It’s tough to find a contemporary beauty trend that didn’t start or gain traction on TikTok, but some cosmetic fads that stem from the platform, like measuring your canthal tilt, can set a dangerous precedent—and perpetuate harmful beauty standards.
The term canthal tilt refers to the angle or slant of the outer corners of the eyes in relation to the horizontal plane of the face, according to Ramtin Kassir, MD, triple-board-certified facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon and founder of Kassir Plastic Surgery and Inside Beauty in New York City.
“It is an anatomical feature that can vary from person to person and can impact the overall appearance of the eyes and the face,” Dr. Kassir tells Glamour. “In a ‘positive’ canthal tilt, the outer corners of the eyes are angled slightly upward toward the temples, which is commonly associated with a more youthful and alert appearance, often considered attractive.”
The alternative, a “negative” canthal tilt, has been condemned by some of TikTok’s most opinionated, leading to comments reading: “Negative canthal tilt, it’s over for bro.”
As for how this could possibly determine someone’s level of attractiveness? “When you have a positive canthal tilt, it gives the impression that your eye is a little bit more open,” explains Sachin M. Shridharani, MD, board-certified plastic surgeon at Luxurgery in New York City. “It has a tendency to be a bit more youthful because over time, as one matures or ages, you can often get more of a negative canthal tilt, or even the appearance of hooding of the eyelid skin. This is treatable with a blepharoplasty.”
“A negative tilt is a downward slant,” says skin care expert and master injector Tara Adashev, APRN, a nurse at Neinstein Plastic Surgery. “This small difference has the ability to give a youthful, attractive appearance.” That said, attractiveness and beauty is not actually that simple, and having a set of specific features does not translate to looking good or not.
“Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder,” Adashev continues. “In this day and age, so many filters are easily accessible and setting the stage for what ‘beauty’ should look like, but that is not really the case. Many people who get a negative canthal result are still very attractive. They just don’t meet the standard measurements of this tool.”
In fact, two of the most conventionally attractive people in history had negative canthal tilts: Ever heard of Elvis Presley? How about Marilyn Monroe?
“Attractiveness is highly subjective and can vary significantly from person to person. What one individual finds attractive, another may not,” Dr. Kassir says. “Personal preferences, cultural backgrounds, and individual experiences all contribute to one’s perception of attractiveness. Every person is unique, and there is a wide range of physical features and combinations that can be considered attractive. There is no one-size-fits-all standard."
Still, this this hasn’t managed to sway the internet’s feelings on the matter: Countless Reddit posts chronicle users’ journeys to achieve a positive canthal tilt. Many of these users, some of whom are also on TikTok, are men who purport that a positive canthal tilt is “predator eyes” while negative is “prey.”
And they take it seriously too: One comment, in response to “prey eyes,” reads: “If I saw u on the street I’d kick ur [sic] ass with eyes like that.”
It might just be a TikTok filter, but assigning certain body and facial features as “good” or “bad” can—and often does—have negative consequences—especially at the plastic surgeon’s office.
“Unfortunately, social media has a lot of filters, and it influences very powerfully on individuals," says New York board-certified facial plastic surgeon Edward S. Kwak, and Dr. Kassir agrees. “The downside with constant exposure to filtered and edited images, as well as beauty trends, is that it can contribute to body image issues, low self-esteem, and even mental health concerns for some individuals who feel they don’t measure up to these ideals.”
That’s why Dr. Kwak strongly advises against making aesthetic decisions or changes based off of digital trends. “In general, I tell patients not to determine your facial features, especially when determining surgery, based off of a filter,” he says.
Kwak references the lateral brow lift and controversial fox-eye lift as procedures that have gained popularity due to social media. Both often result in positive canthal tilts.
“A fox-eye lift is when the lateral or side portion of the brow has been lifted, in my opinion, in an exaggerated manner where the peak of the eyebrow peaks out significantly higher than the central portion of the brow and higher than the orbital rim," he says. "This gives that accentuated appearance of the brow, and by lifting up that lateral brow or forehead region, the canthal tilt could be elevated.”
It’s also important to note that slanted eye shapes like fox eyes are not trends at all—instead they’re examples of appropriating features from ethnic groups. Fox eyes have come under fire for resembling Eastern Asian eye shapes, for which many Asians have experienced micro-aggressions and racism.
Dr. Shridharani also adds that a positive canthal tilt reflects beauty standards upheld by society for decades. “In plastic surgery, we don’t do a breast drop, we do a breast lift; we do a abdominal plasty as a tummy tuck/abdominal lift,” he says. “We do body lifts, we do face lifts, neck lifts. Almost everything that we do is a function of bringing things up and lifting. Having an upward canthal tilt is nothing new; it’s just trending.”
Another downside of these trends is that users can start to fixate on features they may have otherwise not noticed. “Could it be harmful or problematic in some ways because we’re perpetuating random new beauty ideals? Yeah, absolutely. We need to have awareness, not create tulip mania around some type of surgical procedure,” Dr. Shridharani concludes, pointing to buccal fat removal as another recent example of the phenomenon. “Last year it was all about buccal fat pad removals, when we’ve been talking about buccal fat pad excisions for decades. TikTok just brings more illumination to these elements.”
Fortunately, the canthal tilt filter has since been adopted for more positive purposes, serving as a visual aid to help users paint perfect eyeliner wings. “What those who are not medical professionals choose to do with this canthal tilt information is where it varies,” Adashev concludes. “Some may be able to draw their eyeliner a little straighter, and some will be able to use this tool as a scale of how attractive they are. It’s an open book of endless possibilities.”
I’ll personally be using it as en eyeliner tool and nothing more, and I advise you do the same.
Danielle Sinay is the associate beauty editor at Glamour. Follow her on Instagram @daniellesinay.
This feature originally appeared on Glamour US.
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