What’s the Ideal Midface Length? How to Shorten It and Recommended Treatments

Did you know that “midface-shortening makeup” is popular right now?
This makeup technique makes the vertical length of your face look shorter, giving you a younger, smaller-face appearance.
This article details the ideal midface length, why the midface can look long, and ways to shorten it beyond makeup.
If your midface length concerns you, please read to the end.

What Is the Midface?

Source: Must-Read for Anyone Who Wants a Shorter Midface! Three Causes of a Longer Look and How to Improve It | MAe Clinic

The midface refers to the middle portion of the face — when divided horizontally into three sections, it’s the area “from the eyebrows to below the nose.”
The length of this midface is a major factor shaping your overall facial balance and impression.

Those with a longer midface have a lower face that looks longer, giving what’s called a “long face” appearance.
This type conveys an intelligent, calm, mature impression.
However, with age, as muscle and skin support weakens and sagging appears, it can create an aged impression, or make the face look stretched out with more empty space, appearing larger.

Conversely, those with a shorter midface have features that convey a cute, youthful impression.
The whole face takes on a soft, rounded quality, creating a gentle, approachable atmosphere.
Since the distance between the eyes and mouth is shorter, the eyes can also look bigger as a result.
And with less empty space, the face can look smaller overall too.

What Is the Ideal Midface Length?

The average midface length for Japanese people is said to be about 6.5 cm.
To measure your midface, stand facing a mirror and measure the distance from the bridge of your nose (between your eyebrows) to your upper lip.

The golden ratio is said to be an upper face (hairline to lower eyebrow), midface (lower eyebrow to below the nose), and lower face (nose tip to chin tip) balance of 1 : 1 : 0.8–1.

Source: Must-Read for Anyone Who Wants a Shorter Midface! Three Causes of a Longer Look and How to Improve It | MAe Clinic

Can Lifestyle Habits Make the Midface Longer?

A longer-looking midface isn’t only caused by aging — everyday lifestyle habits play a role too.
Reviewing your habits and unconscious tendencies can help prevent it, so let’s check them.

Extended Phone Use

Long hours of phone use can turn looking downward into a habit, placing strain on the entire face.
Continuing this posture stiffens the muscles around the neck and jaw, becoming a cause of sagging in the facial line and midface.
A hunched posture also has a major effect on the facial line and facial muscles.
A hunched back in particular strains the neck muscles, and over time carries the risk of stiffening them.
To improve your posture, it helps to stay consciously mindful of it daily and incorporate exercises that strengthen your back muscles.
When using your phone, it’s important to take regular breaks and maintain correct posture.

Mouth Breathing

We normally breathe naturally through the nose and mouth, but if breathing with an open mouth becomes a habit, the muscles around the mouth loosen, which can be a cause of facial changes.
Nasal breathing lets the upper jaw grow correctly forward, but continued mouth breathing can cause the lower jaw to extend downward, making the face more prone to a long-face appearance.
Furthermore, when mouth breathing causes the lower jaw to become small and recessed, making the whole face look disproportioned, this is called “adenoid facies.”

Aging

With age, the facial muscles and skin gradually lose the battle with gravity and descend.
For example, many people notice hollowed temples, cheeks sagging outward, or sagging around the jaw and facial line.
As the face’s center of gravity drops, more people take on a longer-looking appearance.
Many people notice changes in facial contour starting around age 30, though some feel it as early as their 20s.
The length of your face isn’t determined solely by your original bone structure, but poor posture can accelerate the change.

How Can You Shorten Your Midface?

So are there ways to shorten the midface?
This section introduces approaches from both makeup and cosmetic surgery.

Making Under-Eye Bags Look Fuller

Making the eyes look larger downward has the effect of making the midface look shorter.

Cosmetic Surgery

Treatments such as hyaluronic acid injections for under-eye bags and “glamorous line” formation (lower eyelid expansion surgery) are effective.

Hyaluronic acid injection is quick and involves almost no downtime, making it a popular, accessible treatment.
Plumping the under-eye bags makes the midface look shorter and improves balance.
Glamorous line formation, meanwhile, is a procedure that slightly lowers the line of the lower eyelid to create a softer, downturned-eye look.
This too reduces the midface’s empty space and is popular among those who want a softer overall facial impression.

Makeup
Drawing under-eye bags or a mucosal-extension line fills in the empty space beneath the eyes, expected to make the middle part of the face look shorter.

1. Take a matte shadow color on a brush and apply it along the entire lower lash line to the width of under-eye bag you want.

2. Press glitter into place under the iris using a fine-tip applicator.

3. For more definition, take the darkest color on a thin flat brush and draw a line for the shadow beneath the under-eye bag, avoiding the inner corner of the eye, then blend gently with a fine cotton swab to finish.

Source: Shorten Your Face Length with Natural Under-Eye Bags! Three Eye-Makeup Techniques for a Fuller Look [Kaori Nagai’s Beauty-Problem-Solving Makeup Class] | Beauty Media VOCE

Making the Philtrum Look Shorter

Cosmetic Surgery
Philtrum reduction surgery shortens the space between the nose and upper lip (the philtrum).
Specifically, an incision is made along the line from both sides of the nose to the cheeks, and the orbicularis oris muscle — which supports mouth movement — is pulled closer to the nasal bone and sutured.
Skin below the nose is then trimmed by a few millimeters, shortening the distance between the nose and upper lip.
This surgery shortens the area below the nose, creating a more balanced facial appearance.

Makeup
1. Take a shading face color on a brush, apply lightly just below the nose, and blend thoroughly.

Creating a shadow below the nose shortens the distance between nose and mouth, balancing the face.
For shading, choosing a color slightly darker than your usual foundation gives a more natural finish.
Using a brush and blending carefully to create a natural gradation is important.

2. Using a lip liner close to your natural lip color, outline the upper lip about 1mm outside your actual lip line, and blend carefully inward.

Adjusting your lip liner so the Cupid’s bow aligns with the extended line of your nostrils makes the lips look fuller and creates the impression of a shorter distance between nose and mouth.

3. Apply highlighter to the Cupid’s bow of the upper lip.

Gathering light here adds definition to the mouth area, resolving the elongated look of the philtrum.
Source: Shorten the Area Below Your Nose with “Philtrum-Shortening Makeup” and Say Goodbye to a Stretched-Out, Flat Face♪ | Beauty Info | Shiseido

Reducing Cheek Fat

Cosmetic Surgery
One cause of a longer-looking midface is excess fat around the cheeks.
Among that fat, removing “malar fat” — the fat located specifically around the cheekbones — in particular can make the midface look shorter.
This procedure suctions fat through an incision inside the mouth (inside the corner of the lips), so no visible scarring remains.
Recovery takes about a week, but afterward the cheeks’ empty space decreases, making it easier to achieve overall facial balance.

Makeup
Use shading and highlighter to create dimension, cleaning up the cheek contour.

Take a shading color one shade darker than your skin tone on a small brush and apply lightly below the nose and below the lower lip; along the facial line down to the chin tip (the red dotted area), use a larger brush for light shading.
The key is a light touch — applying too heavily looks unnatural.
Next, using a small brush, apply highlighter to the bridge of the nose, the tip of the nose, and the Cupid’s bow (the white dotted area).
Creating depth with shading and dimension with highlighter adds definition to the whole face, resolving the flat, elongated look.
Source: Slim Your Face with “Midface-Shortening Makeup.” Solve That Flat, Stretched-Out Look! | Beauty Info | Shiseido

KADOMORI’s Recommended Treatments

If you want a smaller face, please come to KADOMORI.
Our professionals provide treatment tailored to each individual, helping you approach your ideal smaller face.
Here are three treatments we especially recommend.

Face-Slimming Design HIFU

Using our own original HIFU technology, KADOMORI’s face-design professionals tailor each treatment to your face, realizing your ideal design.
High-intensity focused ultrasound works on the deep layers — the very foundation — of the skin, thoroughly caring for wrinkles and sagging.

Face-Sculpting Facial ＜Cavitation＞

Using an ultrasonic device known as “liposuction without surgery,” we work directly on the fat-cell membranes in the areas that concern you.
This treatment slims down a double chin and excess flesh that’s noticeable along the facial line when smiling, and improves lymph flow to reduce the thickness of fat.

Face-Slimming Lift Photo

By simultaneously delivering IPL (light) and RF (radio-frequency) heat, we draw out a synergistic effect.
This treatment promotes the production of high-quality collagen, restoring the skin’s natural elasticity, improving sagging and enlarged pores, and guiding you to firm, beautiful skin.

Concerned About Your Midface? Consult KADOMORI!

If you want a smaller face than you have now, want a cleaner facial line, or feel you have no choice but to accept it because of age, please consult KADOMORI.
Let’s aim to resolve your concerns together, with careful counseling and treatment.