Do I Have Hooded Eyes?

I get asked this question from time to time, do I have hooded eyes? People know that I have them, so they want me to tell them whether or not they also have them. On the chart above, I have a quick reference for basic eye shapes. There are six basic eye shapes – round eyes, monolid eyes, hooded eyes, downturned eyes, upturned eyes, and almond eyes. There are also a lot of descriptors with eyes like close set eyes, wide set eyes, asymmetrical eyes, asymmetrical hooded eyes, big eyes, small eyes, and deepset eyes.

Do you have a crease? If you answer no to this, then you likely have monolids. If you answer yes, is your crease hidden beneath a curtain of skin? If you answer yes, then congratulations, you have hooded eyes! If you answer yes, draw a horizontal line across your eyes to see if your outer corners pull upwards or downwards. If your eyes turn down, they are downturned, and if they turn up, they are upturned.

Hooded Eyes Video

I added this video component because it includes over 50 different hooded eye shapes from the lovely ladies of the PhyrraNyx Facebook Group. Thank you so much to everyone who included a photo!

Watch the Video on Youtube with Closed Captioning in English!

What Are Hooded Eyes?

They are eyes that have excess skin from the browbone to the lash line, which hides the crease and mobile eyelids space. If you’re like me, and you’ve struggled for years to follow makeup tutorials on YouTube, magazines or blogs, you might have hooded eyes. Most makeup tutorials are for almond or protruding eyes.

If you are looking straight ahead into a mirror, does excess skin between your eyebrows and eyelashes obscure your crease? If you are unsure, look at the photo of my eyes above. I have excess skin that hides my crease, thus they are hooded. They’re also a tad deepset and downturned. By deepset I mean that my eyebrow protrudes slightly past my eyeball. By downturned I mean the outer corner of my eye shape is pulled down by excess skin. In my case, the excess curtain of skin, especially at the outer 3/4 of my eyelid, is hidden by my hooded eyes.

Do I Have Hooded Eyes?

For the image above I drew a straight horizontal line across my pupils to determine if my outer corners turn up or down. My outer corners turn slightly down. My outer corners are also slightly deepset, which you can see by the way the excess hooded eye skin covers the outer corner of my eyes. If your eyes look like mine, congrats! They are hooded, slightly deepset, and slightly downturned.

Even if they don’t look exactly like mine, your eyes may still be. There are different shapes of hooded eyes. Youtuber Alissa Ashley has hoodies and I think they look quite different from my 42 year old eyes.

The usual giveaway for hoodies is that the mobile lid (the part by the lash line) is partially or fully obscured by excess skin draping over it from the browbone.

Other Ways to Tell You Have Hooded Eyes

Does your eye makeup crease, fade, or wear away during the day? Does your eyeliner smear easily? You could have hooded eyes like me. Because the excess skin rubs together in my eye area every time I blink, my makeup wears away unless I use eyeshadow primer, set with setting powder, and then apply eye makeup. Seriously, it’s gone in 20 minutes or less and then I wonder why I spent an hour doing my makeup, unless I wear primer.

Do I Have Deep Set or Downturned or Hooded Eyes?

This image is a really great visual to show you the difference between Deep Set and Protruding eyes. My mobile eyes are the opposite of protruding. You can tell my eyes are slightly deepset and downturned from the side, as well as hooded, because you can literally see a curtain of skin over the outer half of my eyes.

Celebrities with Hooded Eyes

Some of the most beautiful celebrities in the world have our eyes! Blake Lively, Jennifer Lawrence, Taylor Swift, Claudia Schiffer, Kate Hudson, and Emma Stone all have them! I think my eyes look most similar to Kate Hudson or Emma Stone.

How to do Cat Eyes

This Cat Eyes for Hooded Lids is the best cat eye liner tutorial that I’ve found to date. I wish my hoods were shaped like hers!

For my particular shape, I find that if I create my winged liner from the lower lid first, I end up with the correct angle for my face. It’s quite literally all about working your best angles.

Why do I have Hooded Eyes?

I was born with them. I’ve had them my entire life. Some people are born with them. Other people develop them with age. Other reasons you can have them can be health related, so if you are concerned, talk to your eye doctor.

Do Hooded Eyes Affect Eyesight?

Yes they can affect eyesight. In my 20s I had no issues from my hoods. At 42, I’ve noticed that the hood over the outer part of my eyes is starting to mess with my vision. If you notice things like blurry vision, difficulty reading, loss of peripheral vision, definitely talk to your doctor. Because I’ve had them my entire life, the sag is only getting worse and will interfere with my vision, I will probably have blepharoplasty surgery in my future.

Do Hooded Eyes go Away With Weight Loss?

Because I lost 40 lbs two years ago, I have actually had people ask me if I expected my hoods to go away. The answer is no, because I was born with them. The only way my hoodies will go away is if I change the shape with surgery.

Do Irish Have Hooded Eyes?

The fact that this question has been posed made me laugh a bit because I don’t think any one race has identical eye shapes. So while I’m about 50% Irish (thanks to 23 and me’s ancestry test) and I do have them, I don’t think everyone who is Irish has them.

Do Scandinavians Have Hooded Eyes?

Surprisingly, people also ask do Scandinavians have hooded eyes? Much like my thoughts on the Irish above, I don’t think every Scandinavian has them.

Do Hooded Eyes Make You Look Tired?

The truth is, they can. My eyes definitely did not make me look tired in my 20s but in my 40s I feel like they’re starting to.

Do Hooded Eyes Make You Look Older?

In my opinion, where my eyes are concerned, they can. I often feel like the only tell-tale sign of my age is my eyes.

Do Hooded Eyes Go Away?

If you’re born with them, like me, I sincerely doubt they will ever go away. If you are born with hooded eyes, those are your eyes. If you ended up getting hooded eyes because of your weight and then you lose weight, you may end up with less hooded eyes. However, the only way I know of to make hooded eyes go away permanently is to have blepharoplasty surgery. Surgery isn’t something I would decide to do lightly on a whim, but if it’s something you really want, make sure you do your research.

Can I Change My Hooded Eyes?

I get asked how to change hooded eyes frequently. As I mentioned before, you can take drastic measures and have blepharoplasty surgery to permanently change your eyes. However, there are much less invasive ways to alter your appearance.

Lid correcting strips, such as the ones from Contours RX or other eyelid tape brands on Amazon can truly, dramatically change your appearance. They do take a bit of practice to get used to. I’ve never really been able to get makeup to look right on top of them either, but I love how they change my eye shape. In the photo above I’m wear 7mm lid correcting strips to change the shape of my hooded eyes.

If you have eyes like I do and you struggle with makeup, my book Hooded Eyes Makeup Manual is for you! I wrote it at the request of my Phyrra Family and published it last year. So many of you asked for a collection of my tutorials in a book, so I included many different step-by-step eye makeup tutorials. I also filled it with all the tips and tricks I’ve learned from my makeup artist friends over the past 12 years, such as Mickey Fitzpatrick, Norah Salazar, Danessa Myricks, and James Vincent. As I mention in the book, and on this blog, you can always turn to the web and Youtube to find hooded eye makeup tutorials. I just put a bunch of things together all in one place to make things easy for you.

My Book also has a brush guide to help you find the best brushes for our eye shape and all the tutorials list generic color terms so you can recreate any of the tutorials within it with what you have on hand. You do NOT need to buy the brands I mention in the book unless you want to. You just need to look for similar shapes for brushes and similar hues for makeup. The Book is available in both print and digital format.

So tell me, do you have hooded eyes?