When I first started watching videos and reading blogs on how to apply makeup, especially eyeshadow, I always heard/read that we should place the darkest colors on the crease. I obediently followed.

And looked awful. Haha!

As the crease and contour area differ between Asians and Caucasians due to bone structure dissimilarities, eye makeup techniques for Asians and Caucasians must also differ.

While the crease and contour area of a Caucasian eye coincide, the Asian eye’s contour area is not as obvious. A less pronounced orbital rim and additional layer of fat under the skin prevents the formation of a lid crease in 50% of Asians. For those with a lid crease, a term we call ‘double eyelids’, the contour area is also not as apparent as in a Caucasian eye.

It is, therefore, important to know where your contour area, and not the crease per se, is to create the perception of more deep-set eyes with a darker eyeshadow color.

I have double eyelids (what Western makeup artists call ‘crease’),

but if I were to place the darkest color on my ‘crease’, and open my eyes, I would look like I didn’t apply anything there at all.

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While Caucasians search ‘How to stop eyeshadow from creasing’, Asians typically search ‘How to fake a crease with eyeshadow’.

Before I got more serious into makeup, I only knew I had double eyelids. Crease…what? The only crease I knew was the kind of crease found on a crumpled piece of paper.

But before I start explaining, here’s a little disclaimer. The words ‘Westerner’ and ‘Caucasian’ will be used interchangeably in this post with no intention whatsoever to offend anyone. With ‘Asian’ I refer more specifically to East and Southeast Asians – Mongoloids (LOL! What a funky name!). Western Asians (Middle East) and Southern Asians (Pakistan, India, etc) have anatomical traits more similar to those of Westerners. So we shall only cover the Mongoloids of Asia.

OKIE! Let’s start!

When I got more interested in makeup, I started to read beauty blogs and watch videos that went on and on about ‘applying a darker eyeshadow color to your crease to bring more dimension to the eyes.’ I looked at myself in the mirror and searched for the mysterious crease these makeup bloggers were talking about. Is the word ‘crease’ just another moniker for what we Asians refer to as ‘double eyelids’?

It didn’t occur to me, until much later on, that the blogs I was reading and videos I was watching had Western authors that taught the Western way of makeup application. No matter how hard I tried in emulating the way they placed their eyeshadows, I could never achieve the looks they easily demonstrated.

It didn’t occur to me that our bone structures are completely different and even though I have double eyelids, where my crease and contour area lie is very different from a Caucasian’s. Even though it is a matter of mere millimeters more at which the skin folds above the eyelashes, there is a much greater science that explains our differences in genetics.

The Stereotypical Asian Eye

Eye Type Chart #1

I found this picture online showing the types of eyes. Can you guess which is labeled ‘Asian eyes’?

Guess Guess!

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