Round Eyes vs. Almond Eyes – Determining Your Eye Shape

It’s important to know your eye shape before choosing your lashes or doing your makeup. Different styles will look different on different people because of eye shape and face shape. Knowing your eye shape will help you pick a lash style that is the most flattering for your unique features and still lets you express your unique fashion sense.

Today, let’s compare two common eye shapes: round eyes and almond eyes. The distinction between round eyes and almond eyes might surprise you, but it actually has more to do with the look of your eyeball itself rather than the angles of the outer corner.

What Are Round Eyes?

Round eyes are characterized by seeing visible whites above or below the iris. If you look straight at yourself in a mirror, you should be able to see the complete circle of your irises, along with some white either above or below the iris. If you can do this, you have round eyes: simple as that! 

What Are Almond Eyes?

Almond eyes are characterized by the top and bottom of the iris being slightly concealed by the upper and lower eyelids. So, the opposite of round eyes! 

Looking straight at yourself in a mirror, you should see an absence of white above and below your iris, and you should not be able to see the complete circle of your iris. Your eyes should look tapered at the ends as if there is a slight squint. If you see this, you have almond eyes: simple as that!

Determining Your Eye Shape

Most people have a combination of eye shapes because different eye shapes actually focus on different elements of the eye. You could have hooded round eyes, hooded almond eyes, upturned almond eyes, or down-turned almond eyes — eye shapes are just ways we categorize eye features. 

Don’t panic if you can’t fit your eyes neatly into just one shape or if your eyes are between two shapes: that’s totally normal! 

Determining your eye shape isn’t terribly hard, especially since we’re here to walk you through it! If you want us to do it for you, we can! Check out our Lashify AI! 

With just a photo of your face, our AI can tell you your eye shape, your face shape, and which lashes would look best on you. We live in the future of lashes, and it is amazing! 

Wanna do it yourself? Here’s what you need to look for: 

Iris Placement

As we detailed above, if the iris (the eye color part) touches the top and bottom eyelid, you likely have almond eyes. If it doesn’t touch and you have some visible white between the iris and lid, you likely have round eyes. 

Outer Corner Angles

Look at the outer corners of your eyes. The outer corners may turn up or down, resulting in upturned or downturned eyes. Fairly straightforward. If it seems pretty level, you may just have neither, and that’s an option too! 

Eyelid Crease 

If you look calmy straight ahead into a mirror, do you have a crease in your eyelid where the eyeball meets the brow bone? If yes, how deep is the crease? If you have no crease, you have monolid eyes. If you have a crease, but it’s very shallow, you have neither monolid nor hooded eyes. 

People with eyes like this often have round eyes, but not always. You have hooded eyes if you can see the crease, and it’s deep enough to “disappear” under the brow bone. 

How To Make Your Eyes Appear More Almond-Shaped

Let’s say your eyes are right on the cusp of round and almond, and you’d like to play up their almond-ness. Not to worry, there are eye makeup and lash tactics to help your eyes appear more almond-shaped. 

Here are our five top tips: 

1. Angled Eye Shadow

Select a neutral shade about one shade darker than your natural skin tone, and grab an angled shadow brush.

Create two guidelines: one from your nostril, past the outer corner of your eye, all the way to your hairline, and one from the center of your eye to the end of the first line. These lines will guide the shadow upward and outward from the corner of your eye. 

Start by grabbing a straight tool, like a small ruler or the edge of a brush, and creating the first line just past the outer corner of your eye. Draw the line from the outer corner of your nostril to your hairline. 

Next, find the hollow of your eye (the space just below the brow bone, where your squishy eyeball meets the hard bone). Draw a line from the hollow where it is most centered, and draw another straight line from there to the hairline edge of the first line.

Keep the dark colors of your shadow within these lines. Blend up and out, and avoid sharp lines (so don’t forget to wipe away the guidelines). This technique can help create the illusion of more elongated eyes, which will make the eyes appear more almond-like. 

2. Highlight the Center

Since darker colors will be going on the outer edge as described above, where shall we place the highlighter? The center. 

Select your favorite understated higher shade and focus it on the middle of your eyelid. Brightening the center of your eye, rather than the inner corner, will accentuate the almond shape. 

3. Cat Eye Eyeliner

This may be the obvious answer, but only because it’s really that simple! Well, we’ll be the first to admit that nailing cat-eye eyeliner every time takes a lot of practice, so perhaps it's not that simple, but the concept is simple! Even a lazy-day cat eye (winged eyeliner past the natural lash line) will help your eyes appear more elongated. 

4. Cat Eye Lash Looks

Similar to the way that cat eye eyeliner can elongate your eye, so can cat-eye style lashes. Similar concept: Cat eye style lash extensions entail placing the longest lash fibers at the outer corner of the eye. You can achieve cat eye style lash extensions with multiple styles, but we recommend Curl Gossamers, Fluffy Gossamers, or even Tulip Gossamers. 

Curl Gossamers are purrrrrfect for everyday wear and are perhaps the most versatile Gossamer lash. Fluffy Gossamers are perfect for a soft, voluminous cat eye. And Tulip Gossamers are perfect for a sharp, spiked, sexy cat eye. 

5. High Volume Lashes

Lashes with greater volume convey greater shape. Sparse lashes will make it more difficult to emphasize your eye’s shape, round or almond. Mascara can only do so much, but lash extensions can get you specific volume and shape in one easy application. 

Plus, Lashify’s lash extensions don’t harm your natural lashes or exacerbate issues with sparse lashes like strip lashes and some mascaras do. Instead, Lashify’s lash bond is actually good for your natural lashes. 

So we can help you get natural volume over time and enhance your volume right now with extensions! Win-win! 

How To Make Your Eyes Appear More Round

But suppose your eyes are on the edge of round and almond, and you’d prefer they appear rounder. We got you, boo. We have eye makeup and lash tactics to help your eyes appear rounder as well. 

Here are our four top tips: 

1. Highlight the Inner Corner

Grab a light neutral to white eyeshadow and highlight the inner corner of your eyes. This brightens and widens the eyes to help them appear rounder. You can also get this effect with a light-colored eyeliner. 

2. Increase Lash Volume

When you have greater lash volume, your lashes become easier to style. When your lashes are easier to style, you can achieve specific lash looks to emphasize different features. 

Naturally, you can use mascara to increase lash volume in a pinch or lash serums to increase the volume of your natural lashes over an extended period of time. Or, if you want voluminous lashes now without harming your natural lashes, you could try Gossamer lashes from Lashify. 

Lashify’s Gossamer lashes are lightweight, so they won’t weigh down your eyelid and push you toward an almond shape. On the contrary, since they’re so lightweight, the many fibers will actually help your eye appear more open, depending on how you style them. 

3. Doll Eye Lashes 

Instead of styling your lash extensions in a cat eye or with a consistent length across the lash line, try a Doll Eye style. A doll eye style entails placing the longest lash fibers at the center of the eye and tapering the length down to each corner. This accentuates the center of the eye, making it appear more open, round, and symmetrical from corner to corner. 

Doll eyes can be dramatic, but they can also be very subtle. You don’t need to vary the lash length more than 2-4mm to get this effect, but if you want a dramatic look, you can go all in on lash length variety. 

For a subtle Doll eye, we recommend Curl Gossamers paired with a medium-length Extreme Ice to get the lash spikes. For a bigger, bolder look, try a Stardust Gossamer. 

4. Center the Darkness

Your darkest eyeshadow should stay symmetrical on either side of the center of the eyelid. Circles, by definition, are symmetrical, so symmetry is key to executing an eye makeup look that emphasizes the roundedness of your eyes. 

Find the center line, from the center of the lash line straight up to the center of the brow bone. This line should be the darkest point of the eye makeup. From here, maintain symmetry on either side of this line. 

Sources: 

The Lashify LED Control Kit® for At Home Lash Extensions

What's My Eye Shape? (Learn How to Tell Here) | Vision Center

Understanding Different Eye Shapes: Which Do You Have? | NVision Centers

Change Your Eye Shape With Eyeliner| YouTube 

Change The Shape of Your Eyes by Lining Them Differently | AllDayChic