Welcome back, lovelies! This is Nona from TheAlignedLover.com, and today I have a different kind of video for you. We’re exploring the effects of makeup on the mid-face: does mid-face makeup truly matter? I’ll be looking at the best makeup looks for short versus long mid-faces and sharing the general patterns I’ve observed in this fascinating area of beauty.

Now, a disclaimer: if you tend to obsessively pick apart your face, please do not watch this video. If you overthink and criticize your lovely face too much, perhaps this video is better saved for a time when you feel more stable. I simply don’t want anyone to be led to overthink and over-criticize their face, only to feel really bad about themselves afterward. So, if you are in a delicate state of mind, please don’t watch. But if you genuinely enjoy studying your features and contemplating the different ways they can be presented, exaggerated, and even subtly distorted by makeup, then this is for you.

It’s important to note, I don’t believe in “balancing” the face in a rigid sense. I believe everyone has a very unique harmony, momentum, and rhythm to their features. I think the best makeup helps emphasize that natural rhythm and harmony. I’m not offering my personal preferences or stylistic intentions in this video; instead, I’m examining the ways certain makeup applications can create a more cohesive, coherent, and well-distributed makeup look. Before we get into specific examples, let’s clarify what the mid-face is.

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Understanding the Mid-Face in Makeup

The popular use of the term “mid-face,” especially in Korean makeup circles, refers to the space from the brow bone to the upper lip. If you have a longer mid-face, this region will be longer compared to your upper and lower thirds of the face. Conversely, if you have a shorter mid-face, this area looks more balanced. This tends to be the case if you have a shorter overall face. A longer mid-face is often exaggerated when combined with a longer overall face, while a shorter mid-face often appears even shorter on a shorter face.

How is mid-face length affected by makeup? I’ve created a graphic to illustrate this point. Consider the space where the brows start, aligned at the same line. If we have thinner, more angled brows combined with a less defined lip, the region between the brow and the lip looks longer. However, if we have shorter, straighter brows and a more defined lip, this region appears shorter. To show variation, I also demonstrated how a lighter lip color can make this area look longer, while a stronger visual emphasis at the end points of the brow and lip can make it appear shorter due to color and visual strength. Before we dive into specifics for a longer mid-face, remember that longer mid-face regions often correspond to longer face shapes, though there are exceptions. It’s a common pattern, much like taller individuals often have longer arms.

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Makeup for a Longer Mid-Face: Emphasizing Expansiveness

Liv Tyler

Our first example is Liv Tyler. I find her best looks tend to emphasize a sense of expansiveness, angling outwards. Since her mid-face is naturally longer and more expansive, her most flattering makeup styles feature softly arched, wider brows. The eye makeup tends to be wide and angled towards the temples, with sweeps of cheek color connecting the apples upwards towards the temples. More modern makeup applications that don’t look too flat or heavy are also key. Her best looks are truly gorgeous on her.

Conversely, some looks don’t honor her features as much. For example, very heavy, thick brows combined with vertical eye makeup, especially an emphasized inner corner and a heavy, “goopy” lip gloss, can emphasize the inner triangle of her face in an up-and-down manner, rather than an expansive, even distribution of features. Another look with a more disconnected or sparse brow shape, vertical eyeshadow (darkness from crease to brow bone), and upward/downward mascara can create intense visual interest in the eye area and a strong lip, but nothing truly connects the two, making it less evenly distributed and expansive.

Issa Rae

Next, Issa Rae. She looks gorgeous in all photos, but I believe certain looks enhance her features more harmoniously. Again, softly expansive brows, mascara, lashes, and eyeshadow angled diagonally upwards towards the temples create an expansive, beautiful connection. Connecting the lower apples of the cheek upwards towards the temples with very moderate lip definition also works wonderfully. The cat eye extending towards the temples and lovely cheek contour with balanced lip definition makes the makeup perfect for her, allowing you to see her entire face at once without hyper-focusing on one feature.

In contrast, overly arched brows, very straight up-and-down lashes, highly vertical eyeshadow, and heavy lip gloss can create an up-and-down emphasis, compressing the eye inwards. This is less harmonious for her expansive features.

Jamie Lee Curtis

Jamie Lee Curtis is another great example. I wish someone had told me this years ago: when you have a very arched brow with defined, possibly extended inner corners, combined with straight or slightly downturned eyes, it can create visual tension and segmentation. This portion of the face can draw all the attention away, especially if compounded by a more “naked” lip. Her more gentle, well-defined brows that align with her natural features (her eyes aren’t super upturned), along with an even distribution of color, look much more cohesive. The former can appear severe.

Iman

Iman, an obviously gorgeous model, also benefits from specific approaches. Her best looks feature softly expansive brows, angled lashes, and an even distribution of lip color. Her hair also plays a role, allowing her beautiful symmetry to be clearly presented. However, a very heavy side part can obscure her symmetry, and overwhelming eyeshadow that compresses the eye inwards doesn’t look as balanced. Thicker brows and strong eyeshadow overwhelming the lash line, plus frosty highlighter on the Cupid’s bow, can draw the eye inwards and up-and-down, especially compounded by bangs. This prevents visual interest from being evenly distributed. If you have wider, more expansive features, you’ll generally look better by leaning into that natural expansiveness.

Jasmine Tookes

Jasmine Tookes, another beautiful example, looks great with softly arched, wider brows and angled eye makeup. Conversely, overly heavy and squared brows, very heavy, vertical shadow, and contour that emphasizes face size rather than connecting apples towards temples can create a compression effect around the eye. Also, if brows are shorter than a cat eye, it can create a segmented look, especially combined with no cheek color or a very “3D” lip look. While this can be a well-executed stylistic choice, if done unknowingly, it might make your makeup feel “off.”

Maggie Q

Maggie Q shines with gorgeous, glowy, radiant makeup featuring thinner, more expansive sweeps of color. In contrast, thick brows, very vertical eyeshadow, and a flatter lip overly compress her features, drawing the eye inwards too much and losing dimension. Similarly, strong, thick brows, pronounced vertical eye makeup, and a strong lip color again draw the eye too much towards the center.

Alessandra Ambrosio

Finally, model Alessandra Ambrosio exemplifies the same pattern. Expansive makeup works well for her, but when she overemphasizes the inner corners of her brows, makes her brows heavier, and uses vertical eyeliner and lashes, it can look too heavy and compress the visual interest of her face inwards. A little note: gloss on the Cupid’s bow and inner corners can emphasize the triangle region, potentially making the jaw look bigger – something to be aware of, as we’re just observing the effects of makeup. Overly emphasized brows plus a matte lip also don’t create that multi-dimensional, reflective, glowy, expansive effect. When you have a more expansive face, like a beautiful metallic bowl, you want the light to reflect on the outer edges and contours.

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Makeup for a Shorter Mid-Face: Centering the Features

Selena Gomez

Now, let’s move on to shorter mid-faces. Selena Gomez is our first example. Her features are very much oriented towards the center of her face, and the best makeup helps emphasize that. This includes more emphasis on the inner corners of the eye, clear space between her eyelids and the rest of her brow, and a more vertical makeup look. Well-defined lips and cheek color placed a bit higher and more central to the face really bring out the beauty of her features cohesively. Conversely, overly heavy and wide brows, too much width in eye makeup, wide sweeping contour, and a wider lip can be overwhelming for her.

Lupita Nyong’o

Lupita Nyong’o is incredibly hard to find a picture of where her makeup isn’t perfect; she gets it right 99.9% of the time! Most of the time, her makeup simply emphasizes the gorgeous perfection and symmetry of her face. Her clear, slightly straighter, shorter brows bring the focus inwards, and her eye makeup tends to be quite contained. She might have a cat eye, but it’s not overwhelmingly tilted upwards, and her lips are well-defined. When her brows are thinner and overwhelmed by wide eyeshadow, it tends to take away from her crisp clarity. An intentionally edgy look with emphasized inner eye corners and an inner curve to the eyebrow can create almost a protrusion of the eye, making it look separate from the rest of the face and potentially emphasizing eye bags or puffiness.

Chloe Grace Moretz

Chloe Grace Moretz also benefits from inwards definition: shorter, straighter brows, more inner corner eye action, more vertical eyeshadow and mascara application, and a well-defined lip. If she brought her blush slightly higher towards the center of the face, it would be even more perfect. Oppositely, overly wide makeup application, wider brows, and weaker lip definition can stretch out her mid-face, causing her face to lose dimension as the eye width takes over.

Miranda Kerr

Miranda Kerr exemplifies the same principles: straighter, crisp, clean, shorter brows, up-and-down lashes, higher placed blush, and crisp lip definition. In contrast, bushier inner corners of the brow, longer brows, wider eyeshadow application, more sweeping blush, and heavier lip makeup don’t work as well for her.

Cara Delevingne

Lastly, Cara Delevingne’s face truly opens up with the same approach: shorter, clearer, crisper brows, more vertical eye makeup, and cleaner lip definition. When she has very wide, heavy brows, a lot of width in the eyeshadow application, and a blurry lip shape with a very emphasized lower lip, it pulls the face down. On a short face, this can bring the eye down and create a slightly droopy look. If you have a shorter mid-face and want to keep the focus on the center of the face, it’s best not to overline the bottom lip.

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Makeup Styles and Key Takeaways

In terms of makeup styles, the Korean mid-face shortening makeup is definitely something to experiment with if you have a shorter or even moderate mid-face (I’ll go into moderate mid-faces in a future video, but wanted to cover extreme examples today). The whole point of this makeup is a shorter, straighter brow, more inner corner eye emphasis, very vertical up-and-down mascara, and often bigger contact lenses to create more emphasis here. They also use “aegyo sal” to create more verticality, higher blush placements, and very overlined Cupid’s bows to shorten the philtrum length. Personally, I don’t think the overlined Cupid’s bow looks great in real life; it tends to draw the eye unnaturally to that region, appearing less cohesive and like an unnatural extension of your lip. It can look cool in pictures, but in real life, if you’re trying to enhance your features, a very strong overlined Cupid’s bow can make the eye hyper-focus on your makeup instead of your whole face.

On the other end of the spectrum, super glam makeup is very wide, sweeping, and diagonal. Something in the middle is the “Turkish Delight” makeup, coined on TikTok, which combines elements of both.

Overall, the biggest patterns I want to highlight as takeaways are these:

1. With a shorter mid-face, you want to contain the makeup within this triangular region that’s already on your face. Your features probably fit into this triangle if you have a shorter mid-face because your features are naturally closer.
2. If you have a more expansive face, likely a longer mid-face, then embracing soft, arching shapes and outward sweeps is a better approach for distributing visual emphasis along the face.

That’s what makeup does, right? It distorts visual emphasis. You can emphasize different regions of your face, making things look longer, shorter, wider, or skinnier. It’s really fun to play with! I had a lot of fun making this video, and I’ll be creating more face geometry and makeup study content.

Need personalized advice on your facial features and best makeup techniques? Check out my highly customized services at TheAlignedLover.com.

What are your observations on mid-face makeup? Let me know in the comments below! And if you have any requests for specific celebrities you’d like me to analyze in future makeup analysis videos, drop them there too!

See you in the next one! Bye!

xx

Nona