Do you have upturned eyes?

What upturned eyes look like

Upturned is the name for an eye whose outer corner sits clearly higher than its inner corner. Draw a line through the two corners and it runs uphill toward the temple. The outline is usually almond, wider than tall with a soft point at the outer end, but the whole shape leans upward.

Three things go together. The lower lid rises for most of its length rather than running level and curving up at the end. The outer corner is the highest point of the lower lid, often level with the centre of the iris. And the upper lid slopes gently, because the lift comes from below.

The crease and lid are usually as they are on an almond eye, with a visible fold and a strip of lid above the lashes. Upturned is about the corners, not the lid, so an upturned eye can also be hooded or monolid. Those are separate readings.

This is the shape that liner has imitated for decades. A wing that follows the lower lash line upward copies the outline of an upturned eye onto an almond or round one. People with upturned eyes already have the line, which changes how makeup works for them rather than how much they need.

How to tell if you have upturned eyes

Stand facing a mirror in even light, relax your face and look straight ahead. Brows down, no smile. The smile matters more here than for any other shape, because smiling pulls the outer corners up and makes almost everyone look upturned for a moment. Then check three things.

1. The tilt line. Lay a pencil across the inner and outer corner of one eye. Level or slightly uphill is almond. Clearly uphill, so that you notice it without looking for it, is upturned.
2. The lower lid. Follow it from the inner corner outward. If it climbs steadily rather than staying flat and curving up at the end, the eye is upturned.
3. The outer corner. On an upturned eye it sits high, sometimes level with the middle of the iris, and the point is sharp rather than soft.

The test does the same job with numbers. It measures the angle from inner to outer corner on each eye, averages them and corrects for head roll, so a tilted head adds nothing. Upturned is the reading when that angle lands in roughly the top fifth of 3,000 frontal faces.

Upturned is decided fourth. The test checks for downturned first, then round and elongated from openness, then upturned. So a very tall eye with a strong lift comes out round, and a very narrow eye with a strong lift comes out elongated. The tilt still shows on the gauge.

A surprising upturned result usually means a smile. Even a small one raises the outer corners several degrees. Retake with a neutral face and the reading often settles into almond. If it stays upturned with a relaxed face, the lift is yours. The canthal tilt test reports the angle on its own.

Upturned vs almond and downturned eyes

Upturned and almond eyes share an outline and differ in one number, the tilt. On the test, almond covers the middle band, from just over two degrees to the edge of the top fifth, and upturned is the top fifth itself. Many eyes sit near the boundary, and both pages describe them fairly.

If the tilt marker on your result card sits just below the upturned band, you have almond eyes with a noticeable lift. Makeup notes for upturned eyes, especially the advice to skip the wing or run it straight out, will suit you as well as the almond notes do.

Upturned and downturned eyes are the two ends of the same scale. A downturned eye has an outer corner level with or below the inner one; an upturned eye has it well above. The test reads downturned at or below two degrees, and the typical face sits near seven, so both depart from the middle.

Upturned eyes are occasionally mistaken for round eyes when the lift is strong, because a raised outer corner opens the outer half of the eye and shows more white there. Check the centre instead: if the iris rests on the lower lid, the eye is upturned rather than round.

Makeup for upturned eyes

Upturned eyes already have the lift that most liner is designed to add. The useful question is whether to emphasise it further or to bring the eye back toward level. Both are ordinary choices, and the answer changes with the occasion rather than with the face.

To emphasise, follow the upper lash line with liner and end it in a wing that continues the angle of the lower lid. The wing can be short, because the eye supplies the direction. Shadow blended up and out from the outer corner, toward the tail of the brow, repeats the sweep.

To balance, run liner along the upper lash line with no wing, or with a wing that goes straight out rather than up. Add a soft shadow or a smudged pencil along the outer third of the lower lash line. That weight at the bottom outer corner visually lowers it and levels the eye.

Keep the inner corner in mind. On an upturned eye the inner corner sits low, so a bright highlight there lifts the whole eye further. If you want a level look, keep the inner corner neutral and put your highlight at the centre of the lid instead.

Full liner on the lower waterline pulls the lower lid down visually and is one of the few placements that works better on upturned eyes than on other shapes. It softens the sweep without hiding it. A dark brown does this more gently than black.

For men who want to look rested rather than made up, brushed-up brows and a little concealer at the inner corner are enough. Anything that darkens the outer upper corner exaggerates the lift, which some people like and some do not. Shadow shades should follow your colouring; the color analysis test gives the palette.

Lashes, brows and glasses for upturned eyes

Lashes of even length across the lid keep the eye from tilting further. Lashes longest at the outer third, the usual advice for almond and round eyes, push an upturned eye past its natural sweep and can make the outer corner read pinched. A strong curl at the centre opens the eye without adding lift.

Brows that follow the eye's own lift keep the proportions. The arch sits above the outer third of the iris and the tail runs out toward the temple, roughly parallel to the line through the eye corners. A brow with a steep tail exaggerates the sweep; a flat brow contradicts it.

Glasses with an upswept outer corner, the cat-eye shape, repeat the line of the eye and read deliberate. Frames with a level top edge balance it. Either works; what looks odd is a frame whose lower rim cuts across the outer corner and hides the lift. The face shape guides cover the frame outline itself.

Hair matters less than people expect. A fringe that ends at the brow frames the eye; a heavy fringe that falls over the outer brow hides the raised corner and flattens the shape. Layers that start at the cheekbone lead the eye outward and upward, the same direction the eye already points.

Upturned eyes and the rest of the face

Eye shape is one reading among several, and the others move how it looks. Upturned eyes on a heart face or an oval face follow the taper of the outline toward the chin and read balanced. On a square face the lift contrasts with the straight jaw and reads sharper.

Spacing changes the picture too. Wide-set upturned eyes open the centre of the face and can carry definition at the inner corner. Close-set upturned eyes draw the gaze to the bridge of the nose and suit shadow and liner that build outward, which the shape already encourages.

Upturned eyes are among the most stable readings across age. The outer corner descends slowly with time, so a strongly upturned eye at twenty-five usually reads almond rather than downturned at sixty. The lid changes more than the corners do, which is why the result card asks about the crease separately.

Photographs shift the reading more than any of this. A camera held below eye level lifts the corners and reads upturned; one held above lowers them. Hold the phone at eye level, at arm's length, in even light, with a relaxed mouth, and the test sees the shape you see in the mirror.

Frequently asked questions