What nose type do I have? Find it in five answers
Your nose type is usually more than one name: one for the profile and some for the front. Answer what you can see, leave the rest on not sure, and the finder names every type that fits and every one your answers rule out.
Answer five questions about your nose
Your nose type
Not enough answers yet
0 of 5 answered
Pick an answer for any question and the matching names appear here.
Next: measure the width properly with the nose shape tool, or check the size against your own eyes and face with is my nose big.
The short answer
- Two views, two sets of names. Six names describe the profile and four the front. Button needs both views.
- A front selfie cannot give you a profile name. Greek, Roman, hawk, turned-up, snub and scooped are all judged from the side.
- Some combinations have no name. 24 of the 108 possible answer sets get no classic profile name, and that is not a flaw in the nose.
- The counts are thin. The only survey of nose types we could find had its author classify 1,793 pictures himself, and 403 were artworks.
Nose type chart: 11 names side by side
This nose type chart lists what each name needs from the bridge, the tip and the front, which view you need to judge it, and where the name comes from. It is the same rule set the finder above uses, written out, so you can check any answer by hand.
| Nose type | Bridge | Tip | From the front | Judge it from | Where the name comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greek or straight | straight | forward | any | Side photo | Winckelmann's 1764 art history, describing statues, then Class II of Notes on Noses (1848): 'perfectly straight'. |
| Roman | humped | forward | any | Side photo | Class I of Notes on Noses (1848), 'the Roman, or Aquiline Nose', described as 'rather convex, but undulating'. |
| Hawk or hooked | humped | down | any | Side photo | Class IV of the 1848 book, 'very convex' like a bow from eyes to tip, filed under an ethnic label we do not repeat. Topinard (1885) put the hooked nose inside the aquiline family instead. |
| Turned-up or celestial | straight | up | any | Side photo | Class VI of Notes on Noses (1848), 'the Celestial, or Turn-up Nose', which the book defines as concave from the eyes to the tip. This finder files that concave form under snub. |
| Snub | dipped | up | any | Side photo | Classes V and VI of Notes on Noses (1848), filed together, noting that 'a true Celestial Nose is only a Snub turned up'. |
| Scooped or saddle | dipped | forward or down | any | Side photo | A description used in clinic writing; saddle nose is also a medical term for a collapsed bridge. |
| Button | any | up | rounded tip | Side and front | Everyday description rather than a class from any anatomy text. |
| Bulbous or fleshy | any | any | rounded tip | Front photo | Everyday description. Tamir's 2011 survey has a 'fleshy' group, shape 1, which we take to be the same nose. |
| Wide | any | any | wide wings | Front photo | Class III of the 1848 book, the 'Wide-nostrilled Nose', the one class it says is 'seen in full face', not in profile. Later the platyrrhine band of the nasal index. |
| Narrow | any | any | narrow wings | Front photo | The 1848 book called it the 'sharp' nose and left it unclassified, as 'only a negative quality'. Later the leptorrhine band. |
| Crooked or deviated | any | any | bridge off centre | Front photo | A plain description, and in medicine a finding after injury or from the septum. |
Two rows need a warning. Roman and aquiline are one class in the 1848 book, while Topinard's 1885 anthropology uses aquiline for the whole convex family, hooked noses included, so any page that draws a sharp line between them is choosing one source over the other. And the hawk nose was filed in 1848 under an ethnic label, which is why this chart uses only the descriptive half of the name.
Every nose type drawn from the side and the front
Each card is drawn from one set of answers, the same way the preview in the finder is. The count on each card is how many of the 108 possible answer combinations that name fits, which shows how broad each name is in this finder. Load any card into the finder to change one answer at a time and watch which names drop out.
Greek or straightfits 12 of 108
A bridge that runs in one straight line from between the brows to a tip that points forward.
Mixed up with: A straight bridge with a slightly raised tip, which reads as turned-up.
Romanfits 12 of 108
A bridge that rises into a hump partway down, with a tip that still points forward.
Mixed up with: Aquiline, which one source uses for the same nose and another for every convex nose, hooked ones included.
Hawk or hookedfits 12 of 108
A curved bridge whose tip turns downward, like a beak.
Mixed up with: A Roman nose photographed from slightly above, which makes the tip look lower.
Turned-up or celestialfits 12 of 108
A mostly straight bridge ending in a tip that rotates upward, so more of the nostrils show.
Mixed up with: Snub, which adds a dip along the bridge.
Snubfits 12 of 108
A bridge that dips inward, then a tip that turns up.
Mixed up with: Button, which is about a small rounded tip seen from the front.
Scooped or saddlefits 24 of 108
A bridge that dips in the middle, with a tip that does not turn up.
Mixed up with: Saddle nose deformity, which is a loss of bridge support and a medical finding, not a type.
Buttonfits 18 of 108
A small nose with a rounded tip that turns slightly up.
Mixed up with: Bulbous, which is also rounded at the tip but does not have to turn up.
Bulbous or fleshyfits 54 of 108
A tip that reads as round and full compared with the bridge above it.
Mixed up with: A wide nose: the wings can be wide while the tip itself is narrow and defined.
Widefits 36 of 108
Wings set wide compared with the height of the nose. The platyrrhine end of the nasal index.
Mixed up with: A big nose. Width against height is a proportion; it says nothing about size against the face.
Narrowfits 36 of 108
Wings set close compared with the height of the nose. The leptorrhine end of the nasal index.
Mixed up with: A long nose, which can be narrow or not.
Crooked or deviatedfits 54 of 108
A bridge that does not run straight down the middle from the top to the tip.
Mixed up with: A head turned slightly to one side in the photo, which bends the bridge line the same way.
The spread is uneven. Each profile name covers 12 combinations except scooped, which takes 24 because it accepts a tip that points forward or down. Bulbous and crooked each fit half of all combinations, because each asks one yes-or-no question.
How common is each one? The study behind the numbers
The one survey of how often each nose type occurs that we could find is Abraham Tamir, "Numerical survey of the different shapes of the human nose", Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, 2011. The author was in the chemical engineering department at Ben-Gurion University. He sorted 1,793 pictures of noses into 14 groups and reported the share of each.
| Source of the picture | Pictures | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Artworks | 403 | 22.5% |
| Photographs in Holland, Belgium and France | 498 | 27.8% |
| Photographs in Israel | 801 | 44.7% |
| Origin unclear | 91 | 5.1% |
- 24.2%Fleshy, shape 1, the most frequent group. About 434 of the 1,793 pictures.
- 0.45%Shape 4, which the abstract names as the least widespread nose. About eight pictures.
- 0.05%Shape 14, reported separately: one photograph, taken in Israel.
Three things limit what those percentages mean. More than a fifth of the pictures were artworks, not photographs of people. The photographs come from four countries, with 91 of unclear origin. And the author did all the classifying himself, with no second rater reported in the abstract. So 24.2% is a count of one picture collection, not of people in general.
For width alone there is a measurement rather than a judgement. Running our nose shape measurement over our 43 AI generated faces put 5 in the narrow band, 27 in the medium band and 11 in the wide band. Those are synthetic faces, not a sample of people.
Source: Tamir A. Numerical survey of the different shapes of the human nose. J Craniofac Surg. 2011;22(3):1104-7, abstract via PubMed 21586956. Counts per source are from the abstract; the per-picture figures for 24.2% and 0.45% are our arithmetic on 1,793.
How to read your own profile
Two of the five answers need a side view. A phone on a shelf and the timer are enough.
- 1
Set the phone at nose height
Stand side-on, about 1.5 metres away, and use the 2x lens if you have one. A close camera changes how a nose looks.
- 2
Keep your chin level
The top of the ear hole and the bottom of the eye socket should sit on one horizontal line.
- 3
Draw the bridge line
On the photo, draw a straight line from the dip between your brows to the tip of your nose.
- 4
Read the bridge
Nose bulges above the line: humped. A gap between line and nose: dipped. Touching along its length: straight.
- 5
Read the tip
If you can see into the nostril from the side, it turns up. If the tip hangs lower than the point where the nose meets the lip, it turns down.
- 6
Take a second photo
Relax the face and repeat. If the answer changes between the two photos, pick Not sure.
The front answers are easier, and one of them can be measured. Width here means the nasal index: the distance across the wings divided by the height from the top of the bridge to the base, times 100. The nose shape measurement reads it from landmark points on a front photo, and the photo option in the finder uses the same code. Whether a nose is big for the face is a separate question, answered against your own eyes and face width on the nose-to-face proportion check.
Questions people ask about their nose
What nose type do I have?
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Answer two questions about your profile and three about the front, and the finder at the top of this page names every type that fits. You need a side photo for the first two: lay a straight edge from the dip between your brows to the tip and see whether the bridge bulges above it, dips below it or runs along it, then check whether the tip turns up, points forward or hangs down. Width, tip roundness and a crooked line are front-view questions, and width can be measured from a photo instead of guessed. Your answers usually give one profile name and some front names, because the popular names describe different parts of the nose.
What are the different types of noses?
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The names you will see most are Greek or straight, Roman, hawk or hooked, turned-up or celestial, snub, scooped, button, bulbous or fleshy, wide, narrow and crooked. That is eleven. Six of them come from one 1848 book, Notes on Noses, which used them to read character. Other lists split and merge them differently, and Tamir's 2011 survey used 14 groups. The count changes because the names are descriptions of a bridge, a tip or a width, and every list splits and merges those descriptions differently. None of the lists is an anatomical standard.
What is the most common nose type?
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The only survey counting nose types that we could find is Abraham Tamir's 2011 paper in the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, and it found the fleshy nose most often, 24.2% of 1,793 pictures. Read the sample before repeating it: 403 of the pictures were artworks, 1,299 photographs were taken in Israel, Holland, Belgium and France, 91 are of unclear origin, and the author, from Ben-Gurion University's chemical engineering department, did the classifying himself. So 24.2% describes that picture set. No population study of nose types that we could find exists to replace it.
What is the rarest nose type?
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Tamir's 2011 survey names shape 4 as the least widespread nose, at 0.45% of 1,793 pictures, about eight noses. It reports shape 14 separately, as 0.05%: a single photograph taken in Israel. Both numbers come from one person sorting one set of pictures, so they tell you what was rare in that set rather than in people. In the finder on this page, a humped bridge with a turned-up tip, or a straight bridge with a drooping tip, gets no classic profile name at all. Those two make up 24 of the 108 possible answer combinations.
Can you have two nose types?
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Yes, and usually you have more than one name at once. The profile names and the front names describe different things, so a nose can be Roman from the side and wide with a rounded tip from the front, all at the same time. Even the 1848 book that popularised the type names said so: between its six classes there are, in its words, infinite crosses and intermixtures. It also admitted that its third class, the wide-nostrilled nose, is judged in full face while the others are judged in profile. The finder gives at most one profile name, because it asks for a single bridge answer.
Does your nose type change with age?
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The width can. A 3D study of 456 people aged 14 to 83 found the nose lengthened and widened with age, and a study of Korean women measured average width rising from 39.6 mm at ages 20 to 39 to 43.8 mm at 60 to 79, while nose height stayed the same. On a borderline nose that is enough to move the width answer from medium to wide. The profile names are about the shape of the bridge and the angle of the tip, and we found no study that follows those names through adult life. A broken nose can change the answers too, by pushing the bridge off centre.
Sources: Eden Warwick [George Jabet], Notes on Noses, London 1848, Project Gutenberg edition · Topinard, Elements d'anthropologie generale, Paris 1885 · Tamir, J Craniofac Surg 2011 · Veleminska et al., Scientific Reports 2022 (N=456) · Kwon et al. 2021 (Korean women, age groups).