Tips to Contouring Your Face

Ever see some of your favorite celebs on the red carpet and their face looks chiseled or appears as if they’ve gotten “some work” done? Most times, the cause is due to contouring!  Contouring the face means to create a contrast by using dark colors to make certain areas “recede” and light colors to make certain parts “pop.”  The practice is more subtle now than it was back in the 70′s and 80′s when they used pink blush colors to contour. Today, matte bronzer is used instead of blush so shading looks way more natural. See a few tips to get the right contouring for your face!

“The picture below is a great guide for how to contour and highlight/conceal your face. Use a matte brown powder or bronzer on the dark spots and a concealer or highlighter on the light spots… then blend, blend, blend!”

“Jennifer Lopez, contoured with a matte brown color that mimics the natural shadows in her face.”

“Kim Kardashian, contoured with a bronzer that is darker and more orange than J.Lo’s”

Note 1:
Creating too much contrast in your face can make you appear older, so don’t use a contour color that is way too dark for your skin tone and make sure you blend well!

Note 2:
You can use a shimmery highlighter or concealer to highlight your face but NEVER use a shimmery bronzer or shadow to contour your face. Shimmer and glitter make things “pop”, which would totally defeat the purpose of contouring. Also, if you contoured your whole face in shimmer, you’d shine like a disco ball.

To contour Nose: To slim your nose you would apply the contouring shade on each side of your nose, blending carefully, and the highlighter down the center of your nose.

To contour Cheekbones: To enhance the cheekbones, suck in your cheeks, apply a darker shade to the hollows and a highlighter to the top of the cheekbones. Then apply blush as normal. Don’t over due it!

To contour Forehead: If you have a wide forehead, apply a light bronzer to each temple and blend. This will create a shadow effect causing the head to look more rounded. To contour Chin: For a small, thin chin, apply highlighter to the center of the chin, directly under the center of the lip. To minimize a double chin, apply bronzer  along the jaw line and blend it down, towards your neck. This creates depth and helps to strengthen the jaw line. You should always apply contouring color on your neck to your shirt line to avoid a “mask” look. To contour Eyes:Used at the back corner of the eye going upward toward the temple.

To contour Lips: To slim full lips, apply a deep shade of lip color to the entire lip. If you want to plump up thin lips, you can apply a light lip color with shimmer or gloss. Then apply highlighter between the peaks of the upper lip and below the center of the lower lip. This makes thin lips look full and gives a pouty appearance.

Now of course for Different Face Shapes, Contouring and Highlighting Does change somewhat, as well as dramatically. I will Post other ways you can Contour and Highlight For different Faces.

Oval Face: An oval-shaped face is considered by most to be the perfect facial shape because of its symmetry. So an Oval face doesn’t really need Contouring and Highlighting, But there is no law that says you cannot use it. Experiment, and Do what you feel most comfortable with.