Magic for the Face: Contour and Highlight L’Arc-En-Ciel

I am so happy to have L’Arc-En-Ciel as our Guest Author in this post. I love her blog. It is full of great product reviews and makeup applications. I strongly recommend you to stop by and enjoy her vast knowledge about makeup and read her unbiased comments! :)

And here is, without further ado, L’Arc-En-Ciel!

Magic for the Face: Contour and Highlight

First of all, thanks to Ebru for the opportunity of being a guest writer on her lovely blog. I hope, I will please her readers as much as she does.

If you are someone who loves putting on make-up, you also probably envy the look of supermodels on the covers of the fashion magazines. Putting photoshop aside, there are a few tricks that you can easily do to have a similar look: contour and highlight!

Contouring your face pulls down the dimple parts of your face, while highlighting pops up the higher parts to get more attention. Using these two techniques together relieves the most beautiful features of your face.

So, let’s start with contouring! For contouring purposes, you can either use pressed powder, or cream products; however, neither of them should be shimmery. Matte products are more suitable to be used in contouring, as we are trying to grey the parts that are contoured. Colours that do not include any orange undertones and that are 1,5-2 tones darker than your skin tone are suitable. Or, do a fish face, try to determine the shade that appears in the pit occurred and select that shade as your contour colour! Then, with a narrow and preferrably angled face brush apply small amounts of product:

• Under your cheekbones (do a fish face and follow the line that appears when you do it until the pit occurred)
• Following the edges of your nose and combine them drawing an arch at the tip of your nose
• Under your lower lip, a tiny bit to make your lips look bigger and fuller
• Through your temples
• And if you need your face to look sharper and more defined, follow the edges of your chin and extend it toward your ears.

Source: http://www.tinytouchups.com/makeup-highlighters-shading-complete-guide-emphasize-features-10104/

To complete your look, define the parts of your face that needs to be indicated! Highlighters are very appropriate for this purpose. Opposite to the contouring materials, highlighters can be shiny, pearly to get more attention. Again, these can be pressed powders, cream or even liquid products. Highlighters can be best applies either with small stippling kind of brushes, or tapered, kind of fluffy but narrow face brushes. After picking the highlighter that will create the look you like, apply highlighter to (the areas indicated with H on the image below; namely):

• The top of your cheekbones
• Under your brows
• On your forehead
• Following your nose-bone
• The pit above your upper lip, again to get fuller lips
• The chin

And then you are ready for a fashion-shoot!

A perfect example of contour&shade (Image source: http://www.jeddahbeautyblog.com/make-up/monday-makeup-madness-contour-like-a-kardashian/)

I personally prefer The Balm Bahama Mama for contouring and The Balm Mary Lou Manizer for highlighting.

Bahama Mama is a cooler tone, dark Brown, which appears to have shimmer inside but applies as a totally matte colour. Having a cool shade and a lightly pigmented formula, it is suitable for most of the skin tones.

Mary-Lou Manizer is a very pearly, warm yellow-toned beige highlighter; however, it applies lightly again, without turning one to a disco-ball. Although looking more beige in the package, it gives a White-pearly finish. But, if you prefer no shimmers at all, MAC cream color bases would be more suitable.

And, this is how contouring & highlighting applies to an every-day look…

• The Balm Bahama Mama for contouring,
• The Balm Mary Lou Manizer for highlighting,
• Complemented with the Balm Frat Boy blush.

I hope those tips would be helpful for those who want a complete finish of their makeup! Wishing you all colorful days…

L’arc-en-ciel ☺