How to Determine Your Eye Shape

So you’ve watched your favorite beauty bloggers work makeup masterpieces with one hand wielding eyeliner and mascara, while the other thumbs through an array of gorgeous eyeshadows. But seriously, how do they do it? If you’ve ever sat staring in the mirror wondering why your statement eye looks more like a disaster than a dreamy blend job, chances are you don’t know your eye shape.

Eyes, like eyebrows, lips, and just about every other part of a person’s body, come in many different shapes and sizes. As you know, when you know which shape and size you are, you’ll have a much better chance of creating a look that accents your specific form. So, who’s ready to find out once and for all what their eye shape is? Before you know it, you’ll be able to tailor all your favorite makeup tutorials to your face for a gorgeous eye makeup look that’s sure to turn a few heads.

How to Determine Your Eye Shape

There are six popular eye shapes to consider when determining your own eye shape: monolids, round eyes, almond eyes, downturned eyes, upturned eyes, and hooded eyes, When determining your eye shape, you have to ask yourself two questions: 1) do you have a crease? And 2) can you see it?

First and foremost, if you answered no to the first question, you don’t have to move on to the second. That’s right, if you don’t have a crease on your lid, then you have monolids. When you have monolids, the best way to create your favorite makeup looks is to create a faux crease. Now that monolids have been covered, it’s time to talk about everyone who has a crease.

You have round eyes if…you have a visible crease in your eyelid and your iris is surrounded by just a touch of white, disconnecting it from your top and bottom eyelid.

You have almond eyes if…you have a visible crease in your eyelid and, unlike round eyes, your iris touches both the top and bottom of your eyelid.

You have downturned eyes if…the outer corners of your eyes turn downwards. If you can’t quite tell, imagine drawing a straight line across your eye. If your outer corners turn down beneath the line, you can guess what that means.

You have upturned eyes if...the outer corners of your eyes flick upwards. If you can’t quite tell, use the same approach as for downturned eyes. If your outer corners turn upwards above the line, there you have it.

You have hooded eyes if...you have a crease, but it isn’t visible because it’s hidden beneath a flap of skin. While hooded eyes regularly occur as you get older and your skin begins to lose its elasticity. It’s possible to also be born with hooded eyes. In fact, if you take a scroll through your social feeds, you may even see that some of your favorite celebrities rock these lids—you can, too!

Now that you can be confident in your eye shape, it’s time to learn how to enhance your natural features with some of your favorite eye makeup. No matter your eye shape, the best first step of any eye makeup routine is to dot your lids with eye primer. Once you’ve dabbed on a tiny bit of primer, use the L’Oréal Paris Infallible Paints Metallics Eye Shadow and L’Oréal Paris Pro-Last Waterproof Pencil Eyeliner to create stunning eye makeup looks tailored to your eye shape.

If you’re worried about working around your newly discovered eye shape, don’t be! We have a whole slew of makeup tutorials for different eye shapes. So, now that you’ve made it through this fun read, check out our other eye shape-specific articles, Makeup Tutorial for Downturned Eyes, Makeup Tutorial for Hooded Eyes, or Makeup Tutorial for Almond Eyes.