To achieve the fox-eye eyeliner look, makeup artists and novices alike try to achieve a different eye shape: The desired effect is something more elongated, sleek and slanted upward. Sometimes people will shave the ends of their eyebrows and redraw them straighter (the natural brow shape of many Asian people) and angled upward.

Some put a dash of eyeliner in the inner corner of the eyelid for an even more “exotic” effect. Oftentimes, people pull back their temples to give their eyes an even more exaggerated “slanted” look ― a gesture that’s all too familiar to Asians who’ve ever been ridiculed for “chinky eyes” in their childhoods.