Many years ago, when I started medical school, I would never have imagined that I would be writing about eye shadow today. I will admit that I do not know how to apply it (which I think is a good thing), but after my years working in facial cosmetic surgery, I know the basics:
- Most women like to wear eye shadow
- Eye shadow can accentuate beautiful eyes
- It can be a real pain when a woman has to pull up their brow to put on eye shadow due to a droopy lid
- When a woman has to pull on their brow to apply shadow or shadow starts to get lost in their crease, women begin to notice that their eyes and brows are starting to droop due to age, which can alter the entire appearance of their face.
Since I am a facial cosmetic surgeon, specializing in ONLY procedures of the face, I can tell you what is starting to happen to your eyelids when you begin to experience this. When we are young, the fat above our eye is held in a space near the eyeball. As we get older, this tissue, the orbital septum, gets weak. The fat in the lid goes through the weak orbital septum, causing a fullness of the lid. It will also blunt or hide the upper lid crease.
The quality of the eyelid skin diminishes as it loses elasticity and begins to droop. The final change that contributes to an inability to put on eye shadow is the descent of the eyebrow. If the eyebrow falls, then there will be excess skin on the upper lid.
The good news is that there are ways to fix this! There are many non-invasive procedures to rejuvenate the eyes, but when a patient is having difficulty putting on eye shadow or dislikes the way their eye shadow is starting to look, the success rate of these procedures are marginal at best. Typically a surgical procedure is necessary at this point.
Surgically, there are two procedures that can make a huge difference in the eye. The first is an upper eyelid lift, or blepharoplasty, at the Carolina Facial Plastic Surgery Center in Charlotte. It is a minimally invasive procedure that has about one week of downtime. The anatomy of the eye is delicate, interlocking, and complex. I did specialized training with oculoplastic surgeons (doctors that only specialize in eye surgery), during my training in Beverly Hills. I believe this extra time I dedicated to become an expert in eye surgery will result in my patients having better results with upper eyelifts.
The second procedure that can be done for the eyelid skin is a brow lift. There are four types of brow lift techniques I use in Charlotte: a one centimeter brow lift, an endoscopic brow lift, a direct brow lift, and a coronal brow lift. Please see the brow lift page on my website for a full description of each procedure. Placing the brow in a more natural and aesthetically appealing location will improve the look of the upper eyelid skin. Depending on the needs of the patient, a brow lift may be the only necessary procedure to correct this area. Often a brow lift and blepharoplasty are done at the same time to get the best result.
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Jonathan Kulbersh is a board-certified head and neck surgeon who did fellowship training for facial cosmetic surgery in Beverly Hills. After practicing in Beverly Hills, he moved back home to the Carolinas. He has offices in Charlotte and Columbia serving all patients in the North and South Carolina.