Why can't I get my eyes to look like the tutorial?

Skip to TL;DR because I talk too much.

I used to ask this question all the time. Every time I tried an eye makeup tutorial, it was a hot mess. Following tutorials basically went like this:

"Place the eyelid color on your eyelid, up to the crease."

Uh...okay. I'll put it on this half-centimeter strip of skin I guess.

"Place the crease color into your crease and along the lashline, into a v-shape."

...I assume it's the tiny line there? But I can't see anything when I open my eyes. What's the point of this? 

"Place the highlight shade all over your browbone."

Wait. This whole massive section has to have a highlight? I thought a highlight was supposed to be subtle? 

I gave up after a while. Now, there were several problems here.

First of all, I didn't have brushes and used those foam applicators that came with the palette I was using.

Second of all, I am a minority that grew up in the US.

Third of all, I do not at all have the "standard eye shape," or anything vaguely resembling it, thus rendering all those tutorials useless . As my Puerto Rican friends would say, tengo los ojos bien achinao. I have really Asian eyes. 

Now, if you're anything like me, you desperately tried to search for what exactly your eye shape was, but nothing seemed to quite fit. These charts honestly didn't help much. Especially the vaguely racist ones.

No worries. You just have to find things that work for you, adapt those that you can, and accept what won't work on your anatomy. Don't worry too much about what it's called, think more about what you can do with what you have.

I mean, if I had to describe my eyes, I'd say that they were small, slightly upturned Asian hooded eyes with a heavy epicanthic fold and flat orbitals, with the left being more hooded than the right. But it doesn't matter that much at the end of the day.

TL;DR: don't get hung up on following things exactly. Adapt and change as necessary.

~Lotus