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Chapter Three The Eye Region Upper and Lower Lid Surgery Forehead-lift The Single Lid (Oriental Eye) Permanent Lash Enhancement

The Single Lid (Oriental Eye)

The first is surgery of what is known as the “Oriental” eye. Though plenty of people of Oriental extraction do, in fact, seek out the operation, it is not limited to them. The Oriental eye describes the condition in which the skin falls from the eyebrow to the upper eyelash line in a single lid. About sixty percent of Orientals have an upper lid constructed this way, and some of them don’t like their appearance. The single lid can make their eyes look small and narrow. The challenge is to give them a double eyelid, with a groove between the brow and the lash line. (This is the groove where eyeshadow can be applied to give the impression of even larger, deeper-set eyes.

Essentially, the procedure is to remove fatty tissue from the upper lid if it is excessively puffy. In order to create a groove, several sutures are used to anchor the skin to the deeper eyelid structures. I had my comeuppance on this subject when I was invited to The People’s Republic of China to speak and to do some surgery and I had prepared to talk on the Oriental eye procedure. By then, I’d handled about fifty-five such operations. The organizers of the symposium were terribly polite about it, but they did tell me that they’d collectively handled about 10,000 cases themselves. I spoke on a difference topic.

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