The Fishtail Eyeliner Trend Is a Lot Cooler Than It Sounds

The 1990s beauty landscape can be summed up with brown lipstick and thin brows; the '00s with butterfly clips and frosty eyeshadow; and the '10s with glossy lips and black eyeliner. Although we're only half way through, we're placing our bets now that the '20s makeup trends will be remembered best for its many graphic eyeliner trends. You have favorites like banana eyeliner, bat-wing eyeliner, floating eyeliner, but allow us to introduce you to the latest: fishtail eyeliner.

Don't let its strange name fool you — the fishtail eyeliner trend isn't about sketching a fish-like tail onto the outer corner of your eye (but if you're into that, to each their own). Instead, it's more abstract.

"Fishtail eyeliner is a double-liner trend that makes your eye shape kind of look like a fish," celebrity makeup artist Keita Moore says. "It's something that's unique and unusual but very lovely."

Though it may look tricky, the fishtail eyeliner trend is actually a lot easier to create than most graphic eyeliner looks. When you break it down, it combines a regular wing on the top lash line and "reverse" eyeliner on the bottom. "You can achieve it by doing a top wing liner and at the wing, flick up. Then do a bottom wing liner, and flick it down," Moore says. The two parallel strokes of liner will mimic the body and tail of a fish.

You'll get the best results with a fine-point liquid eyeliner, like the Maybelline New York Hyper Easy Liquid Eyeliner ($8), which is Moore's favorite, or the Haus Labs Clear Cut Liquid Eyeliner ($26). Don't feel that you're limited to only black eyeliner - you can use any shade of liquid liner that you'd like and even mix it up on the top and bottom.

To get inspired for your own fishtail eyeliner look, keep scrolling.

Keita Moore is a celebrity makeup artist and Maybelline New York brand ambassador. He's worked with stars such as Taraji Henson, Iman, Serena Williams, and more.