Temple : cheekbone width
Temple width relative to cheekbone width — the taper of the upper face.
Why it matters
Temples a little narrower than the cheekbones emphasise the cheekbones and give a diamond/oval upper face.
What temple-to-cheekbone ratio measures
This metric compares the width of your face at the temples to its width at the cheekbones. The bitemporal width is measured across the temples - the soft, slightly hollow area at the sides of the forehead - and the bizygomatic width across the widest part of the cheeks. The temple figure is divided by the cheekbone figure to give the taper of the upper face.
A value just under 1.0 means the temples are a little narrower than the cheekbones. This is among the harder things to measure from a photo: the landmarks used for the temples are some of the least reliable on the mesh, so the result is genuinely indicative rather than exact.
Why the upper-face taper matters
Temples slightly narrower than the cheekbones let the cheekbones sit as the widest point of the upper face, which emphasises them and contributes to the diamond or oval shapes that conventional aesthetics tend to favour. When the temples are as wide as the cheekbones, the upper face reads more rectangular, and noticeably hollow temples can make it look gaunt or narrow.
As Naini 2011 discusses in his work on facial aesthetics, it is the relationship between these widths, not either one alone, that shapes the impression - and like the other proportions here, it is a convention that describes a common pattern rather than a rule about worth.
The conventional range and its caveats
The band used here is roughly 0.86 to 1.00. It is worth knowing why it is set high: the temple landmarks this tool uses sit a little wider and lower than the true anatomical temples, so the measured ratio reads around 0.94 on most faces. The band has been shifted to match that measurement scale rather than a textbook value.
The practical consequence is that this metric should carry less weight than better-anchored proportions. If the value looks surprising, imprecise landmark placement is at least as likely an explanation as your actual anatomy.
Reading your number and what can change
A ratio near the top of the band means little taper - temples and cheekbones close in width - while a lower value means a more pronounced taper or, at the extreme, hollow temples. Hair sitting over the temples changes how this reads in a photo, so framing matters a great deal here.
This is the rare upper-face metric with a genuine cosmetic lever, and it is hairstyle. Volume or coverage at the temples balances an upper face that looks narrow, while pulling the hair back exposes the true width. Temple hollowing, which can come with age or low body fat, is sometimes treated with filler to restore volume - an effect that is temporary - while the underlying skull width at the temples is fixed bone that grooming does not change.
Typical range
~0.86-1.00 (temples slightly narrower, mesh-calibrated)
Bi-temporal (temple) width relative to bi-zygomatic (cheekbone) width. Temples a little narrower than the cheekbones give the upper face a gentle taper toward a diamond/oval shape.
What your reading means
- Typical
- Your temples taper nicely from the cheekbones.
- Less common
- Your temple-to-cheekbone taper is close to ideal.
- Distinctive
- Your temples read wide (little taper) or very narrow versus the cheekbones.
How we measured it
We divide your temple (bitemporal) width by your cheekbone width.
The evidence
The mesh temple points (landmarks 21/251) sit wider/lower than the true temples, so the ratio reads high (~0.94); the band is shifted to the mesh scale. Among the least reliable landmarks; indicative only.