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How to guess someone's age from their face

Published October 16, 2026 · AgeDart

Most people guess ages by gut feeling and miss by several years. Good guessers do something different: they read a face in a fixed order, they know which clues lie, and they correct for the biases everyone has. Here is the method, step by step.

1. Decide the decade first

Don't hunt for an exact number straight away. First pick the decade: twenties, thirties, forties. That first impression is usually right. Then place the face within it: early, middle or late. Splitting the decision in two stops you anchoring on a random number.

2. The eyes say the most

The area around the eyes ages first and most visibly: fine lines at the outer corners, a softer upper eyelid and a hollow or shadow underneath. In your twenties that skin stays smooth even when you smile; by your forties, some lines usually remain when the face is at rest.

3. Lines at rest, not lines in motion

Everyone gets crow's feet when they laugh. What tells you an age is what stays when the face relaxes: forehead lines, the fold from the nose to the corner of the mouth and small lines above the upper lip. Look for a neutral moment before you judge.

4. The jawline and the neck

Over the years the lower face loses definition: the jaw softens, small jowls appear beside the chin and the neck shows horizontal lines. The neck is the honest part. It rarely gets the same care as the face.

5. Skin texture and spots

Even tone and fine texture suggest youth; sun spots and an uneven surface add years. Be careful, though: light from above and a phone's sharpening can invent texture that isn't there, and soft front light can erase it. Only trust texture in decent light.

6. Hair and beard, with caution

Grey hair and a receding hairline are strong clues, which is exactly why they mislead. Dye hides grey, some people go grey in their twenties, and a full beard tends to add years to young men. Use hair to confirm a guess, not to make it.

7. Know the clues that lie

Makeup, filters and a big smile all push guesses younger. In a study with 171 faces, neutral expressions were judged most accurately and happy faces were the most likely to be underestimated (Voelkle and colleagues, 2012). Heavy frames and harsh light usually push the other way. When a clue could be styling, give it less weight.

8. Correct your own biases

Everyone is better at guessing people of their own age and worse with other generations (Moyse and Brédart, 2014). If the face is much older or younger than you, slow down.

Guesses drift towards the middle: young faces tend to be judged older and older faces younger. If your gut says “about 25” for a very young face, go lower; if it says “about 60” for an older one, go higher.

The last face you saw pulls your next guess towards its age. In a study with nearly 4,000 passport photos, that was the largest single source of error (Clifford, Watson and White, 2018). Treat every face as if it were the first.

Practise with feedback

The only way to calibrate your eye is to guess and then learn the truth, many times over. That's what AgeDart is for: real people from all over the world, their real ages and a score for how close you got. A perfect guess is a bullseye. Curious how good people are on average? Read how accurate we are at guessing age.