If you are a beauty junkie, chances are, you’ve probably come across contour makeup already. This popular makeup trick was ushered in with the age of Instagram where looking good in selfies was one of the main requirements for collecting and engaging a healthy follower count. Especially for celebrities, influencers and MUAs alike, contour use in makeup for different face parts has become an essential skill set they must possess. Learn all these tips and hacks and improve your makeup skills!
What is Contour Makeup?
Contouring your features involves using light and dark foundation shades to highlight, slim-down or deepen certain features that otherwise won't pop on their own. Previously only used as a stage makeup technique, makeup artist contouring was popularised, and now can be used in your daily beauty routine to look great. But how exactly does that help you perfect your makeup game? Let’s look at the contour makeup meaning for different features of your face. Read on and discover!
Choosing the Right Shade and Formula
The Tone
One of the main rules of contour face makeup is to pick the tone 2 shades darker than your skin colour. You also need to choose either warm or cool shade of contouring depending on your skin undertone.
Cool Toned Contour
Contour makeup products with cool shade are suitable for skin that has pink undertone. If the veins under your skin appear purple or blue, your skin is likely to have a cool undertone. When you select the right contouring tone, it looks more natural and complimentary to your skin.
Warm Toned Contour
If your skin has a golden shade, you better choose contour makeup palette with warm undertone. How to make sure? Again, check your veins colour, and if they appear green, so your skin has warm undertone. Golden and bronze shades will be more refreshing for your face in that case.
The Texture
Picking up your best contour makeup products by their texture is important, too. There are creamy, liquid and powder contours, so, what makeup products to use for contouring? That depends on two things: your skin type, and how sharp you want your contouring to look.
Liquid Contour
Liquid contour makeup is more natural looking and better for dry skin type. To try it, you can add to your best contour makeup kit a concealer in darker shade, like Lakmé 9to5 Primer + Matte Liquid Concealer with built in primer and smooth application.
Cream Contour
Cream contour products are more suitable for normal to dry skin type, and it’s quite easy to apply and blend. You may try Kareena Kapoor Khan Lakmé Absolute Face Contour makeup stick that feels like a flawless second skin, and provides a radiant finish.
Powder Contour
Powder makeup contouring is better for oily skin type, and it gives you sharp look and matte finish. If you’re looking for powder contour makeup in India, you can cut your contour makeup price by using a powder in darker shade. Try Lakmé 9to5 Primer + Matte Powder Foundation, available in 6 shades, that gives you comfortable wear, long-lasting and smooth finish.
The Tools You Need
If you’re wondering where to buy contour makeup kit, we suggest you to find your best product first, then learn what contouring makeup tools you really need.
Contouring Brush
Drugstore contour makeup kit may not include a special sculpting brush, but we strongly recommend investing in this item. The middle-sized angled wide brush is the best tool for sculpting your face.
Blending Sponge
Blending is key for a good looking contouring makeup in real life, and not just on Instagram. After mapping your face, to blend all thoroughly and achieve a thin natural coverage, it’s recommended to use a makeup sponge.
Powder Brush
To set your contouring makeup, you’ll need a big, wide and fluffy brush for powder. To avoid cakey effect, take a product with the brush, then shake it a little bit to get rid of excess powder, and apply to your face in slight circular motions.
How to Contour: A Step-by-Step Contouring Guide for Beginners
Need a full makeup tutorial with contouring? Read our complete guide to contouring below.
Preparation
When you’re doing a full face contouring, you need to prepare a smooth and even base to make sure that all products look good and set long-lasting. So, we suggest moisturising your face well and applying a face primer.
Foundation and Concealer
It’s usually recommended to start contouring over your foundation, as it gives you an even base to work with. You can also apply foundation over contour for very light sculpting, but in that case you should use creamy or liquid contouring only. Overall, for sculpting your face features, you may apply powder, contour sticks or liquid foundations. You’ll need two foundations, one darker and one lighter than your natural complexion.
Contour
How to apply contour? Following this simple rule of contouring will give you a defined and sculpted look. Trace out the parts of your face you want to add depth to with the Lakmé Absolute Facelift Palette. This can be your jawline, the hollow part underneath your cheekbones, or your nose makeup contouring. If there was just one tip that a professional MUA had to give you on how do you do contour makeup, it would be to identify your face shape. Face shape is essential information to have while contouring. So step in front of the mirror, take a close look at the dimensions of your face, and do your contour lines makeup accordingly to face shape. Once you figure out how your face can benefit from contouring, you can easily do it in a few simple steps.
Highlight
Sculpting makeup technique is based on adding shades and highlights, also known as contouring and strobing. So, you’ll need your best makeup for highlighting and contouring both. Once you added shades, highlight the high points of your face. This can be eye corners and centre of eyelids, under brows, back and top of the nose, cheekbones. If you didn’t find your best drugstore makeup for contouring and highlighting yet, you can just use the lighter and darker foundation shades.
Blush
Did you know that blush can also help in contouring your face? This technique is called draping. Apply blush, for example, Lakmé 9to5 Pure Rouge Blusher, on your cheeks, eyelids and nose tip. Follow the ascending lines, and for refreshing anti-age make up we suggest applying blush on higher points of your face. Do not use cream or liquid blush over dry textures, powder products should be layered only over creamy and liquid ones.
Blend
Blending cream contour, liquid or powder sculptor is as important as mapping it out. Use the larger surface area of a damp makeup sponge to blend the contour shades into your base makeup. You can switch to a smaller blender for areas like your nose or the eye crease. Use small, circular motions while tapping, and make sure you only stop when the contour looks seamless.
Set
Because of the multiple layers of makeup, it is important to lock everything in with a translucent powder, even if you are not a fan of one! With a large, fluffy brush, lightly dust your face with the finishing powder to lock in the contour.
FAQs
What is the difference between contour and bronzer?
Both contour and bronzing are used to add definition to your face. While bronzing is used to warm up your complexion, contour brings out your best features in a more blended way. Simply put, contour does not show up in the end result of your makeup look, but a bronzer does!
Is contouring necessary?
It is generally believed that the use of contour in makeup is best-suited for special occasions like an event or a photoshoot. Since it takes a long time to contour, daily use can be skipped. Instead, learn to strategically place your blush, to add subtle contour without using as many products.
Does contouring make you look older?
If done right, contouring can help bring a youthful charm to your face. But going overboard with it can actually do the opposite and bring out fine lines and wrinkles. So, use cautiously, and blend meticulously!
What are you waiting for? Try these contour makeup tips now, and share this article with your friends.
Written by Team BB on Feb 01, 2023