Makeup Tips for Hooded Eyes

For anyone who doesn't know, people with hooded eyes (nicknamed "bedroom eyes") have little lid space and the upper lid covers it almost completely. I have hooded eyes myself. I hated them, I still do. I find that applying makeup on hooded eyes is much more difficult than any other eye shape, because the lid is practically unseen and it's very easy to make your eyes look closed off or like you haven't gotten any sleep.
But I've come to terms that I will never have my ideal eye shape, so here are some tips I've acquired that have helped me emphasize my eyes and make them stand out.

1. Placement: 
When you have hooded eyes, putting dark colors on the lid isn't always ideal.

• Start out by putting a light color on the lid and inner corner will make your lid stand out. Also, extend the lid shade across the whole ball of your eyelid and not just underneath where the crease is. 


• Next, use a medium toned shadow with a big fluffy brush like the Sigma E40 and sweep this into the crease and above the crease (pretty much over the entire hood) staying below where your highlight should go. This makes the illusion that the hood of your eye is farther back. A good shade to use for this step is MAC Wedge or Soft Brown. These shades also work well as transition colors, so it's like a 2-in-1 step :)


• Lastly, Put a darker shade in the outer corner and into the crease about a third of the way in. This gives more definition in the outer corner and recedes the hood even more. Put on a highlight shade and you're good to go!

2. Eyeliner

• Eyeliner with hooded eyes can be very tricky. Too much can close off your eye and make it look smaller than it already does. A good substitution for lining the upper lid, is to line your upper waterline. This has the same effect of defining your lashline, but giving you more lid space to work with. 


• Also, lining the lower lashline can also make your eyes look closed off. To fix this, use a dark eyeshadow to line underneath your bottom lashes and use a flesh-toned eyeliner in the waterline to make the eyes appear more open.


• Winged liner can also be difficult on hooded eyes (I still mess up 9 times out of 10). Try to keep the line along your lashline as thin as possible. Finding a precision liner brush like a MAC 210 works best for this. When doing the wing, extend the line slighly more downwards than a normal wing, so it doesn't get covered by the hood.

3. Eyebrows:

• Having a certain shape to your eyebrows also can make your hooded eyes stand out more. I find that brows that arch up on an angle give you more space to "fake" a higher up crease and gives you more space to work with. 

Here's a chart I found on google of different eye shapes and shadow placements for each one.