I want to get my bangs cut for school but I wear glasses so I don’t know if it will look right…Do you think I should just leave my hair how it is or should I get bangs? – Chaylee
Hi Chaylee,
That is a very good question! Many people jump into bangs not considering how their glasses might effect the whole look. Bangs with glasses can make you look adorable, or like your face is being eaten by glass and hair. You’ll need to consider 3 things before deciding whether to cut bangs, or not. Consider your face shape, the shape of your frames, and your bang style.
Your face shape is the most important factor to consider before deciding on bangs. People’s faces can be roughly divided into three sections: the forehead, the eyebrows to the base of your nose, and the base of your nose to the bottom of your chin. These three sections are rarely divided into equal thirds.
If your forehead occupies more space than the rest of your face, bangs can be a great way to balance your facial proportions. If you’re not wearing glasses, you’re good to go. But what if you are wearing glasses, what then? If the middle section of your face is the smallest section (brows to base of nose), the addition of glasses could really swamp your face. This leads me to the next point you need to consider, glasses style.
As anyone who wears glasses knows, frames can make you look much better, or much worse. When choosing frames you always want to echo what you like, and minimize what you don’t. Listing all the possible combinations would take forever, so I’m going to use my face shape and glasses shape as a teaching example. What’s important to remember here are the lines being created and highlighted.
My face is a bit on the wide side, with a wide jawline. It’s also a little bit short. The worst pair of glasses I ever had were wide and short, and they had a thick black frame. They repeated the lines of my wide jaw and short face making me look doubly wide and square. Now I wear really gigantic glasses with a cat-eye flare, and lighter colored frames. They move the eye up and away from my jaw, turning my wide and short face into something more heart shaped, (which personally, I prefer).
Now imagine I still had those black rectangular frames, then got a blunt straight fringe. Instead of having one accessory highlighting the squareness of my jaw, I would have two! I would be killing my face. Pay attention to the lines your frames are highlighting. If they’re working for you, consider cutting your bangs in a shape that echos the lines of your frames. If they aren’t working for you, whatever you do, do not replicate those lines with bangs!
The last thing you need to consider is bang style. If you want a lighter, texturized fringe, or a side bang you can probably go right ahead, especially if the color of your hair resembles your skin tone. If a blonde with a pale complexion gets bangs cut, she could wear glasses and not worry too much. If the same girl dyes her hair black, those bangs are going to extremely noticeable. If she wears glasses as well, there might be too much stuff going on, and her face might disappear under all the commotion. The stronger the contrast between the tone of your skin and the color of your hair, the more impact your bangs will have on your appearance. This also applies to the thickness and bluntness of your bangs.
Lastly, and most importantly, if you love bangs and you want them, forget everything I said above. Just because a cut, color, or style might not be the most complimentary thing doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it. Life is short, and hair is an amazing tool we can use to express ourselves. If you’re inspired, I think you should go for it. Remember, hair always grows back.
