Can we talk about contouring?
It seems like today contouring is all the rage, everyone who does tutorials, has a contouring one; and anyone who doesn’t, wants to know how to do it. It’s reminiscent to the early Frozen day’s, where I swear everyone was crazy about the movie only because everyone else was. But this seems to be the norm in today’s society. Everyone following a select few and no one standing up to say “No, I genuinely don’t like this, and I honestly don’t understand why you do”. At least it seems that way to me, and just like with Frozen here I am again less interested in contouring than I was the movie. Despite my lack of interest in the technique it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still so popular. To be honest, I have no desire to contour my face, I’m more into the strobing technique myself. I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with seeing more extreme contouring before and afters than I care to recount, that it’s left me a bit anxious about what is possible with makeup. Call me old fashioned but I believe makeup should be used to enhance your natural beauty, and honestly I believe that’s all contouring is meant to do as well.
Contouring, once upon a time was a technique reserved for the makeup pros who beat the faces of models and actress’ for the big screen and photo shoots. But now, with the wide accessibility of information through the internet, we can all look, act and behave like the pro’s. There’s nothing wrong with that, I am thankful for the internet and the many tutorials available. Because of them I can now give myself a proper smokey eye with a hard edge. But, where should we draw the line between reality and the abstract? That after all, is not for me to decide. It is up to each individual to decide uniquely based on who they are and what they like. For me, my reality does not include contouring, not because I was born with naturally beautiful defined lines and bone structure.(I wasn’t..) But rather, as much as I love makeup, I also like my face equally as much without it.
We know that contouring can be intimidating for some, so we’ve come up with a few tips to help make the process easier and to finish like the pro’s.
1. Contour selectively:
Part of perfecting your unique pretty is knowing your strengths and your weakness. Knowing what you love about yourself and also knowing what leaves you feeling less confident about yourself. Apply this knowledge to your contouring. Most contouring tutorials show you how to contour your entire face, but that’s not always necessary. Find the things you would like to perfect and use contouring to enhance those areas. For instance, if you want to make a wide nose appear slimmer, you would apply a contour shadow to the sides of your nose and blend, conversely if you want to make a long nose appear shorter you would apply a contour shadow under the tip of your nose and blend. In the same sense, If you have well defined cheekbones you may not need to contour that area at all but if you don’t and you would like them to appear more defined that may be an area you should consider contouring.
2. Know your face shape:
One of the set backs to most contour tutorials is that they show you a basic technique. Perfectly contouring your face lies in how and where you contour according to your bone structure. Every face shape, oval, long, round, heart, square or diamond can benefit from highlighting and contouring according to their unique bone structure. Believe me, determining your face shape and contouring accordingly can take your face game to a whole new level. I’ve never seen a successfully contoured face prettier than when a.) It’s contoured according to it’s unique facial structure and b). Only contoured where needed.
3. blend, blend, and blend again
I’ll say it again, BLEND. This may seem like an absolute no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many women I see walking around with clear highlight and contour lines visible or at best too dramatic. The key to highlighting and contouring your face is to make it look as though you didn’t highlight and contour at all. Your face should appear as though you just naturally have great bone structure. The key to perfecting this is blending. Please lady’s if you perfect anything, perfect blending.
4. Tools!
Oh we love our makeup tools, don’t we!? I know I certainly do and one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself as a makeup lover is a really great set of tools. But for contouring you don’t want to use just any old brush in your collection, you have to use the right ones. The right tool will make all the difference in the world. If your using too bulky a brush you may apply more contour or highlighter than is desirable; and we all know it’s easier to add more than it is to remove excess when it comes to makeup. As a general rule you should have at minimum a large angled contour brush and a small pointed contour brush; and of coarse a sponge for blending. The large angled contour brush should be used for contouring while the small pointed contour brush is for highlighting; making it easier for you to get small or delicate places such as under eye’s and along your cupids bow.
Well, ladies! We hope these small tips will help make contouring less scary and more practical. Our goal is to make you masters of your pretty. We want you to feel confident about what your doing and why your doing it.
Xoxo ~Kittsin
The Pretty Pact 