What the Hell is A Hooded Eye?
Well that's a little difficult to verbally explain but here it goes. Go to a mirror and look at yourself straight on with a relaxed face, if you can't see your mobile lid (the part that blinks) or you can't see very much of it, you have hooded eyes. The hood is the "extra" bit of skin that hangs down over your mobile lid. Hooded eyes come in varying severity, and they tend to get worse as we age. It's genetics (THANKS MOM!) and there isn't really anything that can be done to fix them, even surgery can't completely unhood your eye.
Next let me say that if you’re just now discovering you have hooded eyes “you are not alone”, once you know what they are you will start noticing a world full of, as Alissa Ashley calls us “Hoodies”. Hooded eyes aren’t necessarily a bad thing but they can make eye makeup application a bit more tricky than our non hooded counterparts. Let’s call it “eyeshadow surprise”, since whatever you put on you mobile lid, more often than not, will only be seen when you blink, SO REMEMBER TO MAKE IT COUNT!
Some of Hollywood’s most beautiful women have hooded eyes, Jennifer Aniston, Blake Lively, Taylor Swift, and Jennifer Lawrence, to name a few.
Well that's a little difficult to verbally explain but here it goes. Go to a mirror and look at yourself straight on with a relaxed face, if you can't see your mobile lid (the part that blinks) or you can't see very much of it, you have hooded eyes. The hood is the "extra" bit of skin that hangs down over your mobile lid. Hooded eyes come in varying severity, and they tend to get worse as we age. It's genetics (THANKS MOM!) and there isn't really anything that can be done to fix them, even surgery can't completely unhood your eye.
Next let me say that if you’re just now discovering you have hooded eyes “you are not alone”, once you know what they are you will start noticing a world full of, as Alissa Ashley calls us “Hoodies”. Hooded eyes aren’t necessarily a bad thing but they can make eye makeup application a bit more tricky than our non hooded counterparts. Let’s call it “eyeshadow surprise”, since whatever you put on you mobile lid, more often than not, will only be seen when you blink, SO REMEMBER TO MAKE IT COUNT!
Some of Hollywood’s most beautiful women have hooded eyes, Jennifer Aniston, Blake Lively, Taylor Swift, and Jennifer Lawrence, to name a few.
I am not going to reinvent the wheel, if your still unsure if your a "Hoodie", check out the following links for some great videos that break it all down for you.
Red LipshtickStephanie Lange (very high energy)
Sugarpuffandfluff (for more mature makeup lovers)
Alissa Ashley (hooded eye's w/ low brows)
Once I discovered what hooded eyes were, and that I had them, my eyeshadow game changed drastically. But first…
Not only do I have hooded eyes, I also have low straight brows which gives me even less space to work with. If you have hooded eyes and you have high brows with a nice arch you're in luck. My problem is my eyebrows sit just about at my actual brow bone which is then only a half an inch from where I have to create a crease where there isn’t one. You will see in the graphic below that leaves very little room for multiple shadow placement and blending. The funny thing is I kind of thought everyone’s eyebrows were placed at the brow bone until I started really paying attention to other peoples eyebrows.
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| Pixiewoo |
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| Hooded Eyes with low straight brows |
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| YouTuber Melissa Autry |
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| Hooded Eyes with high arching brows |
But Wait, it doesn't stop there, I was genetically blessed with loose crepey skin on my mobile lid and hood. If I don’t use a very specific brush for blending the skin bunches up and creates gaps in the shadow which for some reason are hard as hell to fix.
Here is that graphic I mentioned a few paragraphs up. I came across it on Pinterest a the very start of my journey.
The only thing I can say is “REALLY”, who the hell has this much space to work with, I mean come on, how am I supposed to realistically achieve this with only an inch of space. Though looking at these now they seem much more doable, now that I have a handle on what I'm working with.
Oh AND Forget about winged liner, that shit just is not going to happen for you so the sooner you accept it the better, that's the hard reality ladies, cry about it and move on. In fact forget about liner altogether because it just takes up valuable real estate on the eyelid.
Now that I have that out of my system here are a few things I have learned since I first stumbled across Red Lipshtick and her revelation of why I was suffering so. Gosh I'm very mellow dramatic aren't I , this is just makeup after all.
1. Keep your eyebrows neat and tidy, you don't need any stray hairs trying to steal the show.
I don't care what Instagram tells you not every eyebrow is arched, and they are
"Sister's NOT Twins". I feel a simple filling in of the brow is all that needs to be done by
the everyday woman. Here are three of my favorite options: Micro Brow Pencil, Brow
Mascara, Brow Revolution. The Brow Revolution is my current favorite and I think a dupe
for the over hyped Wonderbrow.
2. Use a Primer (foundation or concealer works too) and set the primer with a
powder/shadow that is the same shade as you. My go to is the Wet 'n' Wild Shadow Single
"Brulee". This helps immensely with blending!
3. Start out easy and keep things simple, I started with Stephanie Lange's "Domed"
Technique, which is pretty much an old school application process. I then moved on to
Wayne Goss's "Straight Line Technique". Then add more colors as you get more
comfortable.
4. Smaller and softer brushes are my go to:
"Sister's NOT Twins". I feel a simple filling in of the brow is all that needs to be done by
the everyday woman. Here are three of my favorite options: Micro Brow Pencil, Brow
Mascara, Brow Revolution. The Brow Revolution is my current favorite and I think a dupe
for the over hyped Wonderbrow.
2. Use a Primer (foundation or concealer works too) and set the primer with a
powder/shadow that is the same shade as you. My go to is the Wet 'n' Wild Shadow Single
"Brulee". This helps immensely with blending!
3. Start out easy and keep things simple, I started with Stephanie Lange's "Domed"
Technique, which is pretty much an old school application process. I then moved on to
Wayne Goss's "Straight Line Technique". Then add more colors as you get more
comfortable.
4. Smaller and softer brushes are my go to:
- I use a no name flat shader to set my primer
- Coastal Scents Classic Shadow Brush Medium is my go to for packing color on my mobile lid.
- Zoeva 224 Luxe Defined Crease is my go to for getting the crease or transition color where it needs to go.
- Zoeva 231 Luxe Petit Crease for applying the darker outer color I find an angled shadow brush, like the Coastal Scents Classic Shadow Angle Brush, works well for this too, its the perfect width for placing a darker shade on my lid and slightly above my natural crease.
- Zoeva 228 Luxe Crease is great for blending the two together, it fits nicely into my natural crease.
- Wet n Wild Crease Brush is my favorite for buffing out any harsh edges or blending out a single eyeshadow look. I have like 5 of them and you can find them at Dollar Tree for $1.
- Real techniques brushes are some of my favorites and very affordable.
- Remember the old day's when we used the enclosed applicator, those actually work beautifully for packing on shimmer shadow, especially if you don't like using your fingers or have long nails.
I have a ton of brushes that very rarely get used, so hopefully my suggestions above will help you avoid accumulating a large number of brushes. There was a time before the YouTube Beauty Revolution, that we never knew we needed multiple brushes and the regular woman had never heard of an outer V; on the other hand we probably never knew what hooded eyes were either.
Even after learning all that I have over the last 10 years I am still hard on myself, I look back at pictures from a year ago and think my makeup looked better and can't figure out what it was I was doing different. Try not to let the current beauty industry dictate what products you HAVE to buy, how you do your makeup, and especially not how you view yourself.
Stay tuned to this blog and my Instagram for real world reviews and my rants about a myriad of things.
Blog You Later
Js
I did not take any of these pictures I just pulled them off of google.
None of the above links are affiliate links, I just wanted to give credit where credit is due and help you find products I enjoy.
