The Ultimate Guide To Contouring

Here's a step by step guide to contouring your face if you're wondering how to contour your makeup! You'll get the best results following these tips!

I used to have a lot of trouble with contouring, but after trying different techniques, watching YouTube tutorials, and trying out different products that would result in countless frustrating attempts – I finally managed to get it right. It is a trial and error situation, so if you are someone who struggles or even flinches at the word “contour”, fear no more! Here is the ultimate guide to contouring your face!

1. Choosing the correct shade

The first step in my guide to contouring is choosing a contouring palette. You want to choose a contouring palette or a foundation with a dark tone that is two shades darker than your usual foundation, and a concealer that is one shade lighter than your foundation. You will be using the dark tone to create shadow and the light tone to highlight and stand out.

2. Applying your foundation

Simple and straight forward, you will apply your base foundation as you normally do, only this time if you are used to dusting your face with any kind of setting powders you will not do that just yet.

3. Let the highlighting begin…

Start with the concealer first. You will apply it in the areas you want to stand out, draw an upside down triangle underneath your eyes, that goes from your lower lashes up to the middle of your cheeks, remember to fill it in. Then, take the concealer from the tip of your nose up to the forehead, creating a line, and then you will draw another three branch-like lines, these should stop about an inch from your hairline. Don’t blend it in just yet!

4. …And may the contour be ever in your favor

With the darker shade and, sucking your cheeks in, you will draw a line in the hollows of your cheeks, starting from your ear and stopping about an inch from your lips. For your nose you might want to use a small brush for precision, and you will draw a very thin line that goes from the inner corner of your eyebrow up to the tip of your nose, do this on both sides. To finish off you can dot or just draw a curved line paralleled to your hairline.

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5. Blend it all in

It’s finally time to blend everything, so using a damped beauty blender – being damped makes it easier to blend and also means that the sponge will not soak up too much of the products – you will start blending in the concealer and then progress to the darker shade, always tapping the products with the beauty blender and always in an upward movement, you don’t want to drag the products down.

6. Set the scene

If you want to, you can use a translucent lose powder to set the parts where you applied the concealer – the great thing about translucent lose powder is that it is thinner and lighter than compact powders and also will not add any more color, which some compact powders do – and for the darker shade you can use a bronzer or a blusher in a similar hue.

I hope this tutorial has been helpful to you, and remember: contouring, or make up in general, is something that you have to keep practicing until you finally master it.