Subtly Sexy Contouring and Highlighting
I’m surprised as to how often people forget how great an effect contouring can have on your features. Contouring allows you to add subtle shadows to your face, enhancing your natural beauty.
Remember to always highlight and contour with natural colors. Darker browns look the best for contours, and lighter browns look best for highlights.
When you’re contouring, try to visualize the light striking your face from the front, above head level. Subtly lighten or darken various features as you see fit. Remember to smoothly blend everything, so you don’t look blotchy.
Enhance your cheekbones by darkening the sides of your cheeks and highlighting the top of the cheekbones.
You can thin your chin by darkening the sides or lightening the middle of it, remembering to blend everything! The same applies to your forehead. You can narrow a broad forehead by lightening the center and darkening the outside edges.
The same concept works with your nose. Narrow the nose by darkening the sides of the nose and lightening the center. You can also add contouring to the eyes by darkening their outside corners.
Unlike other makeup techniques, this shouldn’t be overdone. Over-use of contouring can cause your face to look like an overexposed photograph. Subtlety is key here.
It helps me to look at modeling pictures online for ideas and copying their contouring.
Finally, remember to blend your darker shade below your jaw and on the neck. Smoothly blending the edges of your face makeup prevents the problem where the face makeup stands out too much and looks awkward.
With practice, contouring can enhance your appearance in ways that many other makeup techniques can’t.