Grey, Red, Auburn, Blond, Brown, Black are the standard colors. On top of that, hair can be layered with multiple colors or tipped.

Common hairstyles include…

Pony tail, Afro, Beehive, Bob-cut, bouffant, bowl cut, brush cut, businessman cut, buzz cut, butch cut, chignon, chonmage, comb over, conk, cornrows, cropped, curtained, dreadlocks, crewcut, pig tails, fringe, Bun, braided, Plaits, tied up, Highlighted, layered, Mohawk, permed, feathered , fishtail, flattop, French braid, French twist, frosted tips, hime cut, full crown, half crown, Hi-top, Ivy League, Mop-top, Mullet, odango, pageboy, parted, Pixie cut, pompadour, Quiff, Rattail, Razor cut, Ringlets, Shag, Slicked Back, Spikey, Taper cut, Tonsure, Undercut, Updo, Waves, and Weave.

Then you have facial hair… sigh… alright… let’s get this over with…

Beard, Chin Curtain, Chinstrap Beard, Clean shaven, Muttonchops, Fu Manchu, Goat patch, Goatee, Handlebar moustache, Horseshoe moustache, Moustache, Side whiskers, Neckbeard, Pencil Moustache, Shenandoah, Sideburns, Soul Patch, Stubbie, Toothbrush moustache, Pointy beard, and Van dyke beard.

You can also describe beards and moustaches in the same ways as all the descriptions for hair above.

So there you go, let’s put it all together.

I walked into the room and my eyes immediately locked on to him. He had deep blue inset eyes under bushy eyebrows and a sharp nose. His strong, masculine jaw lined a pair of tender, soft lips. His shaggy black hair framed his high cheekbones. His face looked delicate, but hard at the same time. He smiled at me and I noticed that one of his ears was pierced. It was a stud rook, very sexy.

Certainly beats.

I walked into the room and I saw him. He had blue eyes, blond hair, and was about 6’2’’ with piercings. Such a hotty!