A direct relation where fatigue life Number of cycles to failure can be determined as function of macroscopic normal and shear stress amplitudes Macroscopic normal stress amplitude and Macroscopic shear stress amplitude is established. Using the Carpinteri and Spagnoli (CandS) criterion as a survey tool, elliptical level curves in the Macroscopic normal stress amplitude x Macroscopic shear stress amplitude domain were revealed and further generalised, providing means to determine the number of cycles to failure for any given (Macroscopic normal stress amplitude, Macroscopic shear stress amplitude ) combination. Predictions obtained through the elliptical curve method (E) were compared to experimental observations, as well as to predictions obtained from adapted versions of popular fatigue criteria, namely Findley (F), Matake (M), McDiarmid (McD), Susmel and Lazzarin (SandL), Carpinteri and Spagnoli (CandS) and Papadopoulos (P). The proposed model delivered predictions in fair agreement with experimental observations and its predictive capability was seen to be the best among all the considered criteria. Finally, a slight bias towards conservativeness was attenuated with the introduction of an adjusting parameter, further improving the predictive capability of the model.