What your jawline score means
The jawline score answers a plain question: how does my jaw measure up? It gives you one number out of 100 for your jaw and chin, then shows every jaw reading behind it against its typical band, so you can see where the number comes from instead of taking it on trust. The result has four parts.
- Your jaw and chin sub-score. A number from 0 to 100 where 50 is a typical face. It is not a new scale: it is the jaw and chin component of the attractiveness test, exactly as that score computes it.
- The formula with your numbers. The three front measures it is built from, each with its weight and its own score, added up in front of you.
- Your jaw readings. Eight measurements of the jaw and chin, each with your value, the band a typical face falls in, and whether you sit inside it, below it or above it.
- The drawing on your photo. The jaw traced from corner to corner round the chin, with the jaw, chin and cheekbone widths and the angle at each corner, so you can check that the landmarks sit where your jaw really is.
A sub-score above 50 means your jaw measures closer to the formula’s ideals than a typical face does. Below 50 means further from them. The tier name under the number (average, above average and so on) is the same tier the attractiveness test would give a whole face at that level, so the two pages always read the same way.
- front measures in the sub-score
- 3
- jaw readings shown against a band
- 8
- a typical face’s sub-score
- 50
- the jaw’s weight in the full score
- 15%
What a high or low score does and doesn’t say
The score says how your jaw’s proportions compare with the averages and ideals the research supports. It doesn’t say whether your jaw is healthy, whether your bite is right, or whether anyone will find you attractive. Faces are judged as a whole: a jaw that scores 45 on a face with clear skin, an easy expression and good symmetry reads very differently from the same jaw on its own. In the full attractiveness score the jaw and chin carry 15% of the weight. Symmetry and averageness, the two features with the strongest evidence behind them, carry 40% between them.
How the jawline score is measured
The scan places 478 landmarks on your face with Google’s MediaPipe Face Landmarker, running in your browser. It captures the front view as a short burst of frames, combines them, and turns the mesh back to face the camera, so a small turn of the head doesn’t make one side of the jaw look narrower. From the frontal mesh it takes three measures for the score.
- Jaw width ÷ cheekbone width. The distance between the two jaw corners (landmarks 172 and 397), as a share of the width across the cheekbones. On the average face it is 78%. Weight in the sub-score: 0.45.
- Jaw corner angle, front view. The angle at each jaw corner between the line up to the cheekbone and the line down to the chin, averaged over both sides. Smaller is a squarer, more angular corner. On the average face it is 132°. Weight: 0.30.
- Chin width ÷ cheekbone width. The width across the chin, between the points either side of it on the face outline, as a share of the cheekbone width. On the average face it is 30%. Weight: 0.25.
Each measure gets its own score from 0 to 100 with the same rule the whole attractiveness score uses. The formula knows three things about it: the value on the average face, the ideal value, and how far a typical real face sits from the average. A measure scores exactly 50 when it is as far from the ideal as a typical face is, more when it is closer and less when it is further, on a smooth curve that never goes past 0 or 100. Your sub-score is the weighted mean:
jaw = 0.45 × jaw width score + 0.30 × corner angle score + 0.25 × chin width score
That is the formula the result prints with your own numbers in it, and it is the jaw and chin component published on the methodology page, where you can see the curve, the ideals and how the component enters the 1 to 10 score. The jawline score adds nothing to it and leaves nothing out.
Why the ideals sit where they do
Jaw width, chin width and the jaw corner are among the clearest differences between male and female faces, and preferences for them differ by sex. Reviews of the attractiveness research find that a broader jaw and a more angular corner read as more masculine and a narrower, softer lower face as more feminine, with the female preference much more consistent than the male one. Because the scan asks nothing about you, it uses the midpoint of the two ideals, which sits close to the average face. That is why an average jaw scores near the middle and a very wide or very narrow one scores lower either way.
The readings shown but not scored
The table under your score holds five more readings, the same ones the full report prints for the jaw and chin. They are shown against their bands so you can see your whole jaw, but they don’t change the sub-score.
- Jaw symmetry. How closely the two sides of the jawline mirror each other, 0 to 100. The typical band is 50 to 90. The mirror score for your whole face is on the face symmetry test.
- Width to height ratio. The cheekbone width over the height from the brows to the top of the upper lip, the facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) defined by Carré and McCormick. It is on mesh points, so it is not comparable with the photo studies that use it.
- Lower face length. The base of the nose to the chin, as a share of face height: the lower third. The facial ratios calculator shows all three thirds.
- Gonial angle. The angle at the back of the jaw seen from the side, from the turned views of the camera scan. The typical band is the mean face’s 125° plus or minus 6°.
- Chin projection. How far the chin sits in front of, or behind, a vertical through the bridge of the nose, also from the turned views.
The gonial angle and chin projection are part of the profile component of the full score, not the jaw component, which is why they are not in the sub-score. The side profile analysis is the tool built around them.
What the numbers mean
Every band on the result is centred on the average face, so “outside the band” means “further from the average face than a typical face”, in the direction named. It is never a percentile and never a grade. Here is how to read each one.
Jaw width and chin width
A jaw above the band is wide for your cheekbones. Faces like that tend to look square from the front, and the face shape detector leans toward square for them. A jaw below the band tapers more from the cheekbones down, which reads as a heart or diamond face. The band is narrow, 3% either side of the average, because the engine’s own notes call anything inside it close to the mean face. Chin width works the same way: a broad chin squares off the lower face, a narrow one points it.
The jaw corner from the front
From the front, the corner angle says how sharply the jaw turns from the cheek toward the chin. A smaller angle is a more defined, angular corner. A larger one is a rounder, more tapered jaw. The band is 3° either side of the average face. This is not the gonial angle: it is the corner as the camera sees it head on, and it moves with body fat and the chewing muscle as much as with bone.
The gonial angle from the side
On X-rays of adults, average gonial angles in published studies sit around 120-126°, with about two in three people within 6-8° of that. Women average a few degrees higher than men, and the angle tends to widen with age and after tooth loss. Our scan measures the soft-tissue surface from the turned views, so it reads a little wider than the bone and can’t see through a beard. The jawline and gonial angle guide has the studies and the full detail.
What changes a jawline, and what doesn’t
The internet is full of promises to sharpen a jawline in weeks. Most of them confuse the bone with what covers it. The two behave very differently.
What changes the bone
- Growth. The jaw keeps growing into the late teens and early twenties, more in men. After that the bony shape is largely set.
- Surgery and implants. Jaw surgery, chin and jaw implants and, in some cases, fillers change the outline. These are medical decisions with real risks, for a surgeon to discuss, not something a score should push you toward.
- Tooth loss and age. Over decades, losing teeth and bone remodelling open the gonial angle and shorten the lower face.
What changes how the jaw looks
- Body fat. Fat under the chin and along the jaw softens the outline more than anything else. Research on facial adiposity finds people read a leaner face as healthier, and losing weight is the most reliable way a jawline looks sharper. It also moves the score, because the landmarks follow the visible outline.
- The chewing muscle. The masseter sits over the jaw corner. A larger muscle widens the lower face; it grows with heavy chewing and clenching and shrinks without it.
- Beard and hair. A beard can square, lengthen or hide the jaw, which is why the scan asks for a clear jawline.
- Posture. Pushing the head forward and dropping the chin blurs the line under the jaw. Holding your head level shows it. This changes a photo in seconds, and changes nothing about the bone.
Mewing and jaw exercises
Mewing, holding the tongue against the roof of the mouth, is the most repeated jawline tip online. There are no controlled trials showing it changes adult jaw bone, and the before and after photos that circulate usually differ in head angle, lighting, weight or age. Chewing gum and jaw trainers can enlarge the masseter, which widens the lower face rather than defining it, and heavy use can strain the jaw joint. The mewing before and after guide goes through the evidence in detail.
If you want to track a change honestly, scan the same way each time: same light, same distance, head level, face relaxed, hair off the jaw. Compare the readings, not the photos. A change smaller than a couple of points on the sub-score, or a degree or two on an angle, is within the scan’s own noise.
Getting a clean reading
- Head level. Tilting the chin down hides the jaw corners and pushes the angle up; tilting it up does the opposite. Look straight at the camera.
- Relaxed jaw. Clenching bulges the chewing muscle and widens the jaw. Keep the teeth apart and the lips closed.
- Hair back. Hair falling over the jaw corners moves the outline the landmarks follow.
- Even light. A shadow under the jaw can look like a sharper line than there is, and strong light from one side makes one half look narrower.
- The camera scan for the side. An uploaded photo gives the front readings. For the gonial angle and chin projection, use the camera and turn your head when the scan asks.
How this compares with other jawline tests
Some jawline rating tools give one number with no way to see where it came from. This page does the opposite: the number is a published formula, every input is a measurement you can see drawn on your own photo, and every band is printed next to your value. That makes it less flattering and more useful. If a reading looks wrong, the drawing shows you why, usually a beard, a tilt or a shadow.
What the full analysis adds
The jawline score reads one region. The full face analysis scans your face from five angles and reads every region against its band: eyes and brows, nose, lips, jaw and chin, and your profile from both sides. Its free result is your attractiveness score with all six components, the jaw among them.
The Full Face Report ($14.99, paid once) then ranks which measurements hold your score back the most, with a plan for the ones you can change and an honest note on the ones you can’t. It is built from your own scan and it is optional: everything on this page stays free.
Related guides and tools
Sources
- Rhodes G. The evolutionary psychology of facial beauty
- Age and gender correlation of gonial angle, ramus height and bigonial width in dentate subjects in a dental school in Far North Queensland
- Carré JM, McCormick CM. In your face: facial metrics predict aggressive behaviour in the laboratory and in varsity and professional hockey players
- Coetzee V, Perrett DI, Stephen ID. Facial adiposity: a cue to health?
- Farkas, L. G. (ed.). Anthropometry of the Head and Face, 2nd edition
- Google. Model card: MediaPipe Face Mesh V2