Contouring and Highlighting
Very few people are blessed with a chiseled jaw-line and naturally highlighted cheek-bones. So what should the others do? Resent those who have a sculpted face? No, learn the art of contouring and highlighting!
With the help of the right products and more importantly, right tools and skills, you too can enhance your features. But let’s be honest, contouring and highlighting is not a child’s play. It can take years to master the technique and to discover the right products that flawlessly match your skin tone. Here are a few pointers that’ll help you in understanding the nuances of contouring and highlighting –
- Picking the Right Highlighters and Shading Creams – Just discover that one perfect shading cream or powder and its complementary highlighter, instead of piling your makeup box with several different shades.
Use your hands to apply the shading cream in order to get a more natural look. If you prefer shading powder, you need to get highlighting powder to go with it. Avoid the combination of cream and powder.
- What’s Your Face Structure? – The rules of highlighting and contouring are different for different face structures. If you have a round face, contour under the cheekbones so that your jaw will appear to be sharper and if you have a narrow face, shade the top of the forehead and a little around the chin.
- Understand your Skin Type – If your makeup stands out a little too distinctively against your skin, it’ll look bad. Your contouring cream needs to be just a shade darker than your complexion. Stay away from creams that come in shades of orange or maroon. Your highlighter should match your natural skin tone but it can have a hint of glitter, if you want.
- Picking the Right Brushes – If you are working with powder based products, you must have the right applicators.
- Areas to Shade – For defined cheekbones, suck in your cheeks and then apply shade above and below the hollow area. Stop an inch above the corner of your mouth and then blend the shading cream/powder properly. In order to get a slimmer nose, apply shading cream in the form of two lines, starting from the brows.
- Areas to Highlight – Highlighting should never be overdone or you’ll end up looking like a plastic doll and not in a good way! Dab just a little highlighter up and down the cheekbones and on your brow bones. Tap a little on the tip of your nose as well and that should be enough.
- Blending is an Art! – No matter how beautifully you’ve applied the shades and the highlights, if you haven’t blended them properly, they won’t look natural.
- Apply the Blusher – If you have fair skin, use shades like pink and apricot and if you have dark skin, use soft plum or peach. Apply blush on the apple of your cheeks for a natural look.
Will you give face contouring a try? For more tips from the pros, check out the sources below too!
