Hooded Eyes & Upper EyelidNewstead, Brisbane

Hooded eyes are the look you get when the upper eyelid skin folds down over the natural crease and covers part of the smooth strip of skin above the lashes, called the tarsal platform (the bit of lid that catches the light and holds makeup). The upper eyelid is made of several layers. The skin is the thinnest on the body. Under it sits a ring of muscle that closes the eye (the orbicularis oculi). Below that is a thin sheet that holds the deeper parts in place (the orbital septum), then the small tendon that lifts the lid and forms the crease (the levator). Last is a firm strip that gives the lid its shape (the tarsal plate). A hooded eye assessment works out which of these layers, along with the brow above and the under-eye area below, is adding to what you see. When the platform shows well and the brow sits cleanly above the bone, the upper face looks open and rested. When the platform shrinks and the brow drops, the eye can look smaller and the face can read as tired, even when nothing else has changed.

Hooded eyes usually come from one of two starting points. The first is the way you are built. The shape of the eye socket you are born with, the natural width of the eye opening, where the brow rests, and how the upper lid is put together all sit within a wide normal range, and people at certain points along that range have always had a hooded look. Most describe it in everyday terms: eyelids that have always looked heavy, lid skin that has always covered the crease, a brow that has always sat low, less lid showing above the lashes than they would like, or eyes that have always looked smaller than the rest of the face. The medical name for a lid that sits a little low from birth is congenital ptosis (a slightly low lid present from birth), but there is a smooth range between this and what counts as average upper eye anatomy.

The second starting point is change over time. The upper eyelid skin loses its firmness earlier than skin elsewhere on the face, and the extra skin that builds up has a name: dermatochalasis (redundant upper eyelid skin). The brow itself can drop as the bone beneath it thins and the supporting tissue softens, which is called brow ptosis (a fallen brow). The fat pads of the upper lid change too: the inner pad can push forward, the outer pad can flatten, and the hollow above the eye can deepen or fill unevenly. Separately, the small tendon that lifts the lid can stretch or pull away over years of opening and closing, so the lid edge itself sits lower than it once did, which is called aponeurotic ptosis. These changes often show up alongside the broader signs of cellular ageing in the upper face, and they are why interest in hooded eye treatment and brow lift treatment in clinic has grown so much over the past decade, especially when surgery is not the right step yet.

Hooded eyes look different depending on whether you have a more masculine or more feminine brow, and that matters for how we assess you. Men usually have a flatter, lower brow that sits close to the eye socket, so hooding tends to make the eye area look heavier and darker overall. Women usually have a higher, more arched brow with a visible strip of lid skin above the lashes, so hooding is often noticed first as that strip disappearing and the eye looking smaller or more crowded. The crease also tends to sit a little higher above the lashes in women than in men. These are normal differences, not problems. We take them into account rather than treating every upper eye the same way.

Our Newstead clinic serves clients across Brisbane, including New Farm, Teneriffe, Fortitude Valley, Hamilton, Ascot, and the broader inner north.