Eye shapes: the six types and how to find yours

There are six eye shapes in common use: almond, round, hooded, monolid, upturned and downturned. They answer three different questions about an eye. Almond and round describe the outline of the opening. Hooded and monolid describe the upper lid. Upturned and downturned describe the tilt from the inner corner to the outer one. So most people are more than one, for example hooded and almond, or monolid and upturned. The eye shape detector reads all three from a short scan, and the chart below shows what each looks like.

What decides an eye’s shape

Four measurements separate the six shapes, and they are the same four the detector takes from the landmarks around each eye:

1. Height against width. The gap between the lids, divided by the distance from corner to corner. Almond eyes are roughly two and a half to three times as wide as they are tall; round eyes are taller for their width.
2. Canthal tilt. The angle of the line from the inner corner to the outer corner. Positive means the outer corner sits higher. Most eyes measure level to a few degrees positive.
3. Visible upper lid. How much of the movable lid shows between the lashes and the crease or fold when you look straight ahead. A lot on most almond and round eyes, little on hooded eyes and monolids.
4. Outer-corner position. Where the outer corner sits relative to the middle of the eye, which, with the tilt, separates upturned from downturned.

Spacing (wide-set or close-set) and depth (deep-set or prominent) are sometimes listed as eye shapes too. They describe where the eyes sit in the face rather than the shape of the opening, so they combine with any of the six. The facial ratios calculator measures spacing directly.

The six eye shapes

Almond

Almond eyes are wider than they are tall, with corners that taper to a point and a gentle upward tilt. The upper lid usually covers a small part of the top of the iris and the lower lid touches its bottom edge, so little white shows above or below it. Almond sits in the middle of every measurement, which makes it the reference the other shapes are described against.

Mirror check: look straight ahead. If the iris touches both lids and the corners are pointed rather than rounded, you’re almond, whatever your lid type.

Round

Round eyes are taller for their width, with a more curved upper and lower lid. When you look straight ahead, white often shows below the iris, above it, or both, and the visible lid tends to be generous. Round eyes can read larger than almond eyes of the same width.

Mirror check: look straight ahead without raising your brows. White visible beneath the iris points to round. Wide-open eyes in a photo don’t count; relaxed is the honest test.

Hooded

Hooded eyes have a crease, but a fold of skin from below the brow bone drapes over it, hiding some or most of the movable lid when the eyes are open. Hooding is often heavier toward the outer corner. It is very common, runs in families, and tends to increase with age as skin loosens and the brows descend.

Mirror check: with your eyes open and brows relaxed, can you see your lid? Then close your eyes: a crease that appears only when they are closed means hooded. The hooded eyes guide has the full 30-second check, the anatomy and what helps with makeup and photos.

Monolid

Monolid eyes have no visible crease: the skin runs smoothly from the lashes up to the brow. The lid can look fuller, and some monolid eyes have an epicanthal fold, a small fold of skin over the inner corner. Monolids are most common in East Asian populations, and anatomical studies trace them to how the lid’s layers attach: where the tendon that lifts the lid sends fibres to the skin, a crease forms, and in many monolid lids those fibres don’t reach the skin, or a lower fat pad sits in front of them.

Mirror check: close your eyes. No crease anywhere on the upper lid means monolid. A very low crease that hides when the eyes open is closer to hooded.

Upturned

Upturned eyes have a clearly positive tilt: the outer corner sits higher than the inner one, and the lower lid rises toward the temple. The effect reads as lifted at the outer end. Many almond eyes tilt up slightly; upturned describes a tilt strong enough to notice at a glance.

Mirror check: hold a pen or the edge of a card horizontally across both inner corners. If the outer corners sit clearly above it, your eyes are upturned. The canthal tilt test measures the angle in degrees.

Downturned

Downturned eyes have the outer corner lower than the inner one, so the line of the eye falls toward the temple. The outer part of the upper lid often slopes down with it. Downturned eyes are less common than level or upturned ones, and some eyes that look downturned are hooded instead: a heavy fold at the outer corner can make a level eye look like it slopes.

Mirror check: the same pen test. Outer corners below the line through the inner corners means downturned; if the corners are level but the outer lid looks heavy, check for hooding first.

Find your eye shape in a mirror: three questions

Because the six shapes answer three separate questions, you get the most accurate answer by asking them one at a time, in good light with your face relaxed and the mirror at eye level:

1. The lid: close your eyes. No crease: monolid. A crease that hides under a fold when you open your eyes: hooded. A crease and a visible lid: neither.
2. The outline: look straight ahead. White below the iris and a curved opening: round. The iris touching both lids and pointed corners: almond.
3. The tilt: a horizontal edge across the inner corners. Outer corners clearly above it: upturned. Below it: downturned. Level or slightly above: neither.

Write down one answer per question, for example “hooded, almond, level”. That is a more useful description than any single label, and it is what makeup and glasses advice actually needs.

Eye shape, ancestry and age

Eye shape varies between populations as well as between individuals. Biometric studies comparing eyelids across groups find differences in the height of the lid opening, the crease and the visible lid, and in how often a crease is present at all. Anatomical work on the upper eyelid explains much of this through where the lid’s layers attach and where its fat sits. None of these features carries a ranking; they are the normal range of human eyes.

Age changes the lid more than the eye. The skin of the upper lid loses elasticity, the brows can descend, and the fold over the crease tends to grow, so many eyes become more hooded over the decades. A large population study of sagging eyelids found it more common with age, in men, in people with lighter skin and in people with a higher body mass index, and found a genetic variant linked to less sagging. The corners, set by tendons anchored to bone, move much less, so canthal tilt is more stable than lid type.

Is one eye shape more attractive?

Research on facial attractiveness hasn’t ranked these six labels, and there is little reason to expect it would: each label bundles several measurements, and people with every eye shape are rated across the whole range. What studies have looked at are the measurements underneath. Eyes that are open rather than narrowed, a size in proportion to the face, and a level-to-slightly-positive tilt tend to be rated favourably, but each effect is small next to symmetry and how close a face is to average overall.

That is how the attractiveness test treats eyes: openness, size against the face, tilt and brow height form one component, worth 15% of the score with the neutral weighting (12% or 18% with the others), and the eye shape label itself isn’t used. A hooded or monolid eye costs nothing on its own; only the measurements count.

What a scan can and can’t measure

The eye shape detector uses Google’s MediaPipe face landmarks, which trace the lid margins and the corners of each eye closely. Height against width, tilt and the corner position come straight from those points. The model has no landmark on the crease itself, so the visible-lid measurement, and with it the hooded and monolid results, is an estimate from the lid and brow points above it. The detector shows its confidence and the four numbers behind the label for that reason.

Three things change the result: expression (a smile narrows the eyes and lifts the lower lid), brow position (raised brows reveal more lid) and head pitch (chin down makes eyes look more hooded). Scan with a relaxed face, level head and even light. For the tilt alone, the canthal tilt guide explains how the angle is measured and what affects it.

Using your eye shape

• Makeup: eye shape decides where shadow and liner show when your eyes are open. Hooded eyes need colour placed above the natural crease; monolids suit gradients from the lash line up; downturned eyes suit liner that lifts at the outer end.
• Glasses: heavy top rims sit on a hooded fold and can make it look heavier; thin or light top rims don’t. Frame shape itself follows your face shape; see the glasses guide.
• Photos: a camera slightly above eye level shows more lid and opens every shape; one below eye level shows more of the fold.