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Reviewed July 13, 2026
What is lower anterior face height?
Lower anterior face height is the vertical drop from the base of the nose down to the bottom of the chin. It is the bottom of the three facial thirds, also called the lower facial third, and it is what decides whether a face reads balanced or long in its lower half. When this third outgrows the rest of the face, the whole profile starts to look stretched.
How It's Measured
How is lower anterior face height measured?
Lower anterior face height is read on a side profile as the straight vertical distance from subnasale, where the nose meets the upper lip, down to menton, the lowest point of the chin (Naini, 2011). It is the bottom segment of the old habit of dividing the face into three vertical thirds.
- Subnasale (Sn): the point where the base of the nose meets the upper lip, marking the top of the lower third.
- Menton (Me): the lowest point of the soft-tissue chin, marking the bottom of the measurement.
- The facial thirds: the face splits from hairline to brow, brow to nose base, and nose base to chin. That last segment is the lower anterior face height.
Read against the middle third, this is what tells you whether the lower face is balanced, short, or long (Swennen & Naini, 2006).
Extending the lower face raised the lower anterior face height from 15.2 mm to 16.0 mm on the same face, same lighting, same framing.
Why It Matters
Why does lower anterior face height matter?
The lower third carries most of the impression of face length, so it does a lot of quiet work in how a profile reads. Faces with a reduced lower third tend to be judged more attractive than the same face with an increased one (Naini, 2011). Push this third past the middle third and the face starts to look long rather than balanced.
There is no single ideal in millimetres, because the lower third is not the same size in everyone. Men carry a longer lower facial third than women on average (Alharbi et al., 2015), and women hold a relatively greater share of face height in the midface (Farkas-based dimorphism analysis, 2023). A number that looks long on one face can be perfectly balanced on another.
This is also where clinicians spend real attention. A lower third that grows too tall is the signature of a hyperdivergent, or long face, pattern, and correcting it is a core goal in orthognathic planning (Naini, 2011). The cards and table below give working proportions, but read them against the rest of the face, not as a fixed target.
33%–36%
Men
32%–34%
Women
~33%
Balanced Third
Lower anterior face height as a share of total facial height, from hairline to chin. The balanced lower third sits near one third of the face, with men averaging a slightly larger share. Values vary with individual structure.
Demographic Variants
Ideal Lower Anterior Face Height by Group
Lower anterior face height is judged as a proportion, so what counts as balanced shifts with sex and facial pattern. Each row links to the source that describes it.
Group / pattern | Lower third tendency | Source |
|---|---|---|
Neoclassical ideal | Lower third about equal to the middle and upper thirds | |
Men | Longer lower facial third than women on average | |
Women | Relatively greater midface share, shorter lower third | |
Long face pattern | Lower third exceeds the middle third; hyperdivergent, stretched profile | |
Short face pattern | Lower third shorter than the middle third; compressed lower face |
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Your Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no single number in millimetres. The classic ideal is proportional: the lower third, from the nose base to the chin, sits at roughly one third of the face and stays close in size to the middle third. Faces with a slightly reduced lower third are generally judged more attractive than those with an increased one (Naini, 2011).
A long lower third means the distance from the nose base to the chin is tall relative to the rest of the face. It is the hallmark of a hyperdivergent, or long face, growth pattern, which also tends to bring a steeper jaw and a chin that sits further back (Naini, 2011).
On a side profile, you measure the vertical drop from subnasale, where the nose meets the upper lip, to menton, the lowest point of the chin, then read it against the middle third of the face (Swennen & Naini, 2006). It can also be taken skeletally on a cephalogram from the anterior nasal spine to menton.
Yes. Men carry a longer lower facial third than women on average (Alharbi et al., 2015), while women hold a relatively greater share of their face height in the midface (Dimorphism analysis, 2023). So the same lower third can look long on a woman and balanced on a man.