Nose Types
Seven named shapes, and one fact almost every nose page leaves out: most of them are defined by the profile. A Roman nose is a curve in the bridge, a Greek nose is a straight one, a snub nose is a rotated tip — and a front-facing photo contains none of that. Here is what a selfie can measure, and the mirror test for the rest.
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Straight-on, even lighting, at arm's length gives the most comparable reading.
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What is my nose shape?
Two properties are measurable from a front-facing photo: how wide your nose is relative to your face, and how long it is relative to that width. The named types — Roman, aquiline, Greek, snub, button — are defined by the profile line of the bridge and the rotation of the tip, neither of which a front photo contains.
- Roman, aquiline and hawk describe the same nose: a convex bridge, seen in profile.
- A Greek nose is a straight dorsal line — also a profile trait.
- Alar width above roughly 0.28 of face width reads as wide; below 0.22 as narrow.
- The classic canon that nose width equals the distance between the inner eye corners is a Renaissance drawing convention, not a measured norm.
- Bulbous and button are the two named types with partly front-visible definitions.
The 7 nose types
Ordered by how often each is searched. Roman, aquiline and hawk share a page because they are the same nose under three names — Wikipedia files them under one entry for the same reason.
Roman nosealso aquiline, hawk
profile onlyA Roman nose has a bridge that curves outward — a raised ridge along the dorsum rather than a straight line from the brow to the tip. Aquiline is the same nose under a different name, from the Latin for eagle, and hawk nose is the term for a pronounced version with a downward-angled tip.
Button nose
partly measurableA button nose is short and small relative to the face, with a rounded tip and a bridge that does not project much. It is the one nose shape on this page with a partly front-measurable definition — shortness and narrowness both show from the front, even though tip projection does not.
Greek nosealso straight
profile onlyA Greek nose has a straight bridge — a dorsal line running from the brow to the tip with no hump and no dip. The name comes from classical Greek sculpture, where the profile was idealised rather than portrayed, which is a meaningful difference from how the Roman nose got its name.
Bulbous nose
partly measurableA bulbous nose has a tip that is round and wide relative to the bridge above it. It is one of the two shapes here with a partly front-measurable definition, and it is also the one with a genuine medical neighbour — a tip that has become progressively larger and thickened is a different finding from a tip that has always been round.
Snub nosealso upturned, celestial
profile onlyA snub nose is short with a tip that rotates upward, so the nostrils become more visible from the front than usual. Upturned and celestial are the same shape described more kindly; the traits are identical and only the connotation differs.
Nubian nosealso wide-based
partly measurableA Nubian nose is described as long with a wide base and a broad, often downward-projecting tip. The name attaches an ancient African kingdom to a facial feature, which is worth pausing on: this is a description that came out of a tradition of classifying noses by ancestry, and that tradition has a bad history.
Wide nosealso narrow
partly measurableWidth is the one nose property a front-facing photo measures cleanly, and it is the axis every other named shape gets confused with. A nose can be wide and Roman, wide and straight, narrow and bulbous — width is independent of the profile traits that name the other shapes on this page.
What a nose shape test can and cannot measure
From the front
- Alar width against face width
- Length against alar width
- Alar width against the distance between the inner eye corners
- Tip width against bridge width, roughly
Profile only
- A dorsal hump — Roman, aquiline, hawk
- Bridge straightness — Greek
- Tip rotation — snub, upturned
- Tip projection — button, and every comparison of it
This is why the SERP for these terms is full of surgeon blogs and contains no detectors. It is not that nobody built one — it is that the thing people are asking about is not in the photo they would upload.
How to find your nose shape from a profile photo
- 1
Take a true side view, ninety degrees, not three-quarters. A hump vanishes at any lesser angle and this is the most common reason people misjudge their own nose.
- 2
Hold a straight edge along the bridge from between your brows to the tip. A Roman nose bulges away from it, a Greek nose follows it, a snub nose falls inside it.
- 3
Look at the angle between the base of your nose and your upper lip. Wider than about ninety-five degrees reads as upturned.
- 4
Note how far the tip stands off the face. That is projection, and it separates a button nose from a merely short one.
Nose types — frequently asked questions
How many nose shapes are there?
Charts list anywhere from six to eighteen. The number is a naming convention rather than a finding — nose anatomy varies continuously along several independent axes, and the named types are points people have put labels on.
Which nose measurements can a front photo give me?
Two: width relative to your face, and length relative to that width. Both are reported above. Everything else people want — the dorsal line, tip rotation, tip projection — sits in the profile, and no amount of processing recovers depth from a flat frontal image.
Why can a face analysis tool not tell me my nose type?
Because the defining traits of most named types live in the profile. A dorsal hump, a straight bridge, an upturned tip and tip projection are all invisible from the front. Any tool that reports them from a selfie is guessing.
What is the most common nose shape?
Measured populations cluster near the middle of every axis, so the most common nose is an unremarkable one — average width, average length, a bridge close to straight. The named types describe the tails of those distributions.
Does nose shape change with age?
The bone stops changing after growth, but nasal cartilage continues to change slowly and the skin loses elasticity, so tips tend to drop a little over decades.