Nose width : face

What nose width to face measures

Nose-width-to-face is the width of your nose at the nostrils (the alar base, measured wing to wing) compared with the width of your face across the cheekbones (the bizygomatic width). It is reported as a ratio, so a value of 0.27 means the nose spans about 27 percent of the face's width at the cheekbones.

The alar width is set by the cartilage and soft tissue of the nostrils and by the bony aperture beneath, while the cheekbone width is skeletal. The metric therefore compares a largely soft-tissue feature against a hard bony one, which is part of why it can shift with weight, swelling and even the time of day.

Why it matters

The nose sits at the centre of the face, so its width relative to the surrounding face is a notable harmony cue. A nose width that is proportionate to the cheekbones tends to sit quietly within the face, while a base that is wide relative to a narrow face draws the eye to the centre. This is also a classic neoclassical reference point: the nasal base is often compared with the gap between the inner eye corners, which by convention ideally matches it.

The conventional range and its caveats

Following Farkas 1994, the scored band runs from about 0.24 to 0.29 of the face width, with the modelled average near 0.27. A figure inside that band means the nose is proportionate to the cheekbones.

The most important caveat here is variation by ancestry. Nasal width is one of the most variable facial features across human populations: broader noses are common and entirely normal in many African, Southeast Asian and Pacific groups, while narrower noses are more typical in European and Northeast Asian groups. Farkas's neoclassical canons were derived largely from one population and, as anthropometric surveys including his own have shown, do not describe a single correct nose for all faces. A wider or narrower base is a feature, not a fault, and this convention should not be read as a universal ideal or tied to anyone's worth.

Reading and changing your own value

A value above the band means a relatively wide nasal base for your face width; a value below means a relatively narrow one. Because the comparison is to your own cheekbone width, a very wide or very narrow face will shift the ratio even when the nose itself is unremarkable.

What is changeable: makeup contouring (shading the sides of the nose) can slim the apparent width in photographs, and lighting and camera choice matter a great deal, since a wide-angle lens used close up exaggerates a central feature like the nose. The nostril width itself is soft-tissue and bony anatomy and does not change with grooming. Surgical narrowing of the nasal base (alarplasty) or rhinoplasty exists and is permanent; it is noted here only as a factual option, not a recommendation. The great majority of how nose width reads in everyday life is governed by framing, photography and the rest of the face around it.