About Nose Shapes
Nose Shapes is a free tool that measures your nose from one front photo and tells you where it falls on the nasal index, the scale anthropologists have used since the 1880s. This page explains how it works, how far you can trust it, and who is behind it.
What the analyser measures
The nose shape analyser places 468 landmarks on your face with Google's MediaPipe Face Mesh model. From those points it takes four measurements, all as ratios:
- Nasal index: the width across the nostril wings divided by the height from the root of the nose to its base, times 100. This decides your result.
- Bridge width: the width of the middle of the bridge compared with the width across the nostril wings.
- Tip width: the width of the tip compared with the nostril wings, read as defined, rounded or full.
- Nostril flare: the width across the nostril wings compared with the width of the nostril openings.
The nasal index is sorted into the four published bands: narrow (under 70), medium (70 to 85), broad (85 to 100) and very broad (over 100). The other three rows describe your nose; they do not change the band.
What it does not measure
A front photo cannot see the profile. Whether your bridge is straight, curved or scooped, and whether your tip turns up or down, is a side-view question. That is why the twelve named shapes, from Greek to Bumpy, are guides on this site and never a result. We would rather give you one honest number than twelve guesses.
How accurate is it?
The analyser builds a frame from your eye corners and head axis and measures inside it, so a slight tilt or turn does not skew the result. Every value is a ratio, so photo size and distance do not matter. In our own test, two photos of the same person landed within half a percent of each other.
Expression matters more than the camera. A wide smile spreads the nostrils and raises the index by several points. For a clean reading, use a neutral face, even light and a camera at eye level. If your index is close to a band edge, take two photos and treat the result as a range.
The bridge, tip and flare bands are cut from a sample of 79 faces. They are descriptive, not published norms, so read them as soft.
What happens to your photo
Your photo is analysed on our server. The cropped face and the measurements are stored only until you open the result, then deleted. We do not keep the photo, train models on it or share it. The privacy policy lists the cookies and the analytics and ad services the site uses.
Not medical advice
Nose Shapes describes proportions. It does not diagnose anything and cannot tell you whether you need treatment. If your nose changed shape after an injury, or you have trouble breathing, see a doctor.
Sources
- Topinard, P. (1885). Éléments d'anthropologie générale. The origin of the nasal index bands.
- Thomson, A. and Buxton, L. H. D. (1923). Man's nasal index in relation to certain climatic conditions. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 53, 92 to 122.
- Zaidi, A. A. et al. (2017). Investigating the case of human nose shape and climate adaptation. PLOS Genetics, 13(3), e1006616.
- Kartynnik, Y. et al. (2019). Real-time facial surface geometry from monocular video on mobile GPUs. The MediaPipe Face Mesh model.
Who runs Nose Shapes
Nose Shapes is built and run by 1000 Ventures OÜ, a small company that makes free, single-purpose tools around faces and style. You can see the others on our other tools page. The site is free to use and paid for by ads. Ads never change what the analyser tells you.
Contact
Questions, corrections or a result that looks wrong: michael@1000ventures.io. We read every message.