How to Choose Glasses That Suit Your Face: A Guide from Brooklyn Opticians

Glasses are the only medical device most people wear on their face every waking hour for two or three years. It is worth getting right.

The internet’s advice on this subject is mostly a single idea repeated in a hundred voices: contrast your face shape. That is true, and it is about a third of what actually matters.

Start with face shape — but only start there

The principle is contrast and balance. Angular frames on soft features, softer frames on angular features.

Round face — wider than it is tall, soft jawline. Rectangular and angular frames add definition. A slightly wider frame elongates.

Square face — strong jaw, broad forehead, roughly equal width and length. Round and oval frames soften the angles. Avoid heavy square frames that echo the jaw.

Oval face — balanced proportions. Most shapes work. This is not a compliment so much as a lack of constraint.

Heart-shaped face — wide forehead, narrow chin. Frames that are wider at the bottom, rimless lower edges, and light colors on top restore balance.

Diamond face — narrow forehead and jaw, wide cheekbones. Cat-eye and oval shapes, with detail on the browline.

Rectangular / long face — taller frames add width and shorten the face. Low bridges and decorative temples help.

The rules that matter more than shape

The frame should be as wide as your face. Not wider. The outer edge should sit roughly at the widest part of your face.

Your eyes should sit near the horizontal center of each lens, slightly nasal of center. Eyes sitting high or low in the lens is the most common and most visible fitting error.

The frame top should follow your brow line, not cut across the middle of your eyebrows.

Nothing should touch your cheeks. If frames rest on your cheeks when you smile, they are too large or the bridge is wrong.

The bridge fit decides everything. A bridge that is too wide lets frames slide. Too narrow and they pinch and leave marks. For lower nose bridges — common across many ethnicities and badly served by standard Western frame design — look for Asian fit or alternative fit frames with adjusted nose pads and pantoscopic tilt.

Your prescription constrains your options

This is the part Instagram does not tell you.

Strong nearsighted prescriptions get thick at the lens edge. Smaller frames with less width mean thinner edges. Very large frames make a strong minus prescription look like a bottle bottom, and high-index lens materials only partly compensate.

Strong farsighted prescriptions get thick at the center and magnify your eyes. Smaller frames again help.

Progressive lenses need vertical height in the lens. A trendy narrow frame may not physically fit the corridor between distance and reading zones. There are minimum heights, and a good optician will tell you before you fall in love with a frame that cannot hold your lenses.

Coloring, briefly

Warm undertones — gold, tortoise, warm browns, olive, honey. Cool undertones — silver, black, blue, grey, rose. Contrast against your hair color rather than matching it.

And consider what you actually wear. A frame that fights every outfit you own is not a good frame, however beautiful it is on a shelf.

The measurements that make or break a fit

Before lenses are cut, an optician measures your pupillary distance (the exact separation between your pupils), the segment height for progressives or bifocals, and the vertex distance from lens to eye. Get these wrong by a few millimeters and you get eyestrain, headaches, and a prescription that “feels off” no matter how many times it is rechecked.

This is why buying frames online from a photo of your face is a gamble, and why an in-person fit is not an upsell.

Come see the collection

Eyepic Eye Care carries a curated collection of designer brands across four New York practices, with opticians who fit them properly and explain lens options honestly.

• Park Slope Eye Care — 334 9th St, Brooklyn · (718) 504-8660
• Graham Eye Care — 102 Graham Ave, Brooklyn · (718) 690-2177
• Flatbush Eye Care — 1054 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn · (718) 223-5707
• Harlem Eye Care — 2249 2nd Ave, New York · (212) 201-1201

Book an appointment or call 1-877-239-3742.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use my glasses prescription to order online? Legally yes, though many online prescriptions lack pupillary distance and segment height, which matter enormously.

How long should a pair of glasses last? Prescriptions change and materials wear. Two to three years is typical.

Can you put new lenses in my old frames? Sometimes. Bring them in and an optician can assess whether the frame will survive re-lensing.