Contouring For Every Face Shape

Contouring is something that I do religiously every day. When done correctly it makes a huge difference to how your face appears. You can change how the shape of your face appears, Make your face look slimmer, help disguise a double chin, heighten cheek and brow bones and even help correct ‘bumpy’ noses. Contouring is done by using dark matt tones to shade (this causes the area to look receded, as if less light is hitting it) and white tones to highlight ( to make the area look more prominent, as if more light is hitting it).

Depending on the shape of your face there are various different ways to contour and different areas that need to be shaded/highlighted. I’ll go through all that now, but first I want to say that when you shading you only need a small amount of product on the brush and to apply it very lightly and blend very well as you don’t want to be left with big dark brown patches.

You can get 2 types of contouring products. You can get creams which are applied over the foundation before powder is applied and you can get powder which is applied after your setting powder. Personally I use powder because I don’t like to apply too many creamy products to my skin because I feel like I’m caked but cream contours’ are good and each to their own!

With contouring there is the 2 shade rule, highlighters should be at least 2 shades lighter then the natural skin colour and shaders should be at least 2 shades darker.

Highlighting:The most common places highlighter is used is on brow bones, cheek bones and collar bones.

• To make brow bones look more prominent apply a highlighter sparingly to the brow bone under the eyebrow.

To make cheek bones stand out more highlighter should be applied to the top of the cheekbones and swept upwards toward the temple

Highlighter can also be applied along the upper lip line to make lips look plumper.

If the bridge of your nose is flat highlighting along the bridge and up towards the centre of you forehead will make it look more proiminent.

Highlighting the centre of your eyelid will give your eye the appearance of standing out more, this is good for people with sunken eyes.

Highlighting the inner corners of your eyes will give you the appearance of being more awake.

Highlighting the tip of the chin is good for receding chins as it gives the appearance of bringing it forward.

Shading:Shader is most commonly used in the hollows just below the cheekbone, under the chin and on the temples.

To give the appearance of killer cheekbones shader should be applied to the hollows under your cheekbones. Dont bring the shader any further towards the centre of your face then the outer edge of the iris of your eye and blend it upwards towards the top of your ear. This should be used in conjunction with highlighting the cheekbones for full impact.

Shading underneath the chin can help draw attention away from double chins and make the skin there look firmer and tighter. It can also make long faces look shorter.

Shading the top of the forehead just at the hair line can help reduce the appearance of a high forehead and can also make long faces look shorter.

Shading the temples and the jaw line can help a wider face appear slimmer.

For a wide nose, using shader down each side of the bridge will give the appearance of narrowing the nose, highlighter should be applied down the centre of the bridge of the nose.

A long nose can be corrected by shading the tip and highlighting the bridge.

Contouring is also great for 'sculpting' boobs! Applying a shader to your cleavage and highlighter to the tops of your boobs will make them appear bigger!

Well I hope you learned something new or got some useful tips. I really would recommend contouring to everyone because it does make such a diffence. Just remember the rule that less is more! Start off with very little and build it up if you need to, contouring is meant to look natural and blend seamlessly.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask me and I'll get back to you ASAP :)

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