Eye Shapes and How to Apply Makeup for Each, According to MUAs

Ever wondered how your best friend’s eye makeup doesn’t budge an inch while yours always slides and smudges? It might have to do with your eye shapes.

In fact, customizing your makeup products and your application technique to your specific eye shape will help to keep your shadow and liner in check.

“Catering to your eye shape when you apply eyeshadow and eyeliner will definitely help you enhance your features,” says makeup artist Daniel Chinchilla. We spoke to Chinchilla and MUA Jeannia Robinette to learn the proper application tricks to make different eye shapes stand out.

Read Chincilla’s and Robinette’s tips, below.

Upturned Eyes

“If your outer corners are higher than your inner corners, you have upturned eyes,” explains Chinchilla, who loves to emphasize this shape with a thin coat of eyeliner all the way to the ends of the lids.

“I like to use a liquid liner with a nice pointy tip to help guide the application,” says Robinette, whose go-to product is the ultra inky Kevyn Aucoin The Precision Liquid Liner. “You can also add a little extra mascara on the bottom lashes. Have fun with it!”

Round Eyes

“If you can see the whites of your eyes below the iris, you have round eyes,” says Robinette. “I love to put lots of eyeliner inside the water line to create a cat eye and close up some of the space.”

Although she swears by the super pigmented, yet buildable, Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in the deepest matte black shade, she says it’s most important to ensure that you get a longwear eyeliner with a creamy finish. Or you can go for a sultry eye look.

Monolid Eyes

A monolid, or an epicanthic fold in medical terms, is an upper eyelid shape without a visible crease line. If you want to create some dimension, Robinette advises, “Use reflective shadows on lids for a lift, and apply lots of mascara. But always curl lashes or add false lashes first. I love the Shu Uemura Curler, and Ardell false lashes are inexpensive and easy to use.”

Start by layering your lids with an eye shadow primer to provide a smooth base and to lock eyeshadow in place to prevent smudging or sliding. Then apply a light-reflecting shadow directly on the lid, starting along the lash line, swiping in vertical movements to bring up the color.

Robinette’s go-to shadow for monolids is the platinum cream shadow Kevyn Aucoin Emphasize Eye Design Palette in Magnify to “give a nice lift and shimmer.”

Downturned Eyes

The downturned eye shape is essentially the opposite of upturned. Visualizing a horizontal line across the eye, the outer corners of the eyes are lower than the inner corners and often look as if the outer top eyelid is dipping downward to meet the lower lash line.

Keep your eyeshadow light and neutral on the inner part of the eyelid and use deeper tones on the outer corners.” An eyeshadow palette with a range of complimentary neutrals intended for contouring, like Fenty Beauty’s Snap Shadows Mix & Match in True Neutrals, makes it easy to build out a layered shadow look.

Trace the deeper shadow along the bottom lash line using a taut, angled eyeliner brush. As you get to the outer corner, continue drawing up and out toward your temples for an ever-so-subtle flick. “Lifting the outer corners is key,” says Chinchilla.

Hooded Eyes

With hooded eye shapes, a bit of skin hangs down over the eyelids. This is usually the result of “a heavy brow bone,” notes Chinchilla, along with a deep-set crease making the eyelids barely visible. With age and loss of skin elasticity, eyes of any shape often evolve and begin to take on a more hooded appearance.

If you have hooded eyes, skip the thin, delicate liner, as it tends to melt into the lid or smear. Instead, opt for a heavy layer of eyeliner along the upper lash for extra definition that will light up your eye, says Robinette. You might like Clinique High Impact Easy Liquid Eyeliner since it offers a dramatic finish and is easy to apply. Finish with “lots of mascara, always!” she adds.

Almond Eyes

You can identify whether you have an almond eye shape by checking out your irises. If you can’t see the whites of your eyes above or below the iris, because it is slightly covered along the top and bottom by your lids when you look straight ahead in the mirror, you have almond eyes, explains Robinette. “Almond eyes are the most universal shape and you can really play them up,” she adds.

Nearly any liner technique will flatter an almond shape. For a daytime look, Robinette loves to create a classic contour style by dusting “a lighter color across your lid and using a deeper color on the outer half of the crease” with a gravity-defying volumizing mascara.

A cat eye will intensify the natural almond shape since they usually taper upward to a point at the outer eye. For extra drama, Robinette recommends using a pointy liquid liner, like the richly pigmented and waterproof (read: it won’t smudge or transfer) KVD Beauty Tattoo Liner to create a thick, dark line across the top lid into a sharp, defined wing.