Hooded Eyes- the good and the bad!
When I did my make- up training in London, most of the demonstrations were done on younger skin. But the challenges with make up are actually working on mature skin and applying make-up to hooded eyes. A hooded eye is when the skin above the crease is heavy and causes a fold and can minimise the amount of space on the eye socket. It is extremely common for all ages but tends to get heavier as we age. It is a very beautiful eye shape, it just needs a few tips and tricks to get them looking their best.
The type of makeup I advocate is used for enhancing natural beauty . What that means to me is that the focus should always be on making the most of your best features by highlighting them and making the best of the skin, eyes and lips and working with what you have to make them look their best.
Hooded eyes are a common eye shape and can be heavily hooded or may only be slight. I have a medium/heavy hooded eye and as a make-up artist I have worked mostly with this eye shape, on both young and mature skin.
Here is a photo of my Hooded Eyes
It is a rather unflattering photo of me, however it demonstrates what a hooded eye looks like. I have a heavy fold above the lash line and not much area to apply my eye shadow or a traditional winged eyeliner.
How to make the best of your Hooded Eyes.
The best way to deal with hooded eyes is to try to conceal the hood (the fleshy part on top of the eye socket and below the brow) and highlight the higher points.
Never highlight the lid with a light colour because this will only serve to highlight the heaviness. Instead highlight in the inner corner of the eye and under the brow and then follow with your ‘look’ . For an evening look or for a more made up look, consider wearing fake individual lashes. I recommend individual lashes or wispy strip lashes. Basically any lashes that are not heavy- you need to see through them. I have Sweed lashes on above from Nikki Makeup.
Four of my favourite looks for hooded eyes are below and you will see some quick tutorials which demonstrate the look;
- Bat-Winged Eyeliner (for slight to medium hooded eyes only. Not for very mature skin or a very heavy hooded eye.) My Batwing Eyeliner Demo
- One Colour Eyeshadow (for all hooded eyes) Click here for One Colour Eye Makeup Look Demo
- Cut Crease Click here for Cut Crease Demo
- Smoky Eye Click here for my smokey eye look demo
I hope that inspires you to try some different techniques with your hooded eyes and good luck.
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram, where you’ll find bitesize content for you to consume to keep yourself motivated with your own hair and makeup. See you there.
Mel 💫
