How to Enhance Your Hooded Eyes: Makeup and Skincare Tips

Just when you’ve figured out your face shape, you realize that your eyes aren’t as “basic” as you originally thought. Each eye has a different shape and a unique look. And although it may seem exaggerated to harp on your eye shape, like your eyebrows, your eyes emphasize your best features.

Hooded eyes, almond eyes, round eyes, monolid eyes — there are different eye shapes. And each comes with different makeup tips and tricks.

Fortunately, figuring out your eye shape isn’t as hard as it seems.

What are Hooded Eyes?

In essence, an excess of skin over the eyelid crease and under the brow makes eyes hooded. A person with hooded eyes appears to have a thinner and smaller eyelid. Hooded eyes are a perfectly normal occurrence that doesn’t require medical treatments, compared to droopy eyes that can hinder the ability to see.

In general, people can be born with or develop hooded eyes with age.

Hooded Eyes vs Normal:  Do I Have Hooded Eyes?

One of the best ways to tell whether you have hooded eyes is to look straight into a mirror, keeping your eyes open. If you notice the skin on your upper lid, under your brow touches the lash line, or covering it, you have hooded eyes.

You can say you have a hooded eye shape if the crease on your eye is rather deep-set and you have a more prominent brow bone. If you can’t see your crease when your eyes are open, it means your natural eye shape is hooded.

Makeup Tips for Hooded Eyes

If you like to wear makeup, there are a lot of makeup techniques you can learn to accentuate your hooded eyes and learn to work some magic on a limited eyelid space. Hooded eye makeup is different from other eye shape makeup; instead of focusing on the lash line, you’ll be focusing on applying the eyeshadow in a certain way.

For instance, to create a smokey eye look, makeup artists suggest using a darker shade of eyeshadow and blending it with lighter colors — this will create an illusion of having bigger eyes. Other than actual makeup, you can also use facial tape and glue specially made for lifting eyelids and widening the lid space.

Makeup artists recommend applying eyeliner on the upper waterline to make your hooded eyes appear wider.

Liquid eyeliner on hooded eyes can be difficult to pull, especially if the excess skin on the upper lid sits very close to the lash line. Instead of drawing a straight line with liquid eyeliner, smudge a Kohl liner from the outer edge of your lash line and draw it a bit upward. Also, smudge some of the same shade of the liner along the lower lashes and do an inner corner highlight. This will help you create a more lifted eye shape.

Can You Get Rid of Hooded Eyes?

You certainly can, even though you don’t necessarily have to (unless the appearance of your eyes is physically preventing you from fully opening your eyes and seeing). You can apply makeup and have fun experimenting with lighter and darker eyeshadows or get injectables.

Thanks to the advancement of technology and medicine, there are many ways you can tackle hooded lids issues.

• Blepharoplasty: Also commonly known as eyelid surgery, blepharoplasty is a surgical procedure that removes the fat or excess skin from the eyelids.
• Thread lifts: Temporary stitches pulling the skin upwards.
• Injectables: Botox and other dermal fillers can correct a hooded eye look. Such treatments lift the eyebrow and mend slightly drooping eyelid skin.
• Eye Lift creams: Eye Lift creams are over-the-counter beauty products you can get in almost every pharmacy. Eye Lift creams tighten and moisturize the skin around the eyes.
• Eye drops: These can be of great help for droopy eyes.

Are Hooded Eyes Rare?

In general, hooded eyes tend to be a common feature in many people. A lot of people are born with a hooded eye shape. Hollywood beauties like Blake Lively, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emma Stone are boldly rocking their hooded eyes. In fact, hooded eyes are found particularly attractive so don’t be ashamed if you have them. 

Are Hooded Eyes Genetic?

Yes, hooded eyes can be an inherited facial feature. In general, hooded eyes are associated with Asian people and people of East Asian origin. Also, hooded eyes are a genetic trait of races with elongated eyes. 

If one of your parents (or both) has hooded eyes, chances are, you have hooded eyes, too. However, this trait is not always passed down to children.

Other Eye Shapes

There are other different eye shapes out there, but six are considered “main” eye shapes — hooded eyes, upturned eyes, downturned eyes, monolid eyes, round eyes, and almond eyes. Scientifically, the most beautiful eye shape is oval, which is a combination of almond and round. But in retrospect, all eye shapes are beautiful in their own right.

Apart from the actual shape, there is a secondary description that comes with the term “eye shape.” It involves your eyes’ placement on your face. Also, know that you can teeter between eye shapes. For example, you can have almond-shaped eyes that are rounder than others.

Almond Shaped Eyes

If the iris of your eyes touches white on both the bottom and the top and you see a visible crease when you’re looking at your lids, you have almond-shaped eyes. You may also have the prettiest eye shape in the world! According to NPR.org, almond eyes are considered one of the most beautiful eye shapes due to their unique shape and deep expressive look. Another plus of almond-shaped eyes: you can pull off any eye shadow look!

Also, almond-shaped eyes are often the eyes animators use for their characters. To cap it off, almond eyes are known for looking sensual or sultry.

Other traits of almond eyes include the following:

• Unlike round eyes, the irises of almond eyes touch the bottom and top of the eyelid.
• Your eye shape tapers to a point by the outer eye and the tear duct.
• Almond-shaped eyes are longer in width and have smaller eyelids.

Celebrities with almond eyes include Gwen Stefani, Mila Kunis, Kim Kardashian, Kerry Washington, Scarlett Johansson and the Queen of the Beyhive, Beyonce.  

Makeup for Almond Eyes

Accentuated eyelashes work well with almond eye shapes—either real or falsies. If you have almond-shaped eyes, you can also rock a smoky eye shadow look.

Other makeup tips for almond-shaped eyes include the following:

• Make your eyeliner thicker on the lower lid to emphasize the shape of your eyes.
• Accentuate your almond eyes by applying eyeliner on the top and bottom, too. Be it a smudged, ombré or winged eyeliner look, don’t be afraid to play with all the styles.
• Apply a deeper color in the outer crease and a lighter color on the lid of your eye to accentuate the almond shape.
• Make your almond eyes pop by tight lining the upper lash line with a liner or a shadow. This will open them more and make them look brighter and larger.
• For the classic daytime look, contour your almond-shaped eyes by dusting a lighter color across the lid. Use a darker shade on the outer half of your crease. Cap off the look with a volumizing mascara.
• Do a one-shadow eye look. Fill your entire lid with a single eyeshadow shade. Depending on the color you choose, this will give your almond eyes either a bold or soft look.
• A cut crease can also accentuate your almond-shaped eyes. Cut creases are defined by the sharp shadow above your eyelids. Fortunately, YouTube has plenty of video tutorials on cut creases for almond eyes.

Upturned Eyes

How do you know if your eye shape is upturned? Check at the outer corners of your eye to see if they tilt up or down. If your eyes tilt upward, you’re part of the upturned eye squad.

Other traits of upturned eye shapes include:

• Also known as “cat eyes,” upturned eyes tilt upward, which gives you an exotic appearance. It’s almost as if you have a natural eyelift.
• Upturned eyes have a bottom lash line that curves upward to meet your top lashes.

Celebrities with upturned eyes include Rihanna, Kendall Jenner and Taylor Swift.

Makeup for Upturned Eyes

You can’t ever go wrong with winged eyeliner! Also, well-defined brows set the tone for people with upturned eyes.

• Create a more balanced look by using eyeliner on the lower and upper lash line but avoid going past the outer eye.
• Add an extra coat of mascara to your lower lash line. You can also apply mascara from the middle of your lashes towards the outer corner. This gives your upturned eyes a rounder look.
• Apply a deep eyeshadow shade on the outer corner of your eyes to open them up. Blend the shade outwards, following the shape of your eyes and your crease.
• Give your face symmetry by adding a liner to the bottom outer corner of your eyes.
• Always go for rounded eyeshadow and eyeliner looks so you won’t overemphasize your upturned eyes. This also keeps your eye shape balanced while still showing off your ‘upturned’ charm.

Downturned Eyes

The easiest way to see if you have downturned eyes is to look at the outermost corner of your eye. Does it lift downward or upward? If the outer corner points down, you have downturned eyes.

• Also called “descending eyelid,” downturned eyes have upper eyelids that dip to meet your lower lash line.

Famous celebrities with downturned eyes include Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron and Katie Holmes.

Makeup for Downturned Eyes

Balance your look by playing with shadows. Lift the outer corner of your eyes with shadows and eyeliner. Extend them to create an illusion of a lifted look.

• Falsies are your new best friends. Apply your false eyelashes in a pushed-up manner in the outer corner. Double up the last lash by applying more mascara. Push it up with your lash curler.
• You can’t go wrong with cat eyes. Create an illusion of a lifted eye by drawing out the eye shadow in a pointed and lifted shape towards your eyebrow’s tail.

Round Eyes

People with round eyes have visibly noticeable creases. Also, the whites on the top or bottom of their irises are visible.

• Round eyes are also prominent and look more circular.
• The outer and inner corners of round eyes are rounded and not pulled outward or inward.

Celebrities known for their beautiful round eyes include Zoey Deschanel, Katy Perry and Ashley Olsen.

Makeup for Round Eyes

Round eyes are versatile so you can different liners and shadows in different colors. You can also rock different eyebrow looks, like eyebrow slits.

• Apply a deep contour in the crease and a deeper shadow at the end of your eyes.
• Also, go easy on the lashes. Extra lashes may make your eyes look bigger. Instead, add a coat or two on the outer lashes.

Monolid Eyes

An eye shape often associated with Asian descent is the monolid eye shape. If you don’t have any (or much of a) crease where your lid meets the skin below your eyebrows, your eye shape is a monolid one. Your creases aren’t visible even when you open your eyes.

Celebrities known for their monolid eyes include Lucy Liu, Lana Condor and Sandra Oh.

Makeup for Monolid Eyes

Don’t be afraid to play with your makeup! Since monolid eyes have less space above the eye, you can experiment with a smoky eye look or other fun colors in the waterline.

• Create dimension. Use light-reflective and shimmery eye shadows in the corner of the eye. Emphasize!
• Don’t skip on the primer. Shadow fallout and oily lids are the top enemies of monolid makeup. Keep your eye makeup in place with a great primer.
• Keep your eyeshadow minimal. Adding more shadow won’t emphasize your monolid eyes. Instead, just keep it simple.
• Use gel instead of liquid eyeliner. Gel liners can be easily applied compared to their liquid counterparts. Plus, you can do so much more with the angled brush that comes with a gel eyeliner.

Universal Tips For All Eye Shapes

Whether you have almond-shaped eyes, hooded eyes or oval eyes, there are still a few makeup tips that apply to any eye shape. Here are some tips applicable to all eye shapes:

• Light eyeshadow shades emphasize, brighten and bring forth an area. On the other hand, darker shades can recede and define an area. Keep these in mind if you’re trying to expand the space (e.g. hooded eyes) or create more definition (e.g. round eyes).
• Open up your eyes by using nude eyeliner to tightline your waterline. This trick makes your eyes appear brighter and larger.
• If you want to achieve the doe eye look, curl your lashes before applying mascara. This is especially applicable to downturned eyes since those lashes droop if you don’t curl them properly.

The Bottom Line

Hooded eyes are an absolutely normal, hereditary feature. People with hooded eyes are considered attractive and mysterious, because the hooded skin on the upper lid creates a deeper look. You can embrace your hooded lids and rock a casual everyday look with some highlights on the inner corner of your eye or wear more bold makeup looks that accentuate your eyes in the right way. 

If you want to switch up your hooded eyes look, there are ways you can do it: from injectables to eyelid surgery, to eyelid creams, and hooded eye makeup tips and tricks.