If you’ve ever painted a piece of furniture or the walls of your home, you’ve probably seen the difference that a coat of primer can make. Without it, the colors you use can seem lackluster compared to how they looked in the can, making your careful shade selection feel like a waste of time. The same can be said about eyeshadows – sometimes they turn out looking darker or more iridescent than you thought. But not anymore.

According to The Beauty Department, all it takes to keep the colors of your eyeshadows honest is a white eyeliner pencil. Using this as a base coat will bring out the true shades of your eyeshadows and make it a lot easier to get rich colors that really pop.

Just use a matte white pencil to draw all over the area where you want your eyeshadow to be, which is probably across your whole lids and along the lower lash lines. Then pick up your eyeshadow brush as usual and stipple (kind of like stamping) the color on top of the white. The source reports that doing this instead of sweeping it on normally gives you a better color payoff.

You should notice that your eyeshadow looks a lot more like it does in the packaging – which is why you probably picked it in the first place!