Hooded Eyes
A hooded eye has a fold of skin from the brow bone that drops over the crease, so little or none of the mobile lid shows when the eye is open. It is the most searched eye shape by a wide margin, and the most often confused with two other things: a monolid, and a drooping upper lid that is actually ptosis.
Drop a photo into the panel and it will say whether your measurement reads as hooded, with the numbers behind it.
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What are hooded eyes, and how are they measured?
The band between your lash line and the ring of landmarks just above it — where the crease sits — measured against your eye width. On a hooded eye that band falls below about a fifth of the eye's width, because the brow-bone skin folds down over it.
- Little or no lid space visible with the eye open and looking straight ahead
- The crease reappears when you close the eye or look down
- Eyeshadow placed on the lid disappears when you open your eyes
- The outer third of the lid is usually covered more heavily than the inner
Hooded is the most searched eye shape by a wide margin, and it is also the one people most often acquire rather than are born with: lid skin loses elasticity across adulthood, so a crease that was fully visible at twenty can be partly covered at forty. It is not rare in any population, and the degree matters more than the label — a lightly hooded eye and a heavily hooded one need different technique even though both get the same word.
How to tell if you have hooded eyes
- 1
Look straight ahead in a mirror, relaxed, without raising your brows. Raising them lifts the hood and hides the trait you are trying to see.
- 2
Look for the crease. If you cannot see a strip of mobile lid between your lash line and the crease, the eye is hooded.
- 3
Now close the eye. If a crease appears, you have a crease that is being covered — hooded. If no crease appears at all, that is a monolid, not a hood.
- 4
Check whether the upper lid covers part of the pupil rather than just the lid space. That is a different finding and belongs to an eye doctor, not a makeup guide.
Hooded eyes vs monolid eyes
Both hide the crease, and almost every guide online treats them as the same thing. They are not. A hooded eye has a crease that is covered by a fold of brow-bone skin — close the eye and the crease is there. A monolid has no crease to begin with, and closing the eye shows a smooth lid. The distinction matters because the makeup advice diverges: hooded technique works above the hood, monolid technique builds a gradient on the lid itself.
Hooded eyes vs deep-set eyes
Both look shadowed at the top of the eye and both get called hooded online. The difference is what is casting the shadow. A hooded eye has a fold of lid skin lying over the crease; a deep-set eye has a normal lid that sits back under a projecting brow bone. From the front they can look identical, and from the side they never do — which is one of the two traits this site tells you it cannot measure from a front photo.
Makeup for hooded eyes
Every hooded-eye technique solves the same problem: the surface you would normally decorate is not visible when the eye is open. So the work moves upward, onto the area that stays in view.
Works
- Place shadow above the natural crease, so colour is still visible with the eye open
- Keep liner thin at the lash line and extend it outward rather than upward, since an upward wing folds into the hood
- Use a tightline along the upper lash roots to define the eye without spending lid space
- Matte mid-tones in the outer corner to create the depth the hood flattens
Fights the shape
- Thick liner across the whole lid — it vanishes and reads as a dark smudge when the eye opens
- Shimmer directly on the hood, which catches light and makes the fold more prominent
- A classic winged flick that follows the lower lash line up, since the fold breaks it
Eyeliner for hooded eyes
Eyeliner on a hooded eye has one governing constraint: whatever you draw on the mobile lid disappears when the eye opens. Every technique below is a way of putting the line somewhere it survives.
- Tightline the upper lash roots first — it defines the eye and costs no lid space at all
- Keep the visible line thin at the lash line and let it thicken only past the outer corner
- Find the wing angle with your eyes open, not closed: mark the point where the hood ends and draw outward from there
- Extend outward rather than upward — a steep wing folds into the crease and prints onto the brow bone
- Smudge-proof gel or a waterproof pencil, because a hooded lid presses against the line all day
The common mistake. The near-universal error is drawing the wing with the eye closed. On a hooded eye the closed-lid geometry and the open-lid geometry are different surfaces, and a wing that looks clean shut can vanish entirely when the eye opens.
Eyelashes for hooded eyes
Lashes do more on a hooded eye than shadow does, because they sit at the one edge that stays visible.
- A firm curl matters more than length — straight lashes press against the hood
- Length concentrated in the outer half, which lengthens without lifting into the fold
- Avoid very long, heavy lashes in the centre, which can brush the hood and hold it down
Hooded eyes celebrities
Hooded eyes attract more celebrity lists than any other shape — 3,600 searches a month in the United States alone. This site does not publish one. The amount of visible lid changes with brow position, camera height and how wide someone's eyes are open in that frame, so a press photo is a poor instrument for a measurement that is about millimetres of lid.
When hooded eyes are a question for a doctor
Hooded lids are a normal variation of anatomy, and they also become more common with age as skin loses elasticity. There is one finding that is not cosmetic: if the upper lid covers part of the pupil, droops noticeably more on one side, or has changed over weeks rather than years, that is ptosis and it can have causes worth investigating. It is a question for an ophthalmologist or oculoplastic surgeon, not for a measurement tool.
Hooded eyes — frequently asked questions
How do I know if I have hooded eyes?
Look straight ahead without raising your brows and see whether any mobile lid is visible between your lash line and your crease. If the crease is hidden when open but appears when you close the eye, they are hooded.
Are hooded eyes rare?
No — they are common, and they become more common with age. They are also strongly heritable, which is why they run visibly in families.
Can hooded eyes be almond shaped too?
Yes. Hooding describes lid coverage; almond describes the outline. An eye can be both, and many are. That is why this site reports them as separate measurements rather than one label.
Do hooded eyes get worse with age?
Upper lid skin loses elasticity over time, so hooding tends to increase. How fast varies a great deal between people.
What is the difference between hooded eyes and ptosis?
Hooding is skin from the brow bone covering the crease. Ptosis is the lid margin itself sitting low, often over part of the pupil. The first is anatomy, the second is a medical finding.