Eye shape detector

Updated 15 October 2026How we measure

Last updated 15 October 2026

What your eye shape result means

The result is one of six names: almond, round, hooded, monolid, upturned or downturned. Under it you get a confidence and the four measurements that decided it, each next to the value on an average face, so you can see why you got the label rather than take it on trust.

Eye shapes are a makeup artist’s and optician’s shorthand, not anatomy. Nobody has agreed where almond ends and round begins, and real eyes mix features: plenty of people have hooded eyes that also tilt up, or round eyes that turn down at the corners. So the detector scores all six, picks the strongest, and tells you when a second shape is close behind. A confidence near 50% means you sit between two shapes and the advice for both applies. Near 95% means one feature clearly stands out.

Two things are worth knowing before you read your result. First, left and right are averaged, so if your eyes differ (most people’s do a little) the result describes the pair. Second, the hooded and monolid calls are estimates, for a reason explained below: the face model can see that little lid shows, but not whether a crease is hiding under a fold.

How the detector measures your eyes

The scan finds 478 points on your face with Google’s MediaPipe Face Landmarker, running in your browser. About 70 of those points outline the eyes, the lids around them and the brows. Before measuring anything, the face is rotated back to straight-on in 3D, so a small turn or nod doesn’t change the result, and every number is a ratio or an angle, so it doesn’t matter how far you are from the camera. The methodology page covers the pipeline for every tool.

1. Height ÷ width. The gap between the upper and lower lid, averaged over five points across the eye, divided by the distance between the corners. This is what separates round eyes from the rest: round reads from about 22% taller than the average face and clearly round from 42%.
2. Canthal tilt. The angle of the line from the inner corner to the outer corner, measured against the line through both inner corners so that a tilted head doesn’t count. From about +5° an eye starts to read upturned and from +9° clearly so; from −1° it starts to read downturned and from −4° clearly.
3. Visible lid. The distance from the lash line up to the band of the upper lid where a crease usually sits, divided by the height of the opening. Below about 80% of the average face, the eye starts to read hooded or monolid.
4. Outer corner. How far the outer corner sits above or below the middle of the opening, in eye heights. Tilt is measured from the inner corner; this is measured from the eye’s own middle, so it separates an outer third that genuinely lifts or drops from an eye that is simply set at an angle. It strengthens the upturned and downturned calls but never makes them on its own.

Each shape gets a score from 0 to 1 per eye, the two eyes are averaged, and almond takes whatever is left when no other feature stands out. The confidence is the gap between the winner and the runner-up. These cut-offs are our judgement, centred on MediaPipe’s average face and how much real eyes vary; they are not fitted to a labelled set of eyes, and we say so on the methodology page too.

What the face model can’t see: the crease

MediaPipe’s mesh has points along the lash line and in rings around the eye, but none on the eyelid crease itself. The detector uses the ring that sits where a crease usually is, about 7–8 mm above the lashes on the model’s average face, as the crease region. The model places that ring from what the upper lid looks like: when a fold of skin hangs low over the lid, the ring comes down with it and the visible-lid number drops.

That works as an estimate of how much lid shows, which is what “hooded” describes. It can’t tell whether a crease exists behind the fold, which is what separates hooded from monolid. So the detector uses two clues: in hooded eyes the brow usually sits close to the lash line, because the extra skin comes down from the brow; a monolid usually has a narrower opening with the brow sitting higher. If your result says hooded or monolid with a modest confidence, the 30-second mirror check in the hooded eyes guide settles it.

The six eye shapes in detail

Almond

Almond eyes are clearly wider than they are tall, taper to a point at both corners, and sit close to level or tilt slightly up. The iris usually touches or tucks just under the upper lid and sits on or near the lower one, so little white shows above or below it. There is visible lid between the lashes and the crease. In the detector, almond is the shape left when none of the other five features stands out, which makes it the default result.

Round

Round eyes are tall for their width. The upper lid arches higher, the opening reads as a curve rather than a tapered oval, and white often shows above or below the iris. Opening your eyes wide for a photo makes almost anyone read round, so keep a relaxed face when you scan.

Hooded

In a hooded eye, a fold of skin from below the brow hangs over the crease and covers most of the mobile lid when the eye is open. The crease is there (close the eye and it shows) but it is hidden. The eye can be any width and any tilt underneath. Hooding runs in families and becomes more common with age, as the skin of the upper lid loosens and the brows settle lower. Heavy hooding that sits on the lashes or narrows what you can see is a matter for an eye doctor, not a styling question; this page is not medical advice.

Monolid

A monolid has no visible crease: the lid runs smoothly from the lashes up towards the brow. It is the typical upper lid in many East Asian populations, and it has an anatomical basis. In a cadaver study, Jeong and colleagues found that in Asian upper eyelids the orbital septum joins the tendon that lifts the lid lower down than in Caucasian eyelids, so fat sits lower and further forward in the lid and the crease forms low or not at all. Many people with East Asian ancestry have a low crease instead, which can read as hooded or as monolid depending on how much of it shows.

Upturned

Upturned eyes have outer corners that sit clearly higher than the inner corners, so the lower lid rises towards the temple and the outer third of the eye lifts. In numbers, that is a canthal tilt from about +5° upwards, with the outer corner above the middle of the opening. A small upward tilt is common in adults; upturned is the clear end of that range.

Downturned

Downturned eyes have outer corners lower than the inner ones, so the outer third of the eye angles down. A negative tilt can be inherited, and it becomes more likely with age as the tendon that anchors the outer corner of the lids loosens. Because so many eyes sit between −1° and +2°, a downturned call with a low confidence usually means “close to level, slightly down”.

Getting a reliable reading

Eye measurements move more with the way you take the photo than almost anything else on the face. The lids are thin and mobile, and a few pixels of lid make the difference between two shapes. Before you scan or upload:

• Relax your face. A smile pushes the lower lids up and narrows the opening; raised brows uncover the lid and lift the corners. Both change the result.
• Hold the camera at eye level. Looking down at a phone lowers the outer corners in the image and makes the lid look smaller; looking up does the opposite. The scan only captures the front view when your head is close to straight.
• Take glasses off. Frames cover the outer corners and lenses shift the lids.
• Mind the makeup. Winged liner and lash extensions don’t move where your lids meet, but heavy liner can pull the corner points, and false lashes can hide the lash line.
• Use even light. Light from above shadows the lid and the crease region; face a window instead.
• Look straight ahead. Looking up or down moves the upper lid with your gaze.

If you land between two shapes, scan twice in the same setup and go with the shape that comes up most. A camera scan fuses 8 frames of the front view, which steadies the lid points compared with a single photo.

Why eye shape matters to people

Most people look up their eye shape for practical reasons: where to place eyeliner and shadow, which lash style opens the eye, how brows frame it, or which frame shapes suit their glasses. The shape changes the answer. Liner along the lash line disappears under a hood but defines a monolid; a lifted wing echoes an upturned eye and counteracts a downturned one; round eyes are often elongated with liner at the outer corner. The eye shapes guide goes through each shape with examples.

Eye shape is also one of the things people notice first in a face, which is why the attractiveness research looks at eyes so closely. In our attractiveness test, the eyes are one of six components: how open they are, their size against the face, their spacing, their tilt and the brow position. The shape label itself is not scored, though two of its ingredients, tilt and openness, are part of the eye component; the methodology shows how much they weigh.

Eye shape, canthal tilt and “hunter eyes”

Online, eye shape often gets mixed up with canthal tilt and with “hunter eyes”. They overlap but they are not the same thing. Canthal tilt is a single angle. Eye shape uses that angle together with the opening, the lid and the corner. “Hunter eyes” is a forum term for eyes that are fairly narrow, tilt slightly up and have little visible lid under a low, straight brow, which in our terms is usually an almond or upturned eye with some hooding. The hunter eyes guide explains the term neutrally, and the canthal tilt test gives the angle of each eye on its own.

What the full report adds

The free result is your eye shape with its measurements. The Full Face Report costs $14.99, paid once, and puts your eyes in context: how open they are and how large against your face width, their spacing, the tilt of each eye with its spread across frames, your brow position, and how the eyes feed into your attractiveness score. It also covers your face shape, symmetry, proportions and profile, and what would move your score. It is built on your device from the same scan.

Keep reading

• Eye shapes explained
• Hooded eyes: the 30-second check
• Hunter eyes, explained

Other tools that use the same scan:

• Canthal tilt test: the tilt of each eye in degrees: positive, neutral or negative.
• Face shape detector: your face shape out of six, with how confident the match is.
• Face symmetry test: your symmetry score out of 100 and where the two sides differ most.