Question: Tips for masculinizing feminine faces?

ZZ asks…

Does anyone have tips for looking more masculine/androgynous for someone with feminine features? This androgyne is getting more than a little sick of looking so feminine all the time, and was hoping for some help.

Please post your response in the comments below.

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Posted by on December 24th, 2009 at 08:00 am

Category: questions 28 comments »

28 Responses to “Question: Tips for masculinizing feminine faces?”

  1. ...

    grow a moustache;)just kidding, unless you want to:)cardigans, shirts, t-shirts, converse, boyish hair, maybe some edgy glasses could help. good luck and enjoy the androgyny

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  2. ...

    also don’t pluck your eyebrows, black eyeliner and black stud earrings sometimes help too, depends on the face

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  3. themarxistbagel

    This doesn’t work for everyone’s sense of androgynous, but one thing I like to do is a tip from theatre make-up. If you take a colour of face powder a couple shades darker than what fits your skin tone, you can use a very broad brush to create natural, blended shadows on your face which make it appear more chiselled. Just take the powder and use it to make your jaw line and cheek bones appear more severe. It’s take some playing, but it can create quite a cool gender-less appearance.

    I know make-up, even to eliminate gender, isn’t for everyone, but I thought I’d suggest it!

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  4. wolf_confetti

    try wearing thick framed glasses. that’s what i do.
    on the topic of boyish hair – i always make sure to explicitly ask the hairdresser for a man’s haircut, otherwise i might get a “girly” short haircut that will make me look more feminine than before (worst case) ;)

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  5. Carolyn

    Color your eyebrows a shade darker with an eyebrow pencil. Men have darker eyebrows than women. It’s subtle, but it works.

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  6. KJ

    Shave your face. Most females don’t, and thus they’ve always got a faint layer of fuzz. You’d look more like a clean shaven guy without that fuzz.

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  7. nick

    I only have some body advice:
    Buy clothing that plays to your masculine features. For example, if you have small breasts or if you bind, a male shirt in the right side will make you look much more masculine than an oversized baggy one.
    I also find that building up just a bit of arm strenght and than showing off your upper arms works. Most girls don’t flaun any arm-muscles they may have.

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  8. BamBam

    Men tend to have thicker eyebrows, more pronounced noses, larger lips and square, set jaws.

    Perhaps clench your teeth so that the jaw looks more tight.

    You can draw in your eyebrows if you have dainty feminine ones. Don’t go overboard and become Groucho Marx though.

    If you want to pass as a male, perhaps paste on some facial hair?

    I can’t help you if your nose is a cutesy button one, though. Maybe get a friend to break it? I broke mine (accidentally) and it has a noticeable bump which I think makes it more masculine.

    Anyway, there are lots of biological men who have feminine features, but you can still tell they’re men. It depends on the way you dress, the way you carry yourself, and your demeanour.

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  9. genderkid

    I second the shaving tip. It makes your skin look subtly different: a little rougher, with maybe a hint of a five o’clock shadow if you have darkish facial hair.

    Sometimes I take the hair that grows in front of my ears –where sideburns would be– and cut it very short, so it looks like stubble. You could also leave that hair long and arrange it to look like sideburns.

    Good luck!

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  10. Idgie

    in addition to arm development (deltoid/bicep), you can really masculinize your facial appearance with a thicker neck. Work to develop your sternocleidomastoid muscles and such…. and Flabby upper arms just scream “old woman”.
    I like the front of ear stubble idea. I already shave my fuzz for a sterner more chiseled look. Lucky to have a big manly nose and deep cheek wrinkles. :)

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  11. Anonymous

    when you get a haircut, have your sideburns squared off instead of cut into points.

    i seriously hope no one is considering breaking their nose!

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  12. Anonymous

    watch your posture and the way you walk. its very subtle; but, feminine gestures and mannerisms are strong social cues that people use to differentiate genders.

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  13. ontological

    +1 for the eyebrows. Not only darker and thicker, but less arched. I love the way my face looks when I use dark mascara to give myself straight across, severe brows. I think those kind of eyebrows are particularly great because I feel that they’re genuinely androgynous, rather than masculine or feminine (if that’s what you are going for).

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  14. C

    “a male shirt in the right side will make you look much more masculine than an oversized baggy one.”

    And it goes for pants too. Of course it depends a lot on your body shape, but if you’re on thinner side, boys’ skinny jeans on right size may actually hide your hips way better than some baggy pants. They also add a little androgynous twist depending on what you combine with them.

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  15. VAL

    Try setting your jaw differently. This is what I do:

    1. Drop your jaw.
    2. Move it forward a centimeter or two.

    Try doing it in front of a mirror until you find a good setup. The goal is to thin and square the face.

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  16. VAL

    Ps. If someone (a bio female) was to shave their face, would they have to keep shaving it often? Would it grow back really stubbly?

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  17. Anonymous

    @VAL
    hmm. being a bio female who shaves, i wouldn’t say it grows back like stubble, but it does grow back as more than “peach fuzz”. somewhere in between the two, more on the stubble side.

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  18. VAL

    Hmmm… is it noticable? Like, does it tend to grow back darker? Or does it just grow back as a light blondish “stubble”? I have very dark hair, and I don’t want to have a 5 o’clock shadow, but I would like to get rid of the peach fuzz.

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  19. Anonymous

    @VAL
    I found shaving makes the hair more noticable. So I went with waxing – it gets rid of the peach fuzz for a few weeks.

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  20. Anonymous

    girls should walk with their feet set farther apart, ’cause, you know, the way lots of girls walk would squish… certain things…

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  21. Anonymous

    Transition. Both ways, at once. It’s hard, you may have to bullshit the medical profession a bit and thier binary hangups, but I find transition helps escape the binary, in a way that you can control, leading to the gender markers you actually want. If you want to stop PRETENDING and just BE, transition is magic.

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    Alger replied:

    The problem with that though is that a) Transitioning is expensive b) It can cause health problems for some people, so a lot of these suggestions work far better than putting yourself through that pain and c) Some need something they can change on the daily if they’re more than one gender, prefer to present themselves as so, or are still in the closet around certain people. There are a lot of people who make the choice not to transition for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean they’re “PRETENDING” it just means that the physical change isn’t the right choice for them.

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  22. ryan

    try finding a list of estrogen-reducing and testosterone-boosting foods. if you cut most e foods out of your diet, you’ll start to look more masc. my ftm friend did so and he actually has facial hair now..

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    Anonymous replied:

    What do u mean e foods?

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    Alexander replied:

    Foods that boost estrogen production in ur body

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    Blake replied:

    What kind of foods would boost t?

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    Anonymous replied:

    Foods that boost estrogen: sesame seeds, apricots, strawberries, many dried fruits, carrots, kale, celery, tofu, chickpeas, peas, and pinto beans.

    Foods that boost testosterone: oils like olive and canola, olives, avocados, cashews, almonds, lobster/crab, oatmeal, bananas, low fat yogurt, and kidney beans.

    For estrogen, its usually plant based food that have phytoestrogens, and for testosterone, its usually foods high with zinc or monounsaturated fat.
    If you look up ‘foods to boost testosterone/estrogen’, you will most likely find an article or a list.

    Also, don’t eat too many almonds, because they also contain traces of cyanide, and eating to many can kill you.

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  23. Anonymous

    How do I figure out what style fits my body type?

    [Reply]


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