The Three Zones and Five Eyes, Explained

The classical Chinese proportion framework — what 三庭五眼 measures, what it does and does not claim, and how to eyeball it on your own face.

三庭五眼 (three courts and five eyes) is a proportion framework from classical Chinese physiognomy that is still used in portrait drawing, beauty instruction and — at FaceLab — as neutral geometry. It claims nothing about fortune; it is purely a description of balance.

Steps

1. 三庭 (vertical): hairline → brow line → nose base → chin. The three bands should each be roughly one third of face length.
2. 五眼 (horizontal): the face's width across the eyes should hold about five eye-widths — one eye-width from temple to outer eye corner on each side, one between the eyes, one per eye.
3. Mark the points with your fingers in a mirror first; a screenshot with a pen tool works even better.
4. Compare bands, not millimetres: which third reads longest? That zone is where proportion-focused styling (bangs, beard length, brow shape) earns its keep.

Reading the result

A long upper zone → bangs or a lower brow arch shorten it. A long lower zone → beard shaping or a shorter cut rebalances. Close-set or wide-set eyes (the five-eye axis) respond to eyeliner and brow-tail placement.

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