Midface ratio: what it is, how to measure it, and FWHR

What is the midface ratio?

The midface ratio compares how far apart your eyes are with how tall the middle of your face is. The most common version divides the distance between the centers of your pupils by the height from the pupil line down to the top of your upper lip. A result near 1.0 means the two distances are about equal, which online sources describe as a “compact” midface; a lower number means the midface is long for the eye spacing.

The term comes from looksmaxxing forums and the face-analysis sites that grew out of them, not from clinical anthropometry or published beauty research. That matters for two reasons. First, there’s no single definition: some versions measure the height from the bridge of the nose instead of the pupils, and some calculators flip the fraction and divide height by eye spacing, so a “good” number on one site is a “bad” one on another. Second, the ideal ranges you’ll see quoted, often 1.0 to 1.1, are community conventions. We haven’t found a peer-reviewed study that establishes an ideal midface ratio, so treat those numbers as opinions, not norms.

Midface ratio vs FWHR vs facial thirds

Three measurements get mixed up because they all involve the middle of the face. They divide different distances, and only one of them has a real research literature behind it.

How to measure your midface ratio from a photo

You only need one good photo and an app that shows pixel positions, like most photo editors. Both distances come from the same picture, so the units cancel out and pixels work fine.

A quick worked example: if your pupils are 300 pixels apart and the drop from the pupil line to the top of your upper lip is 290 pixels, your midface ratio is 300 ÷ 290, about 1.03. A site that flips the fraction would report 290 ÷ 300, about 0.97, for exactly the same face. Always check which way up a number is before you compare it with anyone else’s.

On FaceRater’s golden ratio page, the two-length calculator does the division for you. It labels its boxes height and width, but it simply divides the first number by the second: enter pupil distance first and midface height second, and ignore the comparison with 1.618, which has nothing to do with this ratio.

• Take the photo straight on, camera at eye height and at least an arm’s length away. A close phone camera enlarges the center of the face.
• Keep your head level, look into the lens and relax your mouth. A smile lifts the upper lip and shortens the midface.
• Mark the center of each pupil and measure the distance between them.
• Draw a level line through the pupils, then measure straight down from it to the top edge of your upper lip at the center.
• Divide pupil distance by that height. If a site you’re comparing with uses the bridge of the nose or flips the fraction, do the same, or the numbers won’t match.
• Repeat with two or three photos taken the same way and average them.

What is FWHR, and what does the research say?

FWHR, the facial width-to-height ratio, divides the width of the face at the cheekbones by the height of the upper face, from the brow or the bridge of the nose down to the upper lip. Unlike the midface ratio, it comes from research. Researchers Weston, Friday and Liò reported in 2007 that the upper face develops differently in males and females at puberty, with men’s upper faces relatively shorter for their width, and psychologists then started testing whether wider faces signal anything about behavior.

The results are mixed. A 2015 meta-analysis by Geniole and colleagues found that men’s FWHR was only slightly larger than women’s, that it modestly predicted threat-related behavior in men, and that observers judged wider faces as more threatening. It also found that people with larger FWHRs were judged less attractive, especially by women. A 2017 meta-analysis by Kramer found little support for a sex difference in faces, outside a possible exception in East Asian samples. And a 2017 study by Kosinski of more than 137,000 people found FWHR wasn’t substantially linked to any of 55 self-reported personality and behavior measures.

So when forums say a high FWHR is “ideal” and signals dominance, they’re stretching a small, contested literature, and the attractiveness finding in that meta-analysis points the other way. FWHR also moves with camera distance, head tilt and expression, so the same person can get noticeably different numbers from different photos.

Why your midface ratio changes from photo to photo

Both ratios divide short distances, so a few pixels matter. Most of the swing between photos comes from the camera, not your face:

FaceRater’s own scans refuse photos with the head turned more than about 12° or tipped more than about 20°, and note smaller tilts, because vertical proportions shift fastest with pose. Use the same rule of thumb when you measure by hand.

• Camera distance: a close, wide-angle phone camera enlarges the nose and center of the face. Stand further back and zoom in a little instead.
• Head tilt: tipping your chin up or down foreshortens vertical distances unevenly, so the midface height changes while the pupil distance barely does.
• Expression: smiling raises the upper lip, and squinting or raising your brows moves your eyes.
• Gaze: pupils move when you look sideways, which changes the pupil distance. Look straight into the lens.
• Point placement: the top of the upper lip and the pupil centers are easy to misplace by a few pixels. Zoom in when you mark them.

Can FaceRater measure my midface ratio?

Not directly, and we’d rather say so than show you a made-up number. None of our tools measures the midface ratio or FWHR as defined above. Here’s what comes closest:

Use those numbers as a description of your photo. None of them is a target, and a forum’s ideal range isn’t a reason to change anything about your face.

• The golden ratio page: its scan shows the distance between your eye centers and your face length, each relative to cheek width, with the endpoints drawn on your photo. Its calculator divides any two lengths you measure, which is all the midface ratio and FWHR are.
• The attractiveness test: its Facial thirds part compares brow line to nose base with nose base to chin, the vertical side of the midface question, next to the common range of 2,560 adult reference photos.
• The jawline test: jaw width and contour angle relative to cheek width, if the lower face is what you’re curious about.