Haircuts for Oval Face Men, by Hair Type

Haircuts for oval face men are almost unlimited, because an oval face has no width or length a cut needs to correct. A crop, a quiff, a fade, a side part, a buzz cut or hair to the collar will all sit right on it. So the face is the least useful thing to choose by. Choose by your hair type, your hairline and how often you will come back, and watch for one thing only: too much height on top.

First, make sure it is oval

Most men who tell us their face is oval are right, and the ones who are not are usually oblong. That is the one mix-up worth catching, because it is the one that changes the advice.

Face shape	How it measures	What it changes
Oval	About half as long again as it is wide, forehead a touch wider than the jaw, jaw curves to the chin	Nothing to correct
Oblong	Longer than that, with the forehead, cheeks and jaw close to the same width	Keep height down, leave some fullness at the sides
Round	Close to as wide as it is long, soft jaw	Keep the sides tight, put the shape on top
Square	Close to as wide as it is long, hard corner at the jaw	Decide how much jaw to show

Pull your hair back with a headband or a wet comb and look straight at a mirror from a normal distance, not at a phone camera held close, which stretches whatever is nearest the lens. If you are between two rows, you are probably oval with a strong jaw, which our guide for square faces also covers.

Haircuts for oval face men, picked by hair type

With the face out of the way, your hair decides what will actually last until your next visit. This is how we would narrow it down in the chair. Prices are from our current list.

Your hair	Cut we would start with	Price and time	Back in
Thick and straight	Textured crop over a mid fade	£17, 30 min	3 weeks
Thick and straight, likes styling	Short quiff over a taper	£17, 40 min	4 weeks
Fine or thinning	Crew cut, front left slightly longer	£10, 20 min	3 weeks
Wavy	Scissor cut, 3 to 4 inches on top, swept back	£15, 30 min	5 weeks
Curly or coily	Curls kept on top, taper fade at the sides	£17, 40 min	3 to 4 weeks
Any, no fuss	Buzz cut on one guard	£10, 20 min	2 to 3 weeks

A few notes the table cannot carry.

Thick hair gives an oval face the most choice, and also the most ways to end up with a helmet. Whatever the cut, the weight has to come out of the top, or by week three it sits up in a block. That is what point cutting in a textured crop is for.

Fine or thinning hair is where we turn men away from the longer options most often. Once the hair is thinning, three inches on top separates and shows the scalp under the shop lights, and no face shape changes that. Short and even reads thicker. We have gone through what works on thin hair separately, and all of it applies here.

Wavy hair is the oval face's best friend, honestly. It has movement without product, and a swept-back scissor cut on it looks good on day one and still looks deliberate on day thirty.

Curly and coily hair wants its weight kept, not thinned. On an oval face the height curls naturally build is rarely a problem, because the face is not long enough to be stretched by it.

The one thing that goes wrong

Height. An oval face is already a little longer than it is wide, so it can take some lift on top. A tall quiff or pompadour with skin-tight sides, though, adds length to the top of the head and takes width away from the sides at the same time. Put both together and an oval face starts reading as a long one.

If you want the volume, keep the fade low so some hair stays beside the temples, or keep the height to an inch or two and push it back rather than straight up. Either way the balance you were born with survives.

That is the whole list of face shape mistakes. Everything else that goes wrong on an oval face is about something else.

What the face shape does not tell us

Face shape guides talk about the front of the head. Most of a haircut is the sides and back, and that is where we spend the time.

The back of the head. Some skulls are flat at the back, some have a ridge or a dip at the crown. A buzz cut or a high skin fade shows every bit of it. We look before we suggest a short cut, and if the back is flat we leave enough length there to give it a curve.

The ears. An oval face says nothing about whether your ears sit close or stick out. A high fade puts them on show. A low taper or a scissor cut over the ears does not.

The hairline. A receding temple matters far more than your face shape does, and a cut that suits an oval face with a full hairline can work against one that is going back. Our advice for a receding hairline is the place to start if that is you.

The crown. A cowlick there decides how short the top can go before it stands up on its own, whatever shape your face is.

Bring the decision, not the face shape

You do not need to tell us your face is oval. We can see it, and it rarely narrows anything down. What we cannot see is how you live with your hair. Tell us three things: how long you spend on it in the morning, how often you will realistically come back, and whether work rules anything out.

"Ten minutes at most, every four weeks, nothing too short for the office" gets you a better haircut than any face shape chart, and it takes a barber about ten seconds to turn into a cut. If you want to try something you have never had, an oval face is the safest one to experiment on. Book a slot and tell us that's the plan.