Hooded eyes

Hooded eyes is a lay term for upper-lid skin that folds down over the crease, so little of the lid platform shows when the eye is open. It describes a look rather than a measurement, and the depth of the fold is the part a photograph cannot recover.

Also searched as hooded eyes test, do I have hooded eyes, hooded eyelids and monolid versus hooded.

What it is
a description of the upper lid
Canthion reports
Three measured traits

What the term means

The upper lid has a crease where the levator muscle attaches. Above the crease is a platform of skin that shows when the eye is open. When skin from the brow and the lid rests over that crease, the platform is hidden and the eye reads as hooded. Clinically the closest named condition is dermatochalasis, redundant upper-lid skin that drapes over the lid margin. It is not the same thing as ptosis, where the lid margin itself sits low.

Ophthalmology measures the region with a ruler held against the open eye. The margin reflex distance, from the corneal light reflex to the upper lid margin, normally runs about 4 to 5 mm. The crease sits about 6 to 8 mm above the lid margin in men and about 8 to 10 mm in women. Those are in-person measurements at the lid, not quantities recovered from a photograph.

crease lid platform shows brow skin folds over it same lid margin
The same eye opening with and without the fold. What changes between them is skin above the lid margin, which sits at the same height in both. How far that fold stands forward is depth, and a single photograph does not carry depth.

Why a photograph cannot measure the hood

Four things move the appearance of a hood without anything about the eye changing. Camera height, because a lens above eye level shortens the visible platform. Gaze direction, because looking down brings the fold forward. How wide the eye happens to be open in that frame. And the direction of the light, because the crease is read from a shadow, and a light from above deepens it while a light from the front erases it.

A photograph taken from the front also gives no measurement at all of how far the fold stands out, which is the quantity the word hooded is describing. Any tool that returns a hood score from one selfie is scoring the shadow in that frame.

What this report measures around the eye

Three measurements relate to the look, each taken from the front photo and each with its own error bar.

Eye opennessHeight of the eye opening against its lengthBrow apex positionWhere the peak of the brow sits over the eyeCanthal tiltAngle between the inner and outer corners

What they miss is the fold itself. Eye openness drops when a fold covers part of the opening, so a hooded eye often reads lower on it, but a narrow eye opening with no fold reads the same way. Brow position explains part of the look and not the part that comes from skin in the lid. Neither separates the two causes, and the report says so where it reports them.

What to do with it

If the question is how your eyes measure, the free scan gives eye openness, brow position and canthal tilt on your own photograph, each with its uncertainty. Start an analysis, or read the methodology first.

Common questions

Do I have hooded eyes?

Look at your own upper lid with the eye open and relaxed, from straight on, in even light. If the skin below the brow folds down over the crease so that little or none of the lid platform shows, people call that hooded. It is a description of a look, not a diagnosis, and there is no cut-off that separates hooded from not hooded.

Can a hooded eyes test measure it from a photo?

Not reliably. The hood is depth: how far a fold of skin stands out from the eye. A single photograph carries no depth, and the fold's appearance moves with camera height, gaze direction, how open the eye is at that instant, and the direction of the light. Two photographs of the same person, minutes apart, can read differently.

What does Canthion measure around the eye instead?

Three things a front photograph supports: eye openness, the height of the eye opening against its length; brow apex position, where the peak of the brow sits over the eye; and canthal tilt, the angle between the inner and outer corners. Each is reported with its own error bar and placed against a reference group.

Is hooding the same as ptosis?

No. Ptosis is the eyelid margin itself sitting low, which clinicians measure as the margin reflex distance, normally about 4 to 5 mm. Redundant upper-lid skin resting over the crease is dermatochalasis, and the lid margin underneath can be in a normal position. Telling them apart needs the lid lifted and measured in person.

Does a hooded eye mean a low brow?

Sometimes, and that is why brow position is measured separately here. A brow that sits low pushes skin down over the crease, and so does extra skin in the lid itself. The two produce a similar look in a photograph and have different causes, so a photograph alone cannot say which one you are looking at.

Can hooded eyes be changed without surgery?

Where the look comes from the brow, how the brow is groomed and where its peak sits change what the eye reads as, and that is covered in the report's brow section. Where it comes from skin in the lid itself, nothing applied to the surface moves it, and the clinical options belong to a surgeon rather than to a measurement from a photograph.

Sources
  • Klejch W, Vislisel JM, Allen RC. 2015 — A primer on ptosis. EyeRounds, University of Iowa: margin reflex distance 4–5 mm; upper-lid crease 6–8 mm in men and 8–10 mm in women; dermatochalasis distinguished from ptosis — webeye.ophth.uiowa.edu
  • Lim et al. 2022 — facial distances taken from 2D photographs depart from caliper measurement even when the agreement statistic looks high — doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.813058
Intercanthal distance : palpebral fissure lengthEyes · tier AHorizontal eye spacingEyes · tier AFacial thirdsWhole face · tier B

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