Glasses for the Style Essences

Extremely cool styling, enhanced with Ethereal Classic glasses!

What do eyeglasses and nose rings have in common?

These are two of the only mainstream fashion items that go directly on top of your face yet don’t obscure your facial features.

This means that when glasses and piercings don’t match your face’s vibe, it might be more obvious than when, say, your pants or shoes don’t match your face’s vibe.

The great news is that the right pair of glasses (and piercings!) can enhance anyone’s beauty. So here’s some of the best glasses for your style type (piercings may be a separate post!)

Ingenue Glasses

Just like Ingenue sunglasses, Ingenue eyeglasses are round, delicate, and demure:

Ingenue glasses qualities:

• Circular

• Thin frames

• Gentle colors

To really embody Ingenue, choose pastel-like hues:

Translucence and ombre can flatter both Ingenue and Ethereal. Here, the circular and pastel-like frames express Ingenue.

What styles should Ingenue avoid? Essentially, all the recommendations for:

Dramatic Glasses

Dramatic and Ingenue glasses are utter opposites:

Dramatic glasses qualities:

• Angular

• Very thick frames

• Intense colors

And while Ingenue can rock ombre effects, Dramatic favors bold color-blocking.

Dark neutral frames combined with vibrant orange tortoiseshell. Strikingly Dramatic.

Since tortoiseshell is a fairly conventional pattern for glasses, these would be ideal for a Dramatic with a little Classic.

Romantic Glasses

Romantic glasses qualities:

• Very curvy

• Tapered corners that create a subtle cat eye (as opposed to a completely circular, Ingenue shape)

• Fairly thin frames

Highly-pigmented colors suit Romantic, especially when the frames are thin.

But since glasses are inherently stiff and structured, bold frames can sometimes appear harsh on very “yin” faces.

So if you have a high amount of Romantic (or Romantic plus another soft essence), you might consider ombre:

If you have a lot of curving essence, ombre frames can help create a softer impression.

Other options for creating a soft feel include choosing a frame color that’s not too much darker than the lens color or, alternately, that’s relatively similar in depth to your own skin tone.

These glasses also appear to incorporate tortoiseshell, making them ideal for a Romantic with some Classic.

Want to go all-out on the Romantic? Add glitter:

Ensure the frames remain curvy, tapered, and fairly thin.

Can very exaggerated cat-eyes be Romantic? Sometimes, but a more intense cat-eye is often part of:

Gamine Glasses

These cat-eye glasses are amazing for a Romantic Gamine blend.

As noted above, purely Romantic cat-eyes tend to be notably curvy, with subtly tapered corners.

In contrast, this pair has more exaggerated—very angular and thick— corners. This gives them playful Gamine, in addition to glam Romantic.

For a different Gamine option, try narrow rectangular frames:

Gamine glasses qualities:

• Thick, graphic frames

• Bold colors or patterns

• Angular shapes

• Overall small-ish size or relatively narrow frames

For more extreme Gamine glasses, try:

These do have some curve, but the extremely thick, vibrant cat-eye frames scream, “Fully Gamine.”

Ethereal Glasses

If you’re an Ethereal Gamine blend, you can combine angular Gamine cat-eyes with Ethereal’s trademark transparency:

Ethereal Gamine transparent cat eye glasses, with thick frames and angular corners.

For a fully Ethereal version, look for thinner but still transparent frames, with more curving and oval (but still upswept) lenses.

To take the Ethereality to the extreme, add wings:

Ethereal glasses qualities:

• Ultra-thin or transparent frames, or rimless styles

• An oval or “butterfly” shape, sweeping up at the outer corners

And if you look closely, the lower outer edges of these glasses have what appears to be wing-like accents. The Ethereal essence evokes the heavens, so any detail associated with flight is perfect.

Let’s come back down to earth for:

Classic Glasses

If you look up “glasses” in the dictionary, you might expect to see a quintessential, conventional Classic style:

Classic glasses qualities:

• Minimalist

• Moderate in size and shape—not especially large or small, curving or angular

• Wire frames, neutral frames, or conventional patterns (like tortoiseshell, as we saw above!)

To choose glasses that are extremely Classic, you can make sure they’re extremely non-extreme:

Classic embodies the notion of beauty in simplicity.

Natural Glasses

For Natural glasses, you’re kind of looking for “Classic with a twist”—still simple and down-to-earth, but not quite as conventional or expected:

Natural glasses qualities:

• Moderate to large

• Straight, blunt-edged shapes

• Minimalist, without much detail

• Neutral colors or earth-tones

Natural glasses can have thin frames, which helps them feel understated (and helps avoid expressing bold Dramatic or Gamine).

But Naturals can also do thicker frames:

Natural glasses are simple, but not quite recognizable enough to be Classic. These ones are large and square-ish, but with blunt edges, so they don’t read as angular or Dramatic.

With their simplicity, Natural glasses exude laidback cool.

General Glasses Considerations

If you’re searching for the perfect glasses, the above recs are a good starting point. But they definitely aren’t an exhaustive list of your options.

When choosing accessories, including glasses, you can generally follow the typical guidelines for your essences: look for intense and imposing styles for Dramatic, curvy sensual ones for Romantic, quirky and angular for Gamine, dreamy and oval for Ethereal, sweet and circular for Ingenue, casual and understated for Natural, polished and understated for Classic.

You can also think about how the essences’ characteristics in fashion translate to glasses.

For instance, Ethereals are flattered by light-as-air and sheer fabrics. So, transparent glasses frames flatter Ethereal. In contrast, Dramatics are flattered by dense, weighty fabrics. So glasses that feel heavy, such as by incorporating thick frames in deep, solid colors, often have Dramatic.

Which essence should you match your glasses to?

Up to you! There’s several options:

• Some people will prefer to match their glasses to their dominant essence.

• Others might decide to consider their top two essences (or even all three or four).

  • As described above, pointy and curving cat eyes can be great for Romantic Gamines, while transparent cat eyes are great for Ethereal Gamines. You could also choose pointy, curvy, and transparent cat eyes as a Romantic Ethereal Gamine. Etc.

• Another strategy is to match your glasses to a particular facial feature. For instance, since glasses rest on your nose, you could consider curvier glasses frames if you have a curvier nose, or more angular frames if you have a more angular nose.

  • This might be especially relevant to essence blends like Dramatic Ingenue, where you’re deciding between very angular or very curving styles.

Are glasses better suited to some essences than others?

To me, this is a matter of opinion!

Ultimately there really are glasses that suit every essence.

So, many people may find that the right pair of glasses enhances their beauty and draws attention to the shapes and vibes of their face in a positive way.

And, to be fair, you could also argue that certain essences are a more natural fit for glasses than others.

Since glasses are inherently structured, and can easily have a contrasting effect between the lenses and the frames, we might argue that Gamines and Dramatics have the easiest time making them work. I don’t necessarily endorse that argument, but I can see it being made.

I can also see arguments for glasses embodying every essence:

• Glasses can have a studious and neat connotation that suits Classic and Ingenue

• They can also convey a down-to-earthness and unpretentiousness that suits Natural

• Their inherently see-through lenses flatter Ethereal

• And glasses often have curving shapes that suit Romantic. To some people, glasses also create an alluring or mysterious Romantic impression

So it ultimately seems like a matter of opinion whether glasses are better for some essences vs. others.

Even if glasses haven’t worked for you in the past, it’s possible you’ll feel differently about a style that’s a precise match for your essence blend.

The right pair of glasses just might end up being your favorite accessory.