Despite being a beauty editor, there’s one thing I can’t quite master: eyeliner.

Try as I might, my line is never quite straight, not the right width and always uneven. The point? I’ve given up on the ever-elusive cat-eye look.

Typically, when I have a beauty problem, I Google. But this time I turned to celeb makeup artist, Tasha Reiko Brown, who works with Logan Browning, Angela Rye, Jill Scott and Yara Shahidi to name a few. Of course, she had the perfect hack to winged liner that changed my outlook. Scroll down to peep her game-changing advice. 

"[You can] hack holiday classic winged eyeliner by starting backwards,” she shares. “If you’re a novice at this holiday classic the best way to go is to first start with your tools.”

She recommends a pen like liquid-liner pencil — try L'Oréal Paris Extra-Intense Liquid Pencil Eyeliner ($9.49) — because it’s easier than a brush and glides easier on the lids. If a brush is your only option, choose a bent tipped version that your hand will hold in a pen-like position like Sonia Kashuk® Core Tools Bent Eyeliner Brush No. 107 ($6.00). 

“Looking straight in the mirror, place a dot where you'd like your liner to end,” she explains. “Do this to both eyes and it's a guarantee you will have even wings. Working backwards, place a few dots where you need it to curve and how thick you'd like it to be from the base of the lashes.”

Now that you have a basic template, it's easier to close one eye and just connect the dots working outwards. “This takes away the pressure of making them even and trying to figure out where to end it when just free handing,” she adds.

Voilà, there you have it, the best beauty hack I learned in 2017. Cheers to learning even more next year! What makeup issues do you #BETBeauties have? Let me know in the comments below.