Face Blowing a Kiss · U+1F618 · the internet's default "mwah"
The 😘 kiss emoji is the face blowing a kiss. It means affection, gratitude, flirting, or a soft goodbye. Between friends it reads as sweet thanks; between people with romantic tension it reads as deliberate flirting.
✍️ Written & reviewed against real usage · verified Unicode 16.0Tap to copy · pastes in WhatsApp, Instagram, anywhere
These are the real emoji characters — tap one to copy it, then paste anywhere. Because they’re text, they show up as emoji wherever you send them.
😘 is the everyday affection emoji. Unicode calls it Face Blowing a Kiss: one eye winking, lips puckered, a small heart flying out. That heart is the whole point — it is why 😘 lands warmer than 😗 or 😙, which have no heart and read as neutral or goofy. In practice people use it four ways. First, sign-off affection: it closes a text to a partner, a parent, or a best friend the way "xx" closes a British text. Second, gratitude with feeling — "you saved me 😘" is thank-you plus a hug. Third, flirting: sent to someone you are not already affectionate with, the wink makes it read as an opening move rather than a formality. Fourth, playful sass — tacked onto a roast or a petty comeback, 😘 turns the knife into a joke: "unbothered, moisturized, thriving 😘." That last usage is why it is not automatically romantic. The safest reading is tone matches the existing relationship: 😘 amplifies whatever warmth is already there instead of declaring something new. One sent kiss is casual; a 😘 that shows up in every message, or one that arrives late at night with nothing else attached, is doing more work than the glyph alone suggests.
Ends a message the way "xx" does. From a partner or close friend it is routine affection, not a declaration.
From someone you are not already affectionate with, the wink makes it a deliberate flirt — an opener, not a formality.
Caption sass: "tried it so you don't have to 😘." Signals confident, slightly smug playfulness rather than romance.
"You're a lifesaver 😘" — gratitude with warmth attached. Extremely common between close friends and family.
From a girl, 😘 is usually friendly rather than romantic — it is one of the most common sign-off emojis women use with friends, sisters, and group chats, roughly equal to "love ya, bye." What changes the reading is contrast: if she uses it with everyone, it means nothing special; if you are the only one getting it, or it starts appearing on messages that did not need it, that is a real signal. Pair it with context — 😘 after you did her a favour is thanks, 😘 with no other text late at night is flirting, and 😘 after she teases you is affectionate mockery. Do not read a single one as interest, and do not read its absence as rejection.
Face Blowing a Kiss 😘 and Kiss Mark 💋 look closely related and get swapped constantly, but they land differently in a message. Here is what separates them, so you send the one you actually mean.
A friendly, everyday kiss you send. Works with family, friends, and partners — affection first, flirting second.
A lipstick print left behind. Noticeably more sensual and glamorous; rarely sent to family, common in flirting and beauty content.
It’s the same character everywhere — each platform just draws it in its own style. Here are three open emoji sets side by side, plus how your own device renders it:
| Platform | How it differs |
|---|---|
| Apple | Yellow face, one eye winking, puckered lips with a small red heart floating off to the right. |
| Similar wink-and-heart design; the heart sits closer to the lips and reads slightly smaller on Android. | |
| Samsung | Rounder face with a more pronounced pucker; older One UI versions showed a pinker, larger heart. |
| Close to Apple's, with a flatter heart. Renders identically on iOS and Android inside the app. | |
| X / Twemoji | Flat, simplified face and a plain red heart — the wink is hard to spot at small timeline sizes. |
Apple, Samsung and WhatsApp draw their own proprietary versions, which we don’t redistribute — the notes above describe how they differ. Open sets shown under their licences: Twemoji (CC-BY 4.0), Noto Emoji (Apache 2.0), OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The kiss emoji 😘 is not always read the way you intend it. These three situations change what 😘 signals, and knowing them keeps you from sending the wrong message.
Quick answers to what people ask most about the kiss emoji 😘 — what it means in a text, who tends to send it, and how to copy it onto your own keyboard.
Usually flirting or affection, and it is a slightly stronger signal than from a girl simply because men send it less often. In a long-standing friendship or family chat it can still be purely platonic thanks.
Both, depending on the relationship. With people you are already affectionate with it is friendly shorthand for love you or thanks. With someone new, the wink pushes it into flirting territory.
😘 has a wink and a heart, so it reads as warm and affectionate. 😗 is a plain kissing face with no heart and often reads as neutral, whistling, or slightly awkward instead.
In most professional settings, yes. It reads as personal familiarity. Safer ways to send warm thanks at work are 🙏, 😊, or simply words with no emoji.
In captions and comments it usually signals confident, playful sass — a soft way to sign off a hot take, a hack, or a comeback. It is closer to blowing a kiss at the camera than to romance.
Six main ones: 😘 face blowing a kiss, 😗 kissing face, 😙 kissing face with smiling eyes, 😚 kissing face with closed eyes, 💋 kiss mark, and 💏 kiss between two people, which also has gendered and skin-tone variants.
If 😘 came up in a conversation, these are the emoji people most often look up next — each one explained the same way, with meanings you can actually use and characters you can copy.