Your eye shape is not one label but a combination of answers to six questions: whether you have a visible crease, whether skin covers it, how much white shows around the iris, which way the outer corner tilts, how far apart your eyes sit, and how deep they are set. Most people end up with two or three labels, and “almond and hooded” is a normal, correct result.
These categories come from makeup artistry, not from anatomy, so they describe what a liner or shadow has to work with. Treat them as a vocabulary, not a diagnosis. Eye shape also sits inside the larger frame of your face, which the Face Shape Calculator measures in four numbers.
Set up the mirror
Sit in front of a mirror at eye level in even daylight, face relaxed, looking straight ahead. Do not tilt your chin up or look up into the mirror; that pulls the lids open and hides hooding. A phone photo also works if you take it straight on from about an arm and a half away, with the face relaxed.
Answer each question for one eye at a time. Small differences between left and right are normal.
The six questions
1. With your eye open, can you see a crease on the upper lid? If there is no crease at all, even when you close the eye gently, you have a monolid. If there is a crease, go on.
2. Is the crease covered by skin when your eye is open? Look straight ahead. If a fold of skin from below the brow hangs over the crease and hides part or all of your lid, your eyes are hooded. If you can see the lid between lashes and crease, they are not.
3. Does white show above or below your iris? If the iris touches or nearly touches both lids and the eye is longer than it is tall with slightly pointed corners, it is almond. If white shows above or below the iris when you look straight ahead, it is round.
4. Which way does the outer corner tilt? Imagine a horizontal line through your inner corner. If the outer corner sits above it, your eyes are upturned; below it, downturned. On the line, skip this label.
5. How far apart are your eyes? Compare the gap between your inner corners with the width of one eye. About one eye-width is average. Clearly less is close-set; clearly more is wide-set.
6. How deep are your eyes set? Turn to the side or check a profile photo. If your eyes sit well back under a prominent brow bone and the lid looks shadowed, they are deep-set. If the eyeball and lid project forward so that a lot of lid shows, they are prominent, sometimes called protruding.
The eye shape chart
| Question | Answer | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Visible crease? | No crease, even when closed | Monolid |
| 2. Crease covered when open? | Yes, partly or fully | Hooded |
| 3. White around the iris? | No, iris touches both lids | Almond |
| Yes, above or below | Round | |
| 4. Outer corner tilt? | Above the inner corner | Upturned |
| Below the inner corner | Downturned | |
| 5. Gap between eyes? | Less than one eye-width | Close-set |
| More than one eye-width | Wide-set | |
| 6. Depth? | Set back under the brow bone | Deep-set |
| Projects forward, much lid visible | Prominent |
Write down every label you collected. A typical result reads like “almond, hooded, slightly downturned”.
Hooded or almond?
This is the question people ask most, and the answer is usually both. Almond and round describe the outline of the eye itself. Hooded and monolid describe what the skin above it does. One does not replace the other.
The test that separates hooding from a simply small lid: look straight ahead, then close your eye gently and look again. If a clear crease appears with the eye closed but disappears or is half covered when it opens, the eye is hooded. If the crease and some lid stay visible when open, it is not. Hooding can increase over the years as the skin above the eye loosens, so a label from ten years ago may not fit now.
Why you get more than one answer
Many eye shape charts show ten little drawings and ask you to pick the one that looks like you. That fails because the drawings mix different questions: a “hooded eye” diagram is usually also almond and straight, so a round, hooded, upturned eye matches none of them. Asking the questions separately removes that problem.
Expect your answers to be mild rather than extreme. Few eyes are dramatically upturned or dramatically wide-set. When a question gives you a borderline answer, leave that label off; it will not change what you do with makeup.
One question, one label. Stack them, and you have your eye shape.
What the result changes
The labels matter mainly for eyeliner and eyeshadow, because they tell you where the lid folds, where color will be visible and which way a line should travel. Eyeliner for every eye shape turns each label into placement.
They also feed into your brows. The spacing of your eyes sets where your brows should start, which brow mapping measures with a pencil and a mirror. Your face shape decides the rest of the brow: arch height and tail length.