One of the hottest trends lately is contouring.  Contouring your face, whether with creams or powders with makeup is a very flattering and simple way to enhance your facial features without the ever so expensive plastic surgery.  Not all of  us have the money to fork out for that but learning a few simple steps on contouring can give you a very naturally enhanced change in your look and add dimension to your face.  It can bring out the best features of your face while shading the let’s say “not so glamorous” features of your face you don’t like and yes, as much as we’d like to think not, everyone has at least one.

There are many contouring products out there on the market whether it be on the lower end such as the NYX Powder Contour Palette or on the higher end such as Anastasia Beverly Hills Cream Contour Kit, the Kat Von D “Shade & Light” Powder Contour Palette, and Smashbox’s Step in One Contour Stick Trio, etc….  Whichever you choose there are many ways to contour.

The basic principal behind contouring is to use “light” (highlight) to bring out the desired features to play up and “dark” (shading) to recede the not so desired features of the face.  For example, to make your cheekbones to appear high and pronounced like a model’s make a line in the hollows of your cheeks from the top of your ear (wear the part of your cheek and jaw that starts to go in.  You can feel it if you make a “fish face”) across your face towards the part before your mouth about halfway to 3/4 to your mouth depending on your face shape.  You would then apply a “highlight” (powder or cream) just above the dark contour line.  Then blending with a beauty sponge or brush in a stippling manner as not to wipe away the product, do this until it is blended together seamlessly giving a natural look.  You can change your face shape to your benefit in specific areas depending on your specific face shape(square, oval, heart, etc…).  You can also make your nose appear larger of smaller by drawing contour lines on the sides of the bridge of the nose as well as the tip and a highlight shade on the top of the bridge of your nose blending these together for the desired look of a wider or thinner nose.

For faster and easier contour , you can use only powder to contour your face but remember,  if you use creams with powder you have to set them with a powder after the way you would set your face after applying foundation.  It keeps the contour product in place but remember, powders always follow liquids and creams.   However, the powder that you use to set the contour cream with should be semi color-matching or neutral/no color translucent.

Whether to “enhance” or (shhh) “hide” certain aspects of your face contouring is very effective.  It can be time consuming but can be done for special occasions or done for specific lighting reasons in photography only if you like, but all in all it is an effective technique and a heck of a lot cheaper than plastic surgery!  Plus it’s  versatile. You can wipe it off and start all over again for a different look!