The Best (and Worst) Bangs for Heart-Shaped Faces

Today we continue with the next face shape in our bangs series: the heart face. (Check out the previous ones—round, long and square—and check back weekly for the forthcoming inverted triangle, pear, diamond and oval shapes.)

If you've got a heart-shaped face, then be proud! Because you're really unique. It took me quite some time to come up with celebrity examples for this one, because true heart faces simply aren't very common. That's because they always have a widow's peak, which forms the “V” of the heart. (So don't mix up a heart-shaped face with the inverted triangle shape, which we'll be focusing on next week.) What also made this one a challenge is the fact that many celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, undergo laser hair removal to actually get rid of their widow's peak hairlines.

Please don't do that! While a pointed hairline can undoubtedly make bangs a bit more challenging, I'm all about embracing your natural gifts from Mother Nature and finding a way to work with them, not against them. Today, we'll go over some bang ideas to help you get inspired (and aware of what to avoid). Of course, the heart-shaped face can be absolutely gorgeous with hair worn straight back, as you'll see on Kourtney Kardashian in a second.

Remember to keep your own natural hair type in mind when considering these pics, and bring them to your hair appointment to show your stylist exactly what you mean.

Nobody in Hollywood right now has a more definitive heart-shaped face than Kourtney Kardashian. Personally, I love when she wears her hair up to completely show it off. Like I said, a heart-shaped face will always have a widow's peak, a V-shaped growth of hair at the centre of the forehead. However, that does not mean that everyone with a widow's peak automatically has a heart face shape. (Brooke Shields, for example, is more of a square, and despite her very prominent widow's peak, Alyson Hannigan is a pear.) You have to look at the predominant shape—and in the case of a heart person, they have the widest point of the face at the forehead, and then it tapers down to the narrowest point at the chin.

The Best Bangs for Heart-Shaped Faces

Bardot bangs: How adorable are these?! The highly versatile Bardot bangs, which we've seen work time and time again on many different faces, go particularly well with Kourtney's heart shape. They're cut just slightly longer at the outer edges, and naturally want to separate a bit in the centre, which is where the widow's peak is. Pretty much everyone with a widow's peak will have a natural cowlick there, and you don't need to fight it. Let the bangs separate where they want to—because it can look great!

Curtain bangs: Eva Longoria is wearing the grown-out version of Kourtney Kardashian's bangs, which are long curtain bangs that hit just above the jaw. That length helps to add width at the narrowest part of the face, near the chin, and because they're so long, they have enough weight to behave with the cowlick. (Although Eva herself doesn't have too much to worry about, as her widow's peak isn't very pronounced.)

Long, textured bangs: You can wear straight-across bangs with a heart face shape; you just need to keep them long and softly textured, like Kelly Hu is demonstrating here. The length and thickness help weigh down any cowlicks so that the bangs lie more flat, and the texturing breaks up the horizontal line—which is important because you don't need the widest part of the face, the forehead, to look even wider.

Choppy bangs: Another variation on the straight-across bang are these choppy ones on Kerry Washington. Like Kelly Hu's, they're long, medium-weight and broken up at the ends. I think these ones in particular look amazing with the textured waves in the rest of her hair; the eyebrow-skimming length really brings out her eyes.

Long, side-swept bangs: Like Kourtney Kardashian, Coté de Pablo has a beautiful, strong widow's peak in her hairline that she chooses to show off instead of hide. A long and side-swept bang can do the same thing for you—it gives the hair a little lift on one side of the “V”, and then swoops down to flirt over the opposite eye. You can't go wrong with this style.

Side-swept bangs: Is it possible to have side-swept bangs that cover the forehead with a heart-shaped face? Maybe. Milla Jovovich is wearing hers well here, although you can see that the hair does want to separate at the widow's peak, instead of staying together as one unit. So just be aware that you'll have to fight that a bit—I suggest blowdrying your bangs into place immediately after washing your hair, so they don't have a chance to air-dry into their natural position.

The Worst Bangs for Heart-Shaped Faces

Wondering what not to do? Here are a few noteworthy examples:

Heavy, blunt bangs: Kerry Washington's bangs here are far less amazing than the ones I showed you before. That's because these ones are super-heavy, cut from higher up on the head, and without any texturizing to break up the line. With the eye-hiding length and the way they've been dried into a rounded shape, they just look way too heavy for her petite face. A heavy bang can easily dwarf the narrow bottom half of a heart-shaped face.

Heavy, curled bangs: Beautiful Milla Jovovich can get away with these bangs, but I still don't think they're the best choice for her. It looks like they've been cut deliberately thick, from high up on the crown, so that they will lie flat without the cowlick forcing a separation. As was the case with Kerry, they're so long and heavy that they overwhelm the rest of her features.

Wispy bangs: I'm not a fan of thin, wispy bangs on anyone—but they are particularly problematic for heart-shaped people because of the cowlick. It's kind of like Goldilocks with bang thickness: you don't want them too thick (like Kerry Washington), but you don't want them too thin, either (like Eva Longoria here). I don't think they necessarily look bad on her in this photo, but they'd be damn hard to control with a strong widow's peak, not to mention how quickly they'd clump together on an oily/sweaty forehead. I think something like Kelly Hu's fuller style is the way to go: just right.

Thin bangs: Here's another example of thin bangs, this time on Kristanna Loken. Hers are even worse than Eva's, since they're sticking together in defined sections (which contrast in a really dated way with the curls in the rest of her hair). The other thing that can happen with bangs like this—and I know because it's happened to me—is that the cowlick in the widow's peak can make the piece of hair actually curl instead of lie flat. To hide that, it would be much better if she had more weight in these bangs, with a bit of choppiness on the ends.

Straight-across bangs with a bob: One caution when you do straight-across bangs on a heart-shaped face is that you never want to pair them with a chin-length bob. Jenny McCarthy had this style for a hot minute a few years ago, and you can see why she's never done it since. The horizontal line of the bangs combined with the rest of the hair stopping at the jaw really emphasizes the pointed chin of a heart-shaped face, and makes the lower half look really narrow.

Curled, separated bangs: If you look her up, it's clear that Juliette Lewis has a bang problem. Hers just never seem to want to stay together. I sympathize, but I'd also like to suggest that instead of this odd curled-under and side-parted style, she try something like Kourtney Kardashian's Bardot bangs. I think that, and maybe a little texturizing, would go a long way toward giving her a more defined and flattering style.

What‣s your favourite style of bangs for a heart-shaped face?
If you have a heart-shaped face, which hairstyles have worked for you?
What‣s the worst style for heart-shaped faces?