The Oval as Feminine

A glimpse into my brain:  is that what it means?  I can’t believe I’ve never stumbled onto that path before:  oval, ova, egg, egg-shaped …

Am I the only one who thinks these kinds of things?

The background to this post:

Recently I observed a female acquaintance, one with very short hair but whose feminine appearance I had never questioned.  Until this one day.  It wasn’t that I thought her unfeminine at first, but something was definitely less attractive than her usual.  After a moment of dissecting her presentation, I concluded that her short, tidy hair combined with a collared shirt and no makeup somehow added one too many “masculine” points to her look.  Which lead to wondering whether a quiz could be developed to help pin-point that fine line, because, face it, we all know lovely, very feminine ladies with short hair who don’t wear makeup.  What is it that makes those ladies unquestionably feminine?  And what is it about taking away some of the “feminine” which equates to less attractive, even somehow boring?

And now for the personal application part.  Somewhere I picked up the following concept (any idea where?):

oval = feminine

rectangle = masculine

Tracing my recent hair makeover, what do you notice in terms of my face and hair shape? 

before-hair.JPGimgp5875.JPGfront-view.JPGimgp5966.JPG

6 thoughts on “The Oval as Feminine”

  1. The reason oval is feminine and rectangle is masculine is that straight lines are masculine and curved lines are feminine.

    Women who look great with short hair tend to have very feminine faces – high pronounced cheekbones, big eyes, full lips, small noses – thus more feminine faces to start with.

    They tend to be the people who look gorgeous without any makeup (think Halle Berry, or Sharon Stone, Sinead O’Connor).

    Also, there is also a measurement regarding the length of the jawline – shorter faces and shorter jaws look better with shorter haircuts. Longer faces need longer hair or more volume.

    Short square faces can look great with short hair, but whether oblong or rectangle, the long jaw tends not to work so well with short hair.

    Is this making any sense?

  2. Imogen – that makes perfect sense! In light of the common belief that “you can find everything on the internet”, I wonder why you can’t find this information.

    And it makes me really sad. I kept hoping one day I would stumble upon the thing I could do to transform myself into one of those women who don’t have to wear makeup. 🙁

    ev – that is really interesting!

  3. You look lovely! I don’t think it’s the oval/recatangle distinction, it’s hard vs soft. A man-style collared shirt is “hard”, your mocha and white shirt is “soft”. A bit of makeup softens, too much makeup or no makeup is hard.

    The older a woman is, the more she has to be careful about too hard, unless she wishes to project a tough image. I see some women of 45 or 50 who wore polo shirts and cords at 20, the cute tomboy look, but it no longer flatters.

  4. Oh, thank you so much!

    Hmmm. That actually makes so much sense, it might make things much easier. Even the oval/rectangle fits as the oval would be soft, the rectangle hard. Carrying those thoughts over to why extra weight on a person of either gender seems to work against them, it makes sense that weight softens a man, but how does weight “harden” a woman? I guess it erases her *delicate* softness. And what is is about age that toughens a woman?

    Great insight! Thanks for sharing!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.