From Makeup to Surgery: Tips for Making Your Eyes Look Their Best

From 70s kitsch paintings of Mexican kids to anime heroines to Bugs Bunny in drag, caricatures of youth and femininity commonly exaggerate the eyes. Eyes represent youth and sexiness. If you want to look your best, you absolutely have to pay attention to your eyes.

Eye Makeup

There are many different ways to apply eye makeup to give yourself a great look, and you can find numerous tips from people telling you this look or that look is the best, but really there are two main tips to eye-catching eye makeup.

· Harmony--in applying makeup to your eyes, make sure you aren't just picking your shadow, mascara, and eyeliner individually, but with the intent of creating a coherent look. Whether your goal is cat eyes or nearly nude, make sure everything you use fits together to create the same effect. Unless you really know what you're doing, blending different looks can lead to an appearance that fails to be either one or the other. And make sure any look you choose goes along with your natural features. Lighter shades are better for women with smaller eyes, but dark outlines can be a dramatic accent to delightful doe eyes.

· Versatility--the human mind is designed to filter out things that are expected, predictable, and ordinary. We can't help not noticing something that looks the same day after day. The brain automatically filters it from the conscious mind. If you want to get second looks and compliments, you should vary your applications. No matter how good-looking, the same application every day becomes just the same old thing.

Countering Biology

Some women are biologically cursed with squinty eyes. Whether it is due to their Asian ethnicity or just genetic baggage, these women have a hard time making their eyes look attractive and youthful. Instead, low-hanging eyelids make a woman look tired and old, an impression made even more noticeable if your lower eyelids are puffy as well. In this case, makeup will most likely not be able to help you, unless you decide to draw attention away from your eyes. But if you want your eyes to look good, you may need to consider a more permanent solution. For hanging upper lids and puffy lower lids, consider blepharoplasty, a cosmetic surgery procedure also known as eyelid surgery. In this procedure, the excess skin of your eyelids can be removed, and at the same time, fat stored in your lower lids can be removed and sometimes even repositioned to fill hollows below the eyes.

Countering Age

In addition to sagging eyelids, one of the main effects of aging is the prevalence of crows' feet at the corners of the eyes. These lines are the result of your muscles pinching down as a result of signals from over-enthusiastic nerves that have responded to years of instructions to tighten the muscles around the eyes. While small, these lines can be concealed with makeup, but eventually they have to be treated. The best treatment for these wrinkles is Botox cosmetic, which blocks the signals from the zealous nerves to the muscles. It does not prevent all signals, but limits them, so that you can still make your eyes perform as necessary. Contrary to popular belief, Botox does not leave you paralyzed and expressionless.

For other fine wrinkles around the eye area, consider a facial peel or other form of skin resurfacing.

Really maintaining a sexy, youthful appearance requires not just one angle, but several different types of treatments. To get a sense of what treatments might work best, speak to an aesthetic specialist. For makeup, talk to a cosmetician, but for real remedies, discuss your issues with a cosmetic surgeon.