Haircuts for Round Faces: 26 Styles for Men, From Crops to Long Curls

A choppy top gives a round face its angles without asking you to blow-dry anything tall, and the skin fade keeps the sides tight. The fringe falls on an angle, the opposite of the heavy straight-across fringe barbers warn against. Ed Sheeran has often been photographed with textured, layered hair. Our textured crop guide has 28 more.

A fringe cut heavy and straight across makes a round face look wider, so this French crop is point cut into short, uneven pieces that stop above the brow, and the mid fade keeps the sides tight. Work in a little matte clay with your fingers.

Pete & Pedro lists the Ivy League for round faces when the top is left a little longer than a crew cut, with a light part or a brush-up, and this one takes the part. It also goes by the Harvard Clip or the Princeton (the names give away which campuses it grew up on). Elijah Wood has often been photographed with side-parted cuts with volume on top.

Cut on a diagonal from one temple, an angular fringe draws the line a round face doesn’t have, and the tapered sides keep the width off. (The mint is optional, though it does make the angle easy to spot.) Our textured fringe guide has 21 more fringes.

Height is the usual advice, but you need hair on top to build it. “A well-cut textured crop or short back and sides without the added height still looks deliberate,” says The VOU. Our guide to haircuts for a receding hairline covers a hairline on the move.

Where the hair on top is still full, leave enough to sweep over. Short back and sides with some length on top suits a round face, and taking the front to one side adds some asymmetry.

A slick back keeps the top sleek and the sides narrow. This one is cut short, with some wave left in, and the low fade starts just above the ears. A shiny pomade combed through gives it the finish. Our guide to fade haircuts has 38 fades, low to high.

A hard part shaves a straight line into a round outline, and the wavy top combs over it. The fade is blended softly into the sides, and the mustache is entirely your own business.

This quiff is swept up and back like a pompadour, but it sits lower, and the high skin fade and stubble give it harder edges. The VOU pairs a quiff with a beard kept fuller at the chin than at the sides, and a short stubble beard is the low-commitment version of that.

“The quiff adds vertical length, contrasting with the round outline,” says The VOU. Here it’s built from curls pushed up and forward, and the high fade stops them spreading at the sides. James Corden has often been photographed with a quiff.

“This hairstyle will elongate the face, giving you the illusion of height to balance the wider lower jawline,” says barber Nick Hall. It takes a blow-dryer and a matte pomade every morning (the name comes from Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s mistress). You’ll find 39 more in our guide to medium-length haircuts.

Nick Hall warns that long hair without layers can weigh down a round face. Here long layers run through the waves past the shoulders, and a deep side part puts the line off center. Our long haircuts guide has 31 more.

Short sides keep the width down, and a mullet keeps its sides short and saves its length for the back. The top here is swept back too, and the mustache is a separate decision. Our modern mullet guide has 19 more.

Wavy hair shrinks as it dries and spreads outward as well as up, so a wavy top brings width along with its height. A fade at the temple takes the width back out and leaves the waves on top. Our curly hairstyles guide has 101 more, from tight coils to long ringlets.

Pile the curls on top and take the sides short, and the shape goes up. Swept to one side, they add a diagonal across the forehead too. Alfred Enoch has often been photographed with his natural curls. On a humid day, four inches of curls will make their own plans, so keep a curl cream by the door.

A buzz takes the height away. A short boxed beard, kept shorter at the sides and a little longer underneath, adds some length below the jaw without adding width at the cheeks. Our buzz cut guide runs from no guard to a number 8.

The beard here is grown long and full, cheeks included, which is more than the Beard Club’s round-face advice asks for. For the same look with less width, ask for the cheek line taken up and keep the length at the chin. The slicked side part and skin fade put a diagonal and some height on top.

The Beard Club’s picks for a round face include pointed styles like the anchor and the Van Dyke, because a pointed chin adds sharp angles to the lower face. This one narrows from the cheeks to a point, under a skin fade.

Round faces lack hard lines, so this crop gets two: the line-up is cut square at the corners of the forehead. A high skin fade keeps the sides narrow, and gray hair this short needs nothing more than a wash.

A ducktail tapers to a point below the jaw, so it stretches the face downward. This one has been grown long enough to need its own comb, and the swept-back top adds some height at the other end.

With no hair on top, the beard sets the outline. The Beard Club warns that a chin strap with no length at the chin only outlines a round face, so this one widens below the mouth, under a horseshoe mustache.

A low fade holds the sides close, and the afro keeps its height on top, so natural hair follows the same rule as a pompadour. Our guide to haircuts for Black men has 38 more, from low cuts to locs.

Twists stand up on top while the faded sides stay tight, so all the growth goes upward. The goatee adds a little length at the bottom of the face to match the height at the top.

This one keeps the curls short and even all over the top, with no quiff to build. A skin fade suits tight curls on a round face, since the curls stay on top while the sides go to skin. Our taper fade guide has 53 versions, from a low taper to a skin fade.

Pete & Pedro puts a textured quiff with a high taper on its round-face list, and this spiky version takes the idea further up. The spikes give a soft outline a few angles, and the high skin fade takes the sides to skin well above the ears.

Pete & Pedro’s round-face list starts with short back and sides under a textured top, and this is the low-effort take. The top is cut choppy and left messy, and the sides are tapered with scissors, so there’s no fade line to keep sharp between visits.