This hooded eye makeup tutorial will teach you how to update your eye makeup to flatter older downturned eyes by applying eyeshadow to create a lift to your eyes and fake the appearance of a crease.
A few years ago, I looked in the mirror and realized I now have hooded eyes. I have other problems I noticed as well. My eyelids are getting a crepey texture. And my eyelids have freckles now, thanks to a misspent youth in the sun, as well as dark patches that affect the color of any eye shadow I use.
What to do? Well, for starters, I needed to learn some new tricks for doing my makeup over 50. The routine I’ve developed over the years wasn’t working any longer. Time to learn how to do eye makeup for hooded eyes.
So, I spent a lot of time watching tons of makeup and skincare videos on YouTube to see what tips I could learn to help me feel a bit more confident in aging gracefully. In the end, I developed my own hooded eye makeup technique, which works for me and my eyes. I hope you find it useful.
How to Do Your Eye Makeup if You Have Older, Hooded Eyes
- What are Hooded Eyes?
- Detailed Video: Update Your Eye Makeup for Hooded Eyes
- Why Eyeshadow Primer is Important for Over 40 Hooded Eyes
- How to Do Your Eye Makeup for Hooded Eyes: Step by Step
- Start with Eye Primer
- Redefine Your Crease so It Can Be Seen When Your Eye is Open
- Emphasize Your Lower Lash Line and Outer Corner of Your Eye
- Add a Lighter Color to Your Eyelid
- Define the Outer Edge of the Eye
- Add a Bit of Highlight to the Inner Corner and Brow Bone
- Eyeliner for Hooded Eyes: Yes or No?
- Curl Your Lashes and Apply Mascara
- The Finished Makeup for Hooded Eyes
- Other Great Tips for Eye Makeup for Hooded Eyes
What are Hooded Eyes?
As we get older, our eyes can become hooded, where the skin of our brow becomes heavy and droops over our eyelids, covering our eyelids partially, or in some cases fully.
This side-by-side comparison of me at 17 and then again at 50 shows what happens in painful detail.
As you can see, my eyes were always somewhat hooded, with very little eyelid showing. But as I’ve aged, my brow area (like so many other body parts!) has sagged and drooped.
As we age, we can also develop crepey eyelids which makes it harder for our eye makeup to go on smoothly.
We can’t regain our youth, but we can, at least, update our makeup to enhance our features as they our now.
Detailed Video: Update Your Eye Makeup for Hooded Eyes
Here’s a detailed video of the process and the steps are described in depth below.
Products Used in This Video
The eyeshadow palette I used in this video, Too Faced’s Chocolate Bar, has been discontinued! However, these palettes offer similar colors.
Eye Shadow Palettes Similar to Too Faced's Chocolate Bar
Why Eyeshadow Primer is Important for Over 40 Hooded Eyes
Eyeshadow primer is crucial when doing hooded eye makeup for several reasons:
It keeps your eyeshadow in place. I notice more and more that my eyeshadow can tend to slip around the day. Eyeshadow primer keeps my eye makeup in place throughout the day.
It helps create a smooth surface for your eye makeup. My skin on and around my eyes is probably the most wrinkled and crepey skin I have right now. Creating a smooth surface is a quick anti-aging technique.
If I put on eyeshadow without primer, it sticks to some parts of my eyelid and skips over other parts, leaving my eyeshadow looking messy and unfinished. I hate to use the word “spackle” in terms of the face, but primer really does act as a kind of spackle to even out the surface of the eye.
Primer gives your lids a consistent color and can brighten the eyelid. Like a lot of older women, my eyelids have freckles now, as well as other dark areas. Using primer helps keep my eyeshadow colors looking the way they do in the palette, rather than taking on an undertone caused by my uneven skin tone.
I like to use a primer that’s slightly lighter than my lid color it helps to smooth and brighten my eyelid.
Eyeshadow Primers I Love
How to Do Your Eye Makeup for Hooded Eyes: Step by Step
Start with Eye Primer
Apply primer with a concealer brush or even your finger evenly over the whole eye.
Cover the Entire Lid with Powder to Set the Primer.
You can use eyeshadow for this step (I used White Chocolate in the Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette) or simply a translucent powder applied with a fluffy brush. This sets your primer and gives a nice smooth surface on which to apply the eyeshadow.
Redefine Your Crease so It Can Be Seen When Your Eye is Open
Apply a Transition Shade Slightly Above Your Natural Crease
Apply a medium eyeshadow shade with a small, flat eyeshadow brush slightly above your natural crease. Make sure you can see this when your eye is open! Extend it out only as far as the edge of your brow. Blend this down to your lid and up toward your brow with a fluffy brush.
Emphasize Your Lower Lash Line and Outer Corner of Your Eye
Using a flat, liner brush, take the same color you used for your crease and line underneath your lower lashes. When you get to the outer corner of the eye, bring the color up toward your outer brow for just the width of the liner brush.
Add a Lighter Color to Your Eyelid
Apply a lighter eyeshadow shade over the lid, up to your transition color. It’s good to use a lighter satin or even slightly shimmery color on your eyelids. This will reflect light off your eyelids, which in turn will make the fold above crease seem less prominent.
Don’t be put off by the myth that women over 40 can’t wear shimmery eyeshadow. A little bit on your eyelids adds a nice pop of light that accents your eyes. A shimmery eyeshadow place in the middle of your eyelid will not emphasize any eyelid or wrinkles or make your eyes look heavier, like it might if you placed it just below the brow, for example.
Define the Outer Edge of the Eye
Take a darker color and further define your crease and the outer corner of your eye by applying a darker shade slightly under your original crease-defining shade and using the same color to cover the outer third of your eye.
Add a Bit of Highlight to the Inner Corner and Brow Bone
Using a small brush and a bright, light color, highlight the inner corner of the eyethen just under the brow bone to add definition.
Eyeliner for Hooded Eyes: Yes or No?
Eyeliner can be tricky for those of us with hooded eyes. We have limited visible eyelid space so even a thin line of eyeliner can look too heavy and make the eyes appear even more downturned and heavy.
Instead, I use a dark eyeshadow color and apply it just along the upper lash line, pressing it into my lashes, give depth to my lashes and make them appear thicker.
Curl Your Lashes and Apply Mascara
Curling your lashes helps give a lifted look that helps combat the look of down-turned eyes.
The Finished Makeup for Hooded Eyes
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Other Great Tips for Eye Makeup for Hooded Eyes
I relied on these videos when I was developing my technique for hooded eyes. You might enjoy them as well.
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These are great tutorials and tricks! I don’t have hooded eyelids, but there is crepeyness and sun damage. My brows have thinned and lightened up so I am always on the hunt for good brow makeup and tricks.
Very timely comment Terri! I’m also dealing with thinning eyebrows and I’m about to investigate some ways to deal with that issue. Stay tuned!
Yes – tutorials on eyebrows, please! Mine are suffering as a result of aging and over-waxing. Thank you!
I have the same issue. Anastasia is the name for any brow enhancement… and the “pot of gel” I find to be the best. I have discovered one shade lighter to be the best option. I use a pencil first? Either type of pencil, to basically draw your favorite shape. I have two slanted brow brushes- one shorter than the other. I know it takes a bit longer, but I keep a tiny cup of water next to my application area to ensure accuracy, and swipe at the end for a realistic look.
Thanks for the tips! I’ve also recently switched to using a lighter color then the one shown in the pictures- it looks a little more natural for every day use.
Trish McAvoy , or Benefit for eyebrows . They are great . With the right shade they look very natural .
Thanks Mel – I’ll have to try!
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I imagine you’ve solve this problem by now. Fortunately a lot of the make ups now come with wax and brow powder. I’ve always had very light eyebrows both in color and amount of the brow. This is been the best solution so far.
Good tips. I have a slight difference in shape of eyes, due to eye operation, didn’t wear eye make-up for ages. Will definitely try new techniques, I like the primer.
Thank you! I will purchase the smash box primer. I don’t care for the one I have. I’m excited to check out the new techniques.
How can I get a list of of the products from Stephanie Lange’s her Mature Makeup video?
Thank you! Good eyes for hooded lids. Ore more more mature makeup
Video still too long!! Not necessary
I wear glasses so I would like to see a video of how you would do your eye makeup if you were glasses. Thank you.
I have hooded aging eyes and wear glasses. I don’t do anything different with the eye makeup except to be sure I do the brows. I think the shape and color of your glasses will make more of a difference. A definite no-no for hooded eyes IMO is eyeliner going all the way around. A lot of liner and shadow on the lower lids make the eyes look smaller.
Thanks for such good info. Your eyes, and you are just beautiful.
Great tutorial! Easy to follow direction and love your easy going personality!
I really enjoyed the video. To be honest, since retiring, I rarely wear makeup. In the last few months, I’ve tried to find some basic tips because I have some special events coming up soon and I would like to feel pretty. It’s been a long time since I’ve worried about that! Anyway, I’ve tried to watch a few videos, but never made it beyond the first few seconds, felt silly, even a little frustrated- closed the laptop quickly and moved on to other tasks. Now, with just a week before a big family gathering, I thought I’d try again. Your video was the first thing I clicked on in my search. Wow! You won me over immediately. Your comfort on camera, made me feel more comfortable about something that was making me feel a bit ridiculous. Thank you for being a real woman, talking to viewers like they are real, and giving such detailed and useful tips. You seem so comfortable on camera, it’s like having a girlfriend talking you through the process. Please keep doing what you do! You have a gift that real women need.
Oh thank you so much! I know just how you feel about feeling silly. One reason I’m starting to make these videos (and a few more our on their way soon) is to show women our age that it’s totally ok to still care about these things and we don’t need to be a 20-something YouTube star to look good and wear makeup. Your comment made me tear up! Thanks so much!
Thanks, Katy. I will be trying these ideas. My eyelids are not quite hooded yet, but they are definitely sagging and I’m dealing with the unevenness of my skin now.
Thanks!
I recently became glasses-free thanks to cataract surgery with replacement multi-focal lenses. Wow that is a life-changer. BUT now my eyes seem so plain and small and, well just out there without my glasses. I’m 60. I stopped wearing eye shadow a long long time ago when my lids started sagging, and it just all ended up in the crease. In the past years I’ve just worn eyeliner on the bottom lids and mascara, got away with that when wearing glasses but not flattering now.
I started researching videos and articles for sagging/hooded eyes, yours is by far the most helpful and most comfortable. Your techniques are well demonstrated in the video, and I like very much your no-nonsense dialog. This has changed my life, in that I am now feeling excited to highlight my “new” eyes and you have given me the go-to techniques. My eyes are older and “crepey-er” than yours but the approach is great and I am tweaking as needed for my eyes. Thank you SO MUCH. You are truly a beautiful woman, all the more for sharing and helping others. You have made a wonderful difference for me.
Wow Cathy – thanks so much for your comments! I’m actually releasing a new post in the next week or two with some hacks I’ve learned lately. One thing that’s helped me a lot was switching from primer to concealer or a creme eyeshadow as my base. This seems to really help smooth out my eyelids and the crepy-ness that plagues us so.
Wow!! I loved your tutorial and can certainly relate to the droopy, crepy, non-consistent skin on my lids. I will try these techniques — so easy to watch you do it. Loved the peaceful, calm way you demonstrated and described the colors and brushes. Thanks a bunch!!