Flirty Emoji

😏 Smirking Face is the flirt's default. A half smile with a sideways look, it says "I know what you meant" or "I see you", and on its own it turns an innocent sentence into a suggestion. 😉 Winking Face is lighter and safer: it marks a joke, a tease or a compliment as playful, and it is the flirty emoji people reach for first when they are not sure how the other person feels. 😘 Face Blowing a Kiss, the wink with a heart, is the clearest friendly flirt there is; Adobe's 2022 U.S. emoji survey found it the single emoji that makes a sender seem most likeable to someone they are flirting with, ahead of 🥰 and 😍.

🥵 Hot Face (2018) means "you are hot" or "this is too much for me", a reaction to a photo rather than an opener. 😈 Smiling Face with Horns signals mischief and naughty intent; sent with a plan for the evening it leaves little doubt. 🫦 Biting Lip, added in Unicode 14.0 in 2021, is the newest and most direct of the flirty faces: nervous attraction, desire, or "I'm holding back". 🤤 Drooling Face and 🥴 Woozy Face both mean "you look amazing", the second with a smitten, slightly tipsy edge.

The tongue faces are the cheeky ones: 😜 and 😝 are teasing, 😛 is a playful dare, 😋 pairs with a photo of something or someone that looks good. 😚 😙 😗 are softer kisses than 😘 (😗 without the heart often reads as whistling, so add a heart if you mean the kiss). 😍 and 🥰 belong to Love Emoji more than to flirting, but 😍 under a selfie is still one of the most common compliments sent.

Flirty emojis from a girl, from a guy, and what the shy ones say

There is no secret code that splits by gender, but the pattern people notice is real: the shy, blushing flirt is more often sent by girls, the bold one by guys. 🫣 Face with Peeking Eye and 🙈 See-No-Evil Monkey mean "I can't believe I said that" after a compliment or a risky message. 🤭 is a giggle behind the hand, 😳 is blushing at something you said, 🥺 is "please" and "you're too sweet" in one. 👉👈 two fingers touching is the nervous-but-hopeful gesture, usually with 🥺 in front of it. 🤗 Smiling Face with Open Hands is a hug, and it is one of the most searched flirty emoji from a girl because it is warm without committing to anything.

The confident set is 😏 😈 👀 🔥 🥵 and 💦. 👀 Eyes means "I'm looking" or "send more"; under a photo it is a compliment, in a chat it means you are waiting for the juicy part. 🔥 Fire is "hot" with no ambiguity; 💯 says "you are a ten". 😎 is cool and a little cocky, 🤨 raised eyebrow is "oh really?", 🙃 upside-down face is the flirt that pretends it isn't one. 😇 the halo face claims innocence exactly when nobody believes it, and 🫠 Melting Face (2021) is what someone sends when a message made them melt.

The three cats, 😼 😻 😽, are the same moods in cat form and feel more playful than the human faces, which is why they are popular in the early, joking stage. 🤙 Call Me Hand is "call me" or "hit me up", 🫰 the finger heart and 🫶 heart hands are the affectionate close, and 💅 nail polish is the sassy "I know I look good" that fishes for a reply.

Suggestive emoji: the fruit, the fire and the drops

Once flirting gets explicit, food takes over. 🍑 Peach stands for a bum and 🍆 Eggplant for a penis; both have carried those meanings since around 2014 and they are the two emoji most people would call dirty. 🍒 Cherries hint at breasts, a bum, or virginity; 🍓 Strawberry is sweetness with a wink, 🍌 is another phallic stand-in, 🌶️ Hot Pepper means spicy, 🍈 and 🍉 are breasts, 🍯 is sweet talk, 🍭 and 🍩 and 🌮 are oral innuendo. None of these mean anything on their own; it is the pairing with 😏 😈 👅 or 💦 that makes them suggestive.

🔥 heat and 💦 Sweat Droplets are the mood-setters: 🔥 says the person or the picture is hot, 💦 means wet in every sense, and 🥵🔥💦 together is as far as a text can go without words. ♨️ hot springs and 🌡️ a thermometer are the subtler ways to say the temperature is rising, 💥 is the big finish, ✨ softens everything it touches. 👅 Tongue is licking and tasting; 👄 Mouth and 💋 Kiss Mark are the lips, the second the lipstick print you leave at the end of a message.

Platforms notice these too. Instagram blocked searches for the #eggplant hashtag in 2015 because of what it was being used for, and Facebook and Instagram's 2019 rules on sexual solicitation name suggestive emoji such as 🍆 and 🍑 among the signals they look for when a post also offers or asks for sex. In an ordinary chat between two adults nothing happens, but it is worth knowing before putting 🍑🍆 under a stranger's photo.

Date night emoji and the little romantic props

The second half of a flirty conversation is usually about meeting. 🥂 Clinking Glasses, 🍷 🍸 🍹 and 🍾 set up drinks; 🌹 a single rose and 💐 a bouquet are the old-fashioned gestures that still work in a message; 🕯️ a candle says dinner, 💃 and 🕺 say dancing. 🌙 crescent moon is "tonight", and the moon faces carry their own joke: 🌚 New Moon Face is the sly, lewd grin people use to mean "you know what I mean", 🌝 Full Moon Face the smug, pleased answer to it.

🛏️ bed, 🛁 bath and 🏩 Love Hotel are the most direct props. 🏩 is a Japanese love hotel, a place rented by the hour for couples, and the emoji is drawn with a heart on the building to tell it apart from 🏨 hotel. Hearts are the closer: 💘 heart with arrow for a crush, 💕 💞 💖 for the giddy stage, ❤️‍🔥 heart on fire for passion, 🩷 pink heart when it is sweet rather than serious; the full set is on the Heart Emoji & Symbols page. 💑 couple with heart, 💏 kiss and 🫂 a hug are where it ends up, and 🏹 bow and arrow is Cupid's.

👗 dress, 👠 heels, 👙 bikini and 💄 lipstick are the getting-ready emoji, sent as "wait till you see me" before a date or as a compliment on an outfit.

Flirty text symbols and faces you can type anywhere

Before colour emoji there was the wink: ;) is a semicolon and a parenthesis, ;-* a wink with a kiss, ;P a wink with the tongue out, and they still work in games, usernames and anywhere that strips emoji. The Lenny face ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), the internet's suggestive grin since 2012, is built from seven characters that are all in the grid above: two parentheses, two degree signs for eyes with the combining mark ͡ above each, the combining mark ͜ for the eyebrows and the inverted glottal stop ʖ for the nose. Copy it whole from the combos below or build your own.

The Japanese kissing faces use ³ or ε for puckered lips: ( ˘ ³˘)♥, (´ε｀ ) and the kiss-pursuing (づ￣ ³￣)づ, and з does the same job in Russian-style faces. ♡ ♥ ❥ and the Georgian letter ღ are the text hearts that finish a flirty username, and 🗢 is a plain-text pair of lips. More faces of every mood are on the Kaomoji Symbols page.