The distance, camera to subject determines the perspective of the image. Consider, things close to the camera reproduce large, and things further away, reproduce small. If you work in too close, the nose reproduces too big and the ears too small. We are taking distortion. It is mainly distortion of the facial features that causes the subject to say, “I look treble – I don’t photograph well”. The remedy is to simplely step back. Most portraits are best if a moderate telephoto is used. A rule of thumb is to use a lens with a focal length of about 2 ½ times the diagonal of the format of the camera. For the full frame, that’s about 108mm. For the compact digital, that’s 75mm. It makes no difference if the lens is a zoom or fixed or micro, the key is to try and step back. This can be difficult as we naturally try to fill the frame and not leave empty space around the principle subject. Moderate telephoto to the rescue: such a lash-up forces us to step back and this action delivers a perspective that is a close match to what the subject perceives i.e. their view of themselves in the makeup mirror.