Contouring tips to perfect that look
Made popular by celebrity make-up artists, contouring has caught as a beauty trend and is here to stay. Simply put, adds definition to your overall look by making your cheekbones appear higher while slimming your nose and chin. Redefine or reshape your face by using a contouring stick for that perfect look.
Determine your face shape
Firstly, to get the best contouring, you need to know the shape of your face. Is it oval, round, long, square, diamond, or heart-shaped? Determining your face shape will make contouring and enhancing your features very easy. So, this is quite important.
Before you actually start with the contouring, use your colour correcting concealer to hide dark circles, blemishes, dark spots. Pick a good concealer with a right shade that matches your skin tone so that it blends well with your skin. Go for a good brand and easy to apply, smooth product. A liquid concealer is recommended for this technique.
You can use a liquid, cream or powder-based foundation or a combination of the three. However, we strongly suggest using a cream foundation for contouring. But your foundation has to blend well with your skin tone and especially your neck as the skin here is slightly paler than the rest of the face. You also pick a couple of shades darker foundation when applying this technique to take away attention from certain features of your face through shading.
Go for the lighter foundation
Pick a foundation a couple of shades lighter than your skin tone. Use a foundation brush or your fingers to apply it on those parts of your face where the sunlight falls naturally. This would mostly be on your forehead at its centre, along the bridge of your nose, top of your brow lines, between your nose tip and the top of the lip, apples of your cheeks, and at your chin’s centre.
Now it’s the turn of the dark foundation to create that shadowing effect while contouring. So, use it on both sides of your forehead starting from just below your hairline at the top. Then, move to both the sides of your nose, hollows of the cheeks, and then along both the sides of the jawline—starting from the ears to the chin’s tip.
Now, use a blending brush or your fingers to blend well for that natural look. Remember contouring is all about looking natural. However, be careful to blend the edges without any differentiation of the light and dark foundations. Now, set the whole look with a translucent powder so that it stays in place.
Key Tip: Use all products of the same material to avoid a caked-up look. For instance, use all cream or all powder-based products as mixing two different textures can ruin the look.
So, the next time you have and occasion or event to go to, simply pick the right contouring stick and sculpt your face for that flawless look with the above hacks.