How I Contour and Highlight

Contouring and highlighting the face is taking over the beauty world…thanks to the queen of contouring Kim Kardashian. On a typical day I will just add bronzer and highlight my undereye area(I won’t go crazy with the contour)…but on days when I want to look a bit more glam, I definitely love a good contour and highlight routine.

The first thing you want to do when you know you are going to be doing a pretty dramatic contour is make sure that you have an even playing field. Meaning, you want to have a great foundation as your base to work with. On days I know that I am going to contour, I will apply a primer first to make sure everything is smoothed out and even, and then I will go in with an application of my foundation.

Lately I have been loving the Maybelline Dream Wonder Fluid-Touch Foundation (in the shade Nude). I apply the foundation all over my face and down my neck with a flat top foundation brush and blend, blend, blend away.

Before I add any powder products I am going to continue my contour and highlight routine with cream products. Always remember to add liquid or cream based products before any powder. If you apply a powder product and then a cream on-top that is when it is going to start to look muddy or unnatural.

Taking my favorite highlighting concealer, the Maybelline Dream Lumi Highlighting Concealer in Ivory, I am going to put this in five specific areas on my face…

· Under the eyes (in a triangle effect working back towards my ears)

· Down the bridge of my noise

· On the forehead

· On the chin

· And under the cheekbones (under where the contour shade will go)

When highlighting you want to apply this product in all the areas of the face that you want to raise up and brighten. So say you have a breakout in any of these areas (on the nose or chin) you will want to skip the highlight in that area because it is going to bring moreattention to that blemish or breakout.

Staying with another cream product I am then going to apply a stick foundation from

Maybelline (in the darkest shade they offer) and apply this in areas I want to sink in or

contour.

These areas are…

· The hollows of the cheeks

· Under the jawline

· On the sides of the nose

· On the temples around the forehead

Unlike highlighting, were you are trying to bring attention and light to areas of the face, contouring is adding dimension and shadows to create structure.

Once everything is in place now comes the most important part….blending. Blending is important because it is what makes this whole process look natural. Although you may laugh when I say that word after how much product is on the face at this moment, the whole point of highlighting and contouring is to look as if you are born with these natural features. You don’t want to look like you have a whole bunch of product on your face... and blending is going to help us achieve that.

For blending out the highlight I will take this pointy and dense tapered brush. Especially for the under eye area, you want to make sure that you dab rather than swipe when blending because this can help from just removing the product completely instead of blending into the skin.

Once the highlight is all blended out I move on to the contour. Here I take a stippling brush which I feel gives the most natural look with cream products. Starting with in the hollows of the cheeks, be sure to blend this product UPWARD never down…and never too far in towards your mouth.

Once everything is blended out just right we move on to setting these products with powder.

I first start out by settling my highlight shade with the ever so popular Banana setting powder from Anastasia Beverly Hills (right shade in top row). A banana colored powder is perfect for highlighting and settling undereye concealer. This one is so finely milled that it is unnoticeable on the skin but makes SUCH the difference.

Next I move on to setting the contour with another shade from Anastasia in, Fawn (middle shade on the bottom row on image above). I take this on an angled Kabuki brush and just lightly dust this along the areas where my contour shade is. This just adds definition and helps to set that cream product.

Now I will add a blush color, lately I have really been loving a cream blush from Becca Cosmetics in the shade Papaya. It adds a gorgeous orange glow all over the cheeks. On a small stipple brush from E.L.F. cosmetics I lightly tap this on my cheek bones and blend back towards my contour shade. This cream product actually works amazing after I have already used powder to set my highlight and concealer. And...a little bit goes A LONG WAY.

Lastly, I will use a powder highlight to add a soft glow to the tops of my cheekbones and down my nose. My favorite lately has been from the Urban Decay Naked Flushed palette in the color Streak.

That is my current contour and highlight routine. Again, I DO NOT do this every single day. This is a very heavy glam look and I only go through all these steps when that is the look I am going for.