(Now, I don't normally copy questions from my Formspring page over to my blog, but I thought this would be useful, as a lot of Asian eyes I come across seem to have this problem. Hope it helps someone!)
Welcome to the club! I know exactly what you mean, because that's what my eyes are like, too. Liner is fine on the lower lid, but not on the upper lid, because the upper lid is obscured by the flesh of the eyelid. It's actually quite common among Asians.
There are various ways you can make your eyes stand out, and generally, different people prefer different methods. If you still wish to use eyeliner, then the most common method to counter the "sleepy-looking" fold that obscures your lashline is to simply draw a thicker line. This ensures that even when your eyes are open, the liner doesn't disappear. A lot of girls I know do this, although I myself am not personally too keen on this for one reason: that if the lid is very heavy, then the line that you end up drawing can be really thick in order for the liner to show up even when your eyes are open. Another tip for eyeliner is to make the line thicker at the outer corner of your eye, and thinner towards the inner corners. This helps to leave some liner visible on the eye even when the lid is opened, without giving that "one fat line of eyelier" look. I guess whether thickening the eyeliner works for you or not would depend on how obscured your lashline is - if you don't have to draw a very thick line for it to be visible, this method would work for you. But if you're like me and the line needs to be a quarter of an inch thick before it's visible, then usually I would just skip lining the upper eye altogether.
If you skip lining the upper eye altogehter (as I often do), there are still other ways to bring out your eyes. For me, I find that lining the lower lashline really helps a lot, even if I don't line the upper lashline. And also mascara - this is a much overlooked tip, but curled lashes with a good mascara on really helps to make the eyes look bigger. Lastly, there is also eyeshadow to play around with to emphasize the eyes. Contouring your eyes with eyeshadow can subtly make them appear to have more dimension. I've actually done a series of posts on eyeshadow for various types of Asian eyes, although it's incomplete. I believe the first post is located here: http://musicalhouses.blogspot.com/2010/03/eyeshadow-tutorial-for-asian-eye-shapes.html
It can be pretty frustrating if liner doesn't seem to always work for you, but there's always other tools you can use. If you need examples of eye looks where the eye is brought out without the use of liner on the upper lid, feel free to look through my EOTDs on my blog - I don't think I've ever lined the upper eye in anyone of them, because lining the upper lid is so useless on my small puny obscured eye, LOL. But rest assured you're not the only one, and there are definitely still ways to make your eyes look good even if liner doesn't look good on your lids.
I wish the girl I saw in the subway could have read this. She had on a no makeup makeup face except the eyes which had super thick liner AND false lashes. Too much. This is a great tip. :)
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