High cheekbones: what they are and how to tell if you have them

What are high cheekbones?

High cheekbones are cheekbones whose most prominent point sits high on the face, close under the outer part of the eyes, rather than lower toward the middle of the cheek. The bone underneath is the zygomatic bone, and when people say someone has high cheekbones they usually mean three things together: the bone sits high, it projects forward and out enough to catch light, and there’s a slight hollow beneath it that falls into shadow.

That last part matters more than most posts admit. Much of what reads as “high cheekbones” is a pattern of light and shadow: a bright ridge running from under the eye toward the ear, then a darker band below it. The same bone can look sculpted under overhead light and almost disappear under flat, frontal light. Soft tissue counts too. Fuller cheeks can hide a high bone, and the same face can look more or less sculpted as weight changes.

Prominent cheekbones have long been linked with attractiveness. In a well-known 1986 study, men rated photos of 50 women, and prominent cheekbones and narrower cheeks were among the measured features that went with higher ratings, alongside large eyes and a broad smile. That was a small study of women’s faces judged by men, so it describes one set of preferences rather than a rule, and many admired faces have soft, round cheeks.

Do I have high cheekbones? Three mirror checks

You don’t need a ruler. These checks use your fingers and a single light source, and together they tell you where your cheekbones sit and how much they stand out. Pull your hair back first so nothing covers the sides of your face.

• Find the bone: press gently along your cheek from beside your nose toward your ear. The firm ridge you feel is the cheekbone. If its highest, most forward point sits right under the outer half of your eye, you have high cheekbones; if it sits closer to the level of your nostrils, they sit lower.
• Use overhead light: stand under a single ceiling light or hold a lamp just above your head. A clear shadow forming under the cheekbone, running from near the ear toward the corner of the mouth, means the bone projects. Little or no shadow means it’s flatter or softer tissue covers it.
• Smile wide: the apples of your cheeks rise. If the round part sits high and close to your lower eyelids, the bone beneath is usually high too.
• Look from a three-quarter angle: turn your head partway and look for a visible point where the cheek turns from the front of your face to the side. That corner is your cheekbone’s projection, and it’s easier to see from this angle than straight on.

Can a photo tell if you have high cheekbones?

Only partly. A straight-on photo flattens the face into an outline, so it can show how wide your face is at the cheekbones compared with the forehead and jaw, but not how high the bone sits on the face or how far it projects forward. Those are questions of depth and shading, and the same face looks different under different lights. Be wary of any app that gives you a cheekbone score from one front photo.

FaceRater’s face shape detector measures what a front view can measure. It levels your eyes, takes the distance between two outline points at the sides of your face near the cheekbones as “cheek width,” and divides every other width by it. If your temples come in at 0.91× that width or less and your lower face tapers, it reads diamond: “Widest at the cheekbones, narrower at the temples and jaw.” That is the outline most people picture with standout cheekbones. Heart and oval outlines, which also taper below the cheeks, often go with them too.

Treat a wide cheek reading as one clue, not a verdict. Wide cheeks can be low and soft; high cheekbones can sit on a narrow face. And because the detector can’t find your hairline, the temple width is the least certain number, so check it with your hair pulled back.

How to make your cheekbones look higher with makeup

Makeup can recreate the light-and-shadow pattern that high cheekbones produce naturally. The key is placement: contour sits under the bone and angles up toward the ear, highlight sits on top of the bone, and blush goes on the upper cheek rather than the apples. Work in daylight if you can, and blend more than you think you need.

• Find the hollow: suck your cheeks in gently or press along the bone to find the dip beneath it.
• Place contour in that hollow, starting at about the middle of your ear and stopping in line with the outer corner of your eye. Going further toward the mouth drags the cheek down.
• Blend the contour upward, so the soft edge points toward your temple rather than your jaw.
• Put highlighter on the top of the bone, in a short line from under the outer eye toward the temple.
• Apply blush on the upper cheek and sweep it up and back, just above the contour, rather than on the round part of the smile.
• Choose a contour shade only one or two shades deeper than your skin, with a cool or neutral tone, so it reads as shadow rather than a stripe.

Haircuts, brows and glasses that show off cheekbones

Hair can frame cheekbones or hide them. Face-framing layers or curtain bangs that start at or just above the cheekbones draw the eye there; tucking one side behind your ear shows off the bone without adding width. Volume that sits right at cheek level makes the widest part of the face look wider, so if your cheeks are already broad, move the fullness up to the crown or down below the chin. For short hair, a little height on top and clean sides do the same job.

Brows and glasses help from above. A brow with a clear arch and a tail that lifts slightly echoes the upward line of the cheekbone, while a long, drooping tail pulls the eye down past it. With glasses, a frame whose top line follows the brow and whose outer edges sit inside the widest part of your face leaves the cheekbones visible; oversized frames that rest on the cheeks cover them. A short, tidy beard that keeps the cheek line clean also leaves the bone more visible.

Can you get higher cheekbones?

The bone’s height and shape are set by adulthood, but how visible it is can change. Body fat is the biggest everyday factor: people can judge weight from the face surprisingly well, which shows how much facial fullness tracks overall body fat. Losing or gaining weight can therefore make the same cheekbones look sharper or softer. That’s an observation, not a recommendation to diet for your face.

Facial exercise has very little evidence behind it. In one small pilot study, 16 middle-aged women finished a 20-week facial exercise program, and raters scored their upper and lower cheeks as fuller afterward. The study had no control group and many dropouts, it measured soft-tissue fullness rather than bone, and it hasn’t settled the question.

Cheek fillers and cheek implants are medical procedures that add volume over or onto the bone. They carry risks, and whether either suits someone is a decision for a qualified, board-certified physician after an in-person examination. For most people, light, makeup and hair are the reversible way to bring cheekbones forward.