I Was Hopeless When It Came to Winged Eyeliner — Until I Tried This Hack

Despite the fact that my life revolves around beauty, I can't draw winged eyeliner to save my life. I can apply mascara like a pro, do an entire face of foundation in a minute flat, and line my lips without even looking in a mirror, but winged eyeliner? No way. I have downturned eyes that are also hooded, and although I've watched countless YouTube videos and tutorials on the topic, I've never been able to master any kind of eyeliner on my upper lid.

Recently, I stumbled across a TikTok filter created by user Grace M Choi that claims to help you draw the perfect winged liner for your eye shape. I've tested other filters created by Choi, like one that helped me map out my perfect eyebrow shape and another that led me to contour my face in a completely different way. I figured it couldn't hurt to try this one, too, even if (or especially because) I was totally clueless when it came to eyeliner.

Most people testing out the filter on the app were using liquid eyeliner, but I opted to use the Neen Side Eye Liner ($19) in Jet because it doesn't tug and I love the creamy formula. Plus, it's one of the few formulas I've tried that actually stays all day long. To see whether or not the filter was as good as everyone on TikTok said it was, I decided to start out by doing my left eye as I usually would if I were going to apply winged eyeliner myself. As I mentioned, I don't do it often, but I wanted to compare and see if using the filter really made a difference.

On my left eye, I held the pencil at the corner of my eye and flicked it outward. From there, I drew a thin line above my eye and connected the two. After finishing up that eye (which didn't look perfect, I'll admit), I started on my right using the filter. I got my phone settled on my tripod (I've found testing filters like this works best when you have both hands free), opened up my TikTok app, selected the filter, and got to work.

Once I clicked in, the first thing I noticed was that the filter laid over my eyes and nose and had three different lines (pink, yellow, and blue) coming from the corner of my eye. In Choi's tutorial video, she says to start out by drawing over the pink line from the corner of the eye to the fork where the line splits, so I followed her instructions exactly. Next, I started drawing a line from the end of my iris and filled the area in above my eye, making sure to connect the two lines together.

Choi says if you want a more dramatic wing, you can extend it out to one of the three longer lines. I was fine with a simple wing, so I finished up by curling my eyelashes and applying mascara. I surveyed everything in the mirror and was genuinely shocked to see that there was a stark difference between my right eye and left eye. The liner on my left side looked crooked and a bit smudged and didn't do much for my eye shape, while the liner on my right side elongated my eye and looked almost perfect. Although I had already applied mascara, I was tempted to wash off my left eye makeup completely and start all over again using the filter — the right side looked that good.

If you're someone like me who struggles to get your winged eyeliner right, give this TikTok filter a try. It only takes a few minutes to master, but it makes all the difference.