Best Glasses for Small Faces

Updated September 2026 — by Aislinn Emirzian, Founder and CEO, PetiteGlasses.com

The best glasses for small faces have a lens width of 45–50mm, a bridge width of 15–18mm, and a total frame width of 114–132mm. Look for short frame shapes — rectangles, ovals, and classic cat-eyes — in thinner frames sized for adults, not children.

You try dozens of frames at your local store.

The adult glasses are much too large. The kid's glasses are thick and clunky at best. Neon with cartoon characters at worst. There's only a handful that fit, and you don't like any of them. 

Have you had this frustrating experience?

Maybe glasses always slide down your nose. Maybe the lenses swallow half your face in photos. Maybe your optician has said "let's look in the kids' section" one time too many.

If you resonate with these struggles, you may have a small face. Read on and I’ll tell you what eyeglass frame sizes, shapes, and styles are best for petite faces like ours.

Narrow Faces: Is your face is long and thin? Oblong face shape?

Check out my Best Glasses for Narrow Faces Guide. I have different advice for you.

LENS WIDTH: If you are a woman with a small face, try glasses in size 48 to 50 lens width, or as small as 45 to 47 for very petite faces.

LENS HEIGHT: Ladies with small faces particularly struggle with lenses that have too much height, swallowing half your face behind them. A lens height of 28 to 34 works best. You can go up to 35 or 36 if you need progressive lenses, or for that modern, “big frames but I did this on purpose” look.

BRIDGE WIDTH: A bridge size of 15 to 18 is most common for small faces, though you could go as low as 12 if you also have a very narrow bridge or close set eyes.

TEMPLE LENGTH: Many petite face ladies find the temples on adult frames are too long, causing them to slide down the face. The temples on kids’ frames are often too short, causing them to pinch behind the ear. Split the difference and look for temple length between 130 to 140.

TOTAL FRAME WIDTH: A total frame width between 123 to 132 should work well for most small face ladies, but the smallest faces could go as low as 114.

Did you know that glasses come in sizes? Most people don't!

Frame sizes are actually just the measurements of the frames in millimeters. Most frames have size information printed inside the temple, or listed on product pages when shopping online. 

How to read glasses sizes >>

Know your size? Put it to work. We specialize in small size eyeglasses, so everything we carry will fit better than most of the frames at your local store. Choose 5 frames in your size and try them at home with Free Home Try-on.

The best shapes of glasses for small faces will be short shapes, not tall shapes. 

Small faces are easily overwhelmed by too much frame height. When you shorten the lens height, you naturally end up with shorter shapes. 

Favor short shapes:  Rectangular, oval, and classic cat-eye 

Avoid tall shapes:  Square, round, or contemporary cat-eye 

Tall shapes (left) overwhelm a small face. Short shapes (right) are more proportionate.

It’s partly because you have a small face, but that’s only half of it.

Fashion has favored bigger frame shapes and taller lenses for many years now. 

You may remember a time when smaller frames were popular. Short rectangular and oval frames were all the rage in the 90s and early 2010s. Now, they are considered “vintage” or “retro!” 

Below are the frames I purchased 2012 vs 2017. The lens height nearly doubled!

If you are still looking for those short rectangle and oval frames that you used to love - perhaps your old favorite pair - and wondering why you can’t find anything like that anymore, this is the reason. Due to the current fashion for big frames in tall shapes, most stores simply aren’t carrying many options in those smaller styles anymore.

For those who are overwhelmed by too much frame height, needing smaller lens height is not just a fashion issue–it is a fit issue. 

That means small face ladies are double penalized by the current fashion for big frames. We already needed small sizes, which means most of the options at any one store will be too large. On top of that, now the fashion is so large that even the smallest frames at the store are still larger than they would have been 15 years ago. 

On the plus side, since the fashion is favoring bigger taller lenses, you can probably pull off a bit more lens height than you did in the past. If you care to try, adding 3-5 mm to the lens height of your old favorite tiny frame will give you an updated, modern look, and allow extra area for your lenses. This is helpful if you wear progressive lenses or bifocals, which have minimum height requrements.

We do carry a few options in smaller lens heights and hope to offer more. Please let us know what you’d like to see in the store! We love customer requests.

The best glasses styles for small faces include:

• Thin acetate
• Transparent acetate
• Thin metal
• Semi-rimless 
• Rimless 

Acetate frames come in lots of gorgeous colors and patterns. But they can also be quite thick. 

If you are like me, you may have found that thick frames overwhelm your face. Of course, in my case, most of the thick frames I was trying were too big all around. I was delighted to discover, once I found the right size for me, that I can pull off a little thickness. You might find the same is true for you, with correct sizing.

Still, many women with small faces find that thinner is better. This makes sense: there is simply less face to distribute the thickness around. If we took an “average” sized pair of women’s glasses and scaled them down for a petite face, we would decrease the width and the height. Naturally, we should decrease the thickness as well. 

Transparent Acetate Is Subtle and Stylish

Transparent frames have been trendy for years and are still very popular. They may be completely clear, have a hint of pale color, or rest halfway between clear and opaque. 

In particular, the clear or lightly colored transparent frames give a subtle, barely there quality that helps the frames blend in with your face for a less obtrusive appearance. 

I have been amazed when I try on the same pair of glasses in two colors – one opaque dark and one clear or with light transparent color – and it’s incredible how much more assertive the opaque frame looks. 

Transparent frames can be worn thicker since the transparency makes them more subtle in appearance than the same frame would be in an opaque color. This has the benefit of better lens coverage for thick, high prescription lenses. 

Also, you have a little more wiggle room on the shape, since the shape is less obvious on a transparent frame than the same frame would be with full, opaque color.

I used to prefer acetate frames because I thought metal frames were boring. Then, I discovered that there are plenty of stylish, colorful frames in metal. And because they can be made thinner, they are very flattering on small faces.

Metal frames in titanium or stainless steel are the thinnest options available. Wire rim glasses would be the thinnest of all. 

Because they are so thin, you can likely pull off a darker or more assertive color than you could in many acetate frames which run thicker. This gives you the chance to wear dark, bold colors like reds, burgundy, dark greens, or even blacks that might be too overpowering in a thicker acetate frame.

Also known as semi-rimless, this style has no frame material over the lower half of the lens. Less rim means less material to crowd the limited real estate of your small face.

This virtually eliminates the common complaint of lenses that are too big and tall. Since there is no lower rim, the bottom of the lens is less visible and so  the height of the frame is less obvious. This also means you can get away with more lens height than you could on a full-rim frame. This is especially helpful for bifocal or progressive lenses which have minimum lens height requirements (usually 28mm).

The absent lower rim lends the barely-there look that you get with rimless frames, but the upper rim can add a lot of style and bring nice emphasis to your eyebrows. 

Also, the top-heavy shape of half-rim glasses catches the eye at the top, creating the effect of lengthening the face from the browline downward. This has an attractive, balancing effect on short face shapes, such as round and square face shapes, which are common in women with small faces (including myself).

Read more on why half-rim glasses are ideal for small faces — or shop half-rim frames.

Rimless frames have no upper or lower rim around the lenses. Instead, the bridge and temples attach directly to the lenses.

Even more than half-rim frames, the absence of frame material gives rimless glasses that subtle, barely-there look that many petite face ladies desire.

With no rims defining the lens height, you can wear taller lenses without your face looking too crowded. This allows a larger visual field and more height to accommodate progressive and bifocal lenses if needed.

Less frame material also makes rimless frames that much lighter. And since the lens edges are less obvious than a full rim frame, they're more forgiving if the size or shape is not a perfect match for your face. 

We plan to stock rimless frames in the future. Send requests to contact@petiteglasses.com, or comment below.

Online is usually the best place to find specialty sizing for any product. After all, it doesn’t help much to know the size you need if you can’t find any stores that carry it!

Once you learn your glasses size, you can use that to search for frames in the same size range. Many online stores, including my shop, have a size search filter that allows you to search for a specific size. 

Petite glasses are made for adults on the small end of the size range. Whether you are petite all over, or an average sized person with a petite face, the sizes, shapes, and styles of petite frames are all specifically designed to fit and flatter small faces.

Using the keyword “Petite Glasses” helps you find frames that were specifically designed for small faces. This is a great way to find frames that are in your size range.

However, there are many glasses in the petite size range that are not specifically marked as “petite,” so no need to limit your search to only "petite" labeled frames. Go by size first and description second.

Some stores may also refer to their smaller size selections as “narrow fit,” although these may have taller lens heights than many small face ladies prefer.