The term “Asian eyelid Surgery” that is also known as “East Asian Blepharoplasty”, is a kind of cosmetic surgery which is done for reshaping the skin around the eye. This procedure is generally carried out so as to create an upper eyelid along with a crease, or we can simply say ‘double eyelid’, for people whose eyelids do not have a crease.

About 50% of the people from Pacific Asian descent possess a pretarsal crease, whereas the other 50% of patients do not possess an eyelid crease. In India, we can usually find people with an absence of an eyelid crease in the North-East of India, consisting of the states of Mizoram, Assam, Manipur Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh & Tripura.

The surgical procedure for making an Asian eyelid fold is either to block all the fat from getting down below the wanted eyelid fold height or to re-form the dermal attachment of that of the levator aponeurosis. The non-incision suture method of the cosmetic eyelid surgery helps to create the fold by recreating the dermal attachment by using non-absorbing sutures. The incisional method for Asian double eyelid surgery regenerates the fold by eliminating the inferior area of the pre-levator fat and then sealing off this area. Another popular method which is the semi-open method, combines aspects of both techniques by means of buried nylon sutures for recreating the fold as well as removing a part of the pre-levator fat by making a small incision. It has to be made sure that the surgeon should not remove too much fat from the eye.

Double eyelid is a feature that makes the eyes look more defined and shapely, which why this procedure is extremely common among those of Asian descent…hence the name.