Bodily Oddities

Eyelid flipping

Also called: Eyelid eversion · Lid eversion

Turning the upper eyelid inside out so the pink inner surface shows. Most people with reasonably loose lids can learn it. Eye doctors do it to patients to look for grit.

Eyes Skin and hair Trick Voluntary
Icky Try it Learnable Party trick Childhood

How common

No formal count Unknown Most people with moderately loose eyelid tissue can learn it.

Can you do this?

These are answers from visitors, not a study.

How it works

Each eyelid contains a plate of dense tissue called the tarsus. It gives the lid its shape and stiffness. The plate in the upper lid is about 10 mm tall2. Above it, the lid is soft and folds easily.

Flipping the lid means folding the soft part over the top edge of the plate. You pull the lashes down and away from the eye, press on the skin at the top edge of the plate, and fold the plate up and over. The lid turns inside out. The surface that shows is the conjunctiva, the thin pink membrane that lines the inside of the lid and covers the white of the eye3.

Eye doctors do this on purpose. Everting the lid shows the inner surface, where a speck of grit or an eyelash often hides1. It is a routine step when someone comes in with a scratchy eye.

Most people with average or loose lid tissue can learn it. People with tight or heavy upper lids find it hard. There is no formal count. It is a classic school playground trick, and most people who can do it learned it as a child.

Try it

Do not do this if you wear contact lenses, have an eye infection, or have had eye surgery.

  1. Wash your hands.
  2. Look down. Keep looking down the whole time.
  3. Take hold of the lashes of one upper lid between finger and thumb. Pull the lid gently down and away from the eye.
  4. With a finger of the other hand, or a clean cotton bud, press on the lid at the crease, about a centimetre above the lashes.
  5. Fold the lashes up and over the pressing finger. The lid flips.
  6. To undo it, look up and blink. The lid drops back on its own.

Sources and further material

  1. Encyclopedia Eyelid Structure of the lid and its layers.
  2. Encyclopedia Tarsus (eyelids) The stiff plate inside each eyelid that makes the fold possible.
  3. Encyclopedia Conjunctiva The pink membrane that shows when the lid is flipped.
  4. Video Eyelid flipping demonstration YouTube search.
Muscle Trick

Raising one eyebrow

Lifting a single eyebrow while the other stays down. Between 30% and 35% of people can do it without training. Most of the rest can learn it in front of a mirror.

30–35%
Bones Trick

Voluntary joint dislocation

Pushing a joint partly or fully out of its socket on purpose, then back in. About 20% of people have some joint hypermobility. True voluntary dislocation is much rarer and often linked to a connective tissue disorder.

Rare; no formal count Icky
Eyes Variation

Distichiasis

A second row of eyelashes growing from the oil-gland openings along the inner edge of the eyelid. It is rare, mostly inherited, and Elizabeth Taylor was born with it.

Rare
Muscle Trick

Platysma display

Tensing the thin sheet of muscle under the skin of the neck so that cords stand out from jaw to collarbone. Everyone has the muscle. Isolated control of it is uncommon.

No formal count