I have long been of the belief that a low, sultry eyelid is a thing of beauty. Lauren Bacall made a career on it! Eyes down, then flicked up, two arrows through Humphrey Bogart’s heart. You know how to whistle, don’t you? Zendaya too. These days you can find the white-hot starlet in any number of high fashion advertisements, eyes elegantly lowered to half-mast, a modern master of the “smize”—a Tyra Banks–credited invention from America’s Next Top Model, employed as shorthand to entreat the aspiring Christys and Naomis and Kates to “smile with their eyes” in a sort of purposeful, unwrinkled micro-squint, transforming an image from average to alluring.
Eyes, we’ve so often been told, are the windows to the soul, the key to flirtation, to connection, to engaging seriously in realms both professional and personal. So it was no small thing this past summer when social media suddenly seemed overrun with people openly discussing getting their upper eyelids yanked up, up, and away. Whither the allure of the low-lying lid? What’s with this whole wide-eyed thing?
Perhaps this is not news. Perhaps you have noticed your face in that black mirror of your phone and it looks a little…tired? Especially around your eyes? Perhaps you do not even think of your eyes as a problem, but now you wonder if they could be subtly, strategically, slightly improved? Just me?
Lest you think this is just some social media scheme, an eye lift, or blepharoplasty, is the second-most-requested plastic surgery in America after rhinoplasty. There’s an upper bleph, which trims back excess skin on the upper eyelid, and a lower bleph, which treats undereye bags largely through contouring, or repositioning fat.
The blepharoplasty procedure known as a double eyelid operation, or the surgical creation of a crease in the upper eyelid, has been the most commonly performed aesthetic procedure in Asia for decades and was invented by a Japanese surgeon named Kotaro Mikamo in 1896. The surgery has been long perceived as an attempt to transform an Asian eye into a more Western-looking one. But as Elise Hu, author of the new book Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital, notes, at the time the procedure was developed, Western influence in Japan was relatively slight. Mikamo himself stated that his aim was to imitate “Japanese beauty ideals established by ukiyo-e artists and novelists.” As Hu put it to me in an email: Mikamo “said he wanted to open up the eyes to make them look ‘cuter.’ ”
Whatever the surgery’s historical grounding, the number of people of all backgrounds desiring some kind of eyelid work is on the rise. Robert Schwarcz, a double board-certified oculoplastic surgeon, tells me that he has performed 40 to 50 blepharoplasties a month for the past 15 to 20 years, typically on patients in their 40s and older. In the last few years, however, there’s been a marked increase in patients in their 30s turning up for consultations. He suspects it had a lot to do with the grid setting on Zoom. “You’re now comparing your face to your colleagues’, even though you’re supposed to be doing work,” he says. A Hollywood makeup artist friend tells me she’s noticed telltale upper-lid tautening in several of her clients, including some very well-known faces. “You’d never notice unless you were doing their makeup,” she says. “They went on a little vacation and came back looking…great.”
It helps that the eyelid’s natural crease tends to camouflage any potential scars and that, compared to the downtime required from, say, a facelift, the recovery period is relatively brief. “People really want results where no one can tell they had anything done,” oculoplastic and reconstructive surgeon Kami Parsa tells me in his office in Beverly Hills, where his services have a one-year wait list. A bleph is “a toe-in-the-water kind of thing,” Schwarcz says, and while earlier in his career he might have told someone in their 30s to come back in 10 years, now he’s more apt to listen to what they’re after. The eyelid, he tells me, is the frame of the eye: “If you have two photos side by side and the frames don’t look the same, it doesn’t look right.” What Parsa calls “continuous, soft mechanical trauma” and I call being alive—putting your makeup on, removing it, washing your face, rubbing your eyes—can take a toll on the body’s thinnest skin. And Parsa notes that, as with any kind of baggage, some people are genetically predisposed.
Though hold on: Not everybody should get their eyelids done. And those who do should choose their surgeons carefully. “The major concern is when surgeons are too aggressive and remove too much skin and orbital fat, which can restrict eyelid closure and lead to issues with dry eye and ocular surface disease,” Nevada-based ophthalmologist Emily Schorr tells me. Both of these conditions can severely affect vision and the health of the cornea, as well as make you look permanently alarmed (and alarming). For what it’s worth, she thinks a little fullness around the eye adds a pleasantly youthful effect, unless there’s really significant sagging that impairs your field of vision.
And the knife isn’t the only option. Nonsurgical alternatives have proliferated recently too: Upneeq, a new FDA-approved prescription eye drop, treats blepharoptosis (or “ptosis”) via a solution that stimulates the muscle that operates the upper eyelids, raising them around one millimeter for roughly the length of an afternoon. Influencers have caught on, capturing the effects in rapturous videos. Upneeq, which can affect blood pressure and may raise your risk of glaucoma, requires a prescription, though one can be easily had through an evaluation online. It’s tempting to see it as a new Visine, an eye-opening, brightening quick fix, but “it’s not something I would do on a daily basis,” Parsa tells me. “If someone’s going to a social event and wants to try it, sure.” (Schwarcz compares Upneeq to pulling up a Roman window shade—not a great effect if you’ve got a lot of “material” there.)
Type “eyelid tape” into your search bar and you’ll stumble into a world of adhesive alternatives, with options ranging from products essentially resembling Scotch Tape, to the more elegant strips from Magicstripes, which can be worn right under your makeup, to the double-sided hypoallergenic plasters from Lids by Design, which promise a temporary fix for those uncertain about surgery.
I am certainly uncertain about surgery and nothing if not up for a challenge, which is how I find myself bent toward my bathroom mirror, futzing with several stickers the size of my pinkie nail until I get the application right. It doesn’t take long to see why most people prefer practiced, professional hands. “What do you think?” I ask my partner once I’ve emerged, eyelids artificially secured. I attempt a (sticky) smize. “Oh!” he says, his eyes suddenly (naturally) wide. “Is everything…okay?” He tells me later that while I did look “alert,” my gaze was more “hostage situation” than “hot.” I am not, it turns out, ready for a bleph. Looks like I’ll just have to leave my lids where they lie for the moment. Alexa, play “Bette Davis Eyes.”
Produced by January Productions.