Ogee curve

The ogee curve is the S-shaped contour that runs from the outer cheekbone, out over the fullness of the cheek, and back in through the hollow beneath it. The name is borrowed from architecture, where an ogee is exactly that double curve. In facial aesthetics it is used to describe the smoothness of the transition between the midface and the lower face, and a continuous, unbroken curve is treated as the reference — a curve that steps or flattens reads as either hollowing or heaviness depending on which way it breaks. It is a three-quarter-view measurement: a front-facing photograph flattens the cheek and shows almost nothing of it, which is why this site does not offer a tool for it. It also changes with facial fat more than almost any other feature described in this glossary.