Contour Makeup Tutorial
Want to apply contour makeup like a serious pro?? This makeup tutorial will have you feeling FIERCE and looking flawless! Even if you have to look like a crazy warrior chick for a little bit before blending. Hey, I said you would feel fierce, right?
On our quest to learn how to use contour makeup like a pro, we will first have to turn to the contour queen, Kandee Johnson! It may seem like it takes a lot of effort and work (which it does!) but in her contour makeup tutorial, Kandee breaks it down step-by-step so that this professional technique is doable for us mere mortals. Check out her makeup tutorial to see exactly what you can do with your contour makeup to turn out looking picture-perfect!
In this contour makeup tutorial, Kandee teaches you how to get a cute, button nose, how to straighten and slim the nose, how to create a more angular face shape, and how to change the side of your forehead or the width of your face! She explains that lightening an area draws attention to that area, and darkening an area make it appear diminished, or lessons the attention drawn to this area. I love her jeans analogy: white jeans make your butt look bigger, dark jeans make your butt look smaller! It’s so true, and very applicable to highlight and contour makeup as well.
Let’s talk about the flip side to contouring: applying your highlight!
Highlighter is equally essential to the overall effect of your look, because without a highlight color placed strategically on high points of the face, the eye is not as strongly drawn to the features you wish to show more prominently. After covering the areas you want to diminish, apply your highlight on the remaining areas. Usually, these areas will consist of your forehead, nose bridge, cheek bones, and the triangles beneath your eyes. While contouring and highlighting make your face appear more three dimensional, you want the areas where you apply your highlight to appear flat. Your skin will look iridescent and bright, and it will compliment the contour perfectly. Instead of simply taking the focus off of some areas of the face, you are actually choosing areas to bring focus to! You are in control of where people look when they see your face, so you can alway feel confident that you’re putting out best features forward! Every feature is beautiful, because YOU are beautiful! However, creating attention-grabbing features by outlining them with contour and making them pop with highlight is a fun way to play up your every bit of your face to your best advantage.
Get the look:
• Apply your contour from a cream contour pallet, or a foundation pallet in a shade darker than you would normally use. Use a small, flat brush for the best precision. Apply the contour shade to areas that would naturally have a shadow, and use it to sharpen the angles of your face and fake a plump bottom lip.
- Next, fill in the high points of your face and areas you would like to appear more obvious or larger.
- Take your beauty blender, and blend away!! You will likely look pretty strange before you blend, with all of the crazy marks and streaks all over your face! So blend very carefully, starting with the highlight color, then out to the contour makeup. You shouldn’t be able to see any edges or streaks at this point, but your shadows and highlights should stay in tact and visible!
- Lastly, simply set with powder to help the look last all day! Use a regular translucent powder or an organic mineral makeup powder to keep your makeup locked in place.
Voila! You’re all finished. Your face should look more three dimensional, angular, and bright. This technique is great for an everyday look, but it’s especially beautiful on videos or in pictures! Good luck creating this professional quality contour makeup look, I know you can do it!
Have fun playing up your features, beauties!
Hugs,
Emmy