Helloooo beauties!

Since I cut off my hair (which I absolutely love!), I have been making extra effort to give good face and bring the fierceness.


For me, with all my hair gone, all you see is face, therefore I've gotta be able to bring it  to the nth degree (when I feel like it)


What better time to finally talk about highlight and contour?

The concept of highlight and contour can be a bit intimidating but I'm at your service to break it down.

Contour and highlight basically shape your face: contour takes away from and highlight draws attention to features.

Consider this black and white color-blocked dress. It's contoured to draw attention to the shape in the centre - your eyes automatically see the feminine shape and ignores the actual shape of the dress.

That's what contouring does to your face.



People employ different methods based on their comfort and preference: some contour and highlight under the foundation and others on top of foundation. Some apply two layers or types of products, some just one.

Here's what you should know about it:

Do I Have To?

Absolutely not. Every face doesn't need shaping. Some lucky people have perfect oval face shapes and all they need is air to breathe.

The objective of contouring is to create the beauty ideal of an oval face. Will your makeup suck if you don't have an oval face and you don't contour? No. Shrug. It's your face and your preference.




What Do I Need?

You only need three products for a successful execution. Your darker shade, your highlight or lighter shade and your blending tool. The products you choose depend entirely on you- as long as your darker shade isn't too drastically dark and your lighter too light, you're set. Ideally two to three shades difference will do the trick.

What Should I Use?

Some people use cream or stick or powder products. One can use concealers, foundations, powders, eye shadow or "special contour products."

Personally, I think special contour products are overrated. Also, unless you do makeup for other people, I don't see the need for entire palettes of different shades when you just use one anyway.


How Do I Contour?

You may see YouTubers contouring and they pretty much do the same thing and follow the same routine but for your routine, you have to first determine y our face shape and then, using your darker shade, chisel out the oval shape.

You want to take away  the parts that do not contribute to that. Using the image above, for example, the square face could be made oval by taking away or shading in the square jaw and the wide temples.

Identifying contour

The cheek contour is what narrows in the face giving the face that slimmer or in some case, hollow cheek look.

In the case of the nose, each nose is different and so the contour routine must fit the nose. The beauty ideal for noses these days are straight and narrow. If you have an average nose, you can make it even slimmer by shading in the sides of the bridge to draw attention to the centre.

If your nose is straight but sort of big at the tip, you would probably want to take the contour right down the sides alongside to the bulb and under the tip making a long U. That forces the eyes to focus on a straight line down the middle. Some people go further to shade away the both sides, some stop at just the line.

There are different contour methods based on the type of nose you have, flat, downturned, crooked, wide, etc etc.

The eyes are contoured with eyeshadow all the time because the same rules apply. For example, dark in the crease gives you the sultry deep socket and light in the inner corners open up the eyes and pushes them further apart.

Even the lips can be contoured, the collar bone, the neck, the legs, the jawline...(this list could go on forever)



 How Do I Highlight?



After contour, highlight is a breeze. The rule is to play up what you want to stand out. You can highlight with matte light shades or a bit of shimmer. You can make it subtle and natural or bold and glamorous.

What are the Rules?

There are only two rules to highlighting and contouring.

1. Dark takes away and light brings.
2. Contour is never one size fits all.

Other Tips?

-Blend until you die. You don't want two straight lines down your nose or in the hollows of your cheek. Build your contour little by little, sometimes look away and look back until you have it down and can do it in your sleep.

- Your contour shade should always be matte . Shimmer draws attention which is the reverse of what contour is about. Further, the shadows that fall naturally on your face when you're in light never glitters (that would be weird)

-I use two tools for my contour and two dark shades. That gives a much more natural gradient. I use my contour brush with the actual contour shade first and then with a larger loose bristled brush, I go over that with a light dusting of a powder in my actual skin tone shade but only in the contoured areas.

That works for me because it's mostly highlight in the centre of my face anyway.