I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed a marked increase in makeup looks on websites and blogs that showcase a chiselled, almost cover page look. I also realise that cheekbones seem to be quite in right now (hello Benedict Cumberbatch! 😀 ) I think they look great, in an editorial fashion, and I absolutely applaud their mad skills because I know mine are rudimentary at best.
However, I did start thinking about whether you, the everyday woman (or man), do this whole highlight and contour thing on a regular or even daily basis? Do you aim for that chiselled sharply sculpted look for your everyday look? Do you keep an arsenal of bronzers, contouring powders and highlighters for this purpose?
Do share, because I for sure don’t! 😀
The only true contouring powder I own would be Chanel Notorious, which made waves last year. I was using it for a spell and then it just got to be too much trouble 😛 In fact, I couldn’t even find it for this photo, until I dug through the whole drawer LOL!
Ditto bronzers. The one and only true bronzer I own is the Guerlain Terra Inca one from a few years ago. It shattered one day when I dropped it (while practically brand new then!) and I sometimes still use it very lightly, it remains for the most part tucked away in the recesses of my blush drawer.
I know bronzers have other uses other than contouring, but I don’t really go for the bronzed all over look, and they are always touted as a face shaping product anyway. I have found another product that does a pretty good job as bronzer and a very subtle face shaper, and the best part is that it’s practically fool proof. I’ll share that soon but it’s also by Guerlain 🙂
That pretty much sums up my contouring powders. I barely use any and it is primarily because I have no idea how to use them without looking weird in person. You see, I realised that while contouring makes me look sculpted in photos, in person, it can look quite odd, and overly made up. I don’t know how Kim Kardashian does it, but then I’ve only ever seen her in photos so there you go! 😛
As for highlighting, I have the odd highlighting powder which I sometimes use over blush. I dare not use too much because in our weather, you risk looking oily and there’s a fine line to tread between looking oily and needing a blot, and looking like the light is hitting the high planes of your face.
Do you contour and highlight with your makeup regularly or daily?
All in all, you could say that I don’t do the whole contour and highlight thing regularly or at all. I know it looks amazing on those who have mastered it, but I can’t do it. I can just about barely put on a good base and blush, much less mess about with reshaping my face 😛
Paris B
Nope, I don’t. I embrace my fat cheeks and lack of cheek bones with glee and only apply blush to give them a hint of rosiness for otherwise they’d be too pale 😀
LOL You’re so funny Isabel 😀 You know, as someone else pointed out in the comments, an overly defined/sculpted look can look ageing and there is a lot of truth in that. People with softer edges on their face tend to look younger than someone with very hollowed out cheekbones so like you I’m embracing my chipmunk cheeks too! 😀
I’ve tried it but I never know if I did it right — put too little on, too much on, wondering if it looks weird, or if I achieved anything at all for all that work! Not sure if the lighting is bad in my bathroom so I go outside to check and then, you know, all makeup looks unnatural under intense scrutiny and in bright light.
I think it was Wayne Goss or was it Kevyn Aucoin who said fair people should contour and darker people should highlight. I am medium toned so don’t know which way to go, LOL! Highlighting is easier, though, brightens up cheekbones and adds a bit of youthful glow which is nice, so I tend to do that.
LOL! I totally feel your confusion because I always feel the same way! It’s bad enough wrestling with lighting to get base and makeup right, without having to be sure you don’t end up with a lopsided face from excessive contouring LOL! I like a touch of highlight too, but I’m leaving contouring to the pros for now. I have discovered some merit in using a very light bronzing powder for a touch of colour, but that’s about the extent of my abilities!
I do light contouring everytime I put on makeup. I skip the highlighting most of the tine though haha. Once I master it, it only takes seconds and I have never looked back ever since
That’s awesome Shuu! I take my hat off to you and I guess what they say is true – practice makes perfect! 😀
Highlighting yes, I do it daily. Contouring only on special occasions. There was a time, when I first learned this techniques, when I did it for every look, but then I grew lazy. My face doesn’t really need to look slimmer anyway.
Highlight does add a nice special glow to the face doesn’t it? I can’t do it too much because of our weather but it’s nice to see the effects when it’s fresh, before the oils kick in by day end LOL
I heard the call of the beautiful siren (read: Benedict Cumberbatch) calling me to this post! He’s got marvellous cheekbones, le sigh.
I am quite tanned, but I LOVE contouring, bronzing and highlighting my face. I’ve got chubby cheeks and contouring makes it look a bit more defined. I like the whole fresh face with rosy cheeks look (y’know, like those K-pop girls) but I think it looks bleh on me, so instead I fully embrace the sun-kissed look, even though 80% of the time I see the sun and shake my fists at it.
I use all three when I apply makeup (I don’t wear makeup everyday and I don’t work in an office so no early mornings) but lightly, so no Kim K levels of contouring going on really, that’s only suitable for events or the Antarctica I think haha. Sometimes I’m asked if I’m wearing makeup so it can’t be too much right?
Hahaha yes indeed! Benedict Cumberbatch is a walking poster boy for cheekbones 😀 It’s great to know that you’ve found a makeup look that works for you. I know what you mean about wanting to try a certain look but it doesn’t work for everyone. I’d love the whole bronzed, contoured look but it doesn’t suit me. I don’t quite like the whole K-pop look either for some reason. It looks a little too contrived and I like my slightly smokey eyes and bright lips which isn’t terribly popular in Asian makeup looks 😀 Still, I say do whatever makes us happy eh?
I only use highlighters for special night functions.. like you said, in our hot humid weather, my face produces more than enough oil to give me “dewy” skin.. 😛 I rarely use bronzers as no matter how light handed I am, the brown shade looks so unnatural in real life.. However, I do kind of contour with my foundations and concealer! 🙂 my lighter shade of foundations would go to the middle of my face and worked outwards, then I use the slightly darker shades under my cheekbones, temples and around my jawline. Works for both liquid and powders. I find that this is a great way to finish off any slightly mismatched foundations that I bought and the mini foundation samples I get. 🙂 The effect is very very subtle and maybe some might find it nonexistent, but hey, it looks natural, easy to apply and I get to reduce wastage! Its a Win-win in my books! 😉
Clever girl for working with foundations to contour! It’s far more natural than using a bronzer I feel because foundations are meant to blend into skin while bronzers tend to sit on top of it. I never perfected it myself but it’s something I hope to try some time. I just wonder if I can justify buying a deeper shade of foundation for this purpose LOL! 😀
I find that, as I get older, the cheeks sink in a bit to reveal a bit of hollow just below cheekbones. Just a bit. More mature shape huh? :p Also, loosing weight bring out that cheekbones. Therefore, I don’t contour daily. And highlight… risk looking oily here!! 😀 So nope, hardly.
Haha natural cheekbones and contour! 😉 Yes, I do think our skin naturally will sink as we age, thanks to loss of collagen, so as someone pointed out in a different comment, contouring can actually make us look older and that isn’t something we really want do we? 😛
I contour and highlight on a daily basis although I try to keep it a lot more subtle in comparison to when I\’m out for a special function or event. I just use a light concealer to highlight and bronzing powder to contour on a daily basis. I\’m still perfecting my technique but I have to say that I love love love the process and it\’s such a great feeling once you see the end result after all that blending 🙂
Heya Paris,
Thanks for opening this discussion! I’d like to comment on this from a societal vision and posting on your blog seems to trigger some dormant logorrhea hahaha.
Unfortunately, every time I’m skipping a line on the original text, it doesn’t show once it’s published on your website. So I’m sorry if my texts look so dense and mono-blocky.
Do I need any HTML code to prevent this from happening? Before I post my view…
Cheers
Hi again, well this time it seems to work, so fingers crossed before I submit my rant lol
Regarding the contouring subject:
As a painter, I personally find the whole contouring craze quite gimmicky because this is just cashing on some basic chromatic laws: dark color recedes whilst light colors bring forward. Shadows have a matte and cold cast, whilst lighting points contain warmth.
I was drawing and painting already when I was a teen -I’m 34 now- and simply translated those techniques into my face and body makeup.
Actually, I was self-conscious about my so-called, perceived chubby cheeks, so did the following:
I used a kinda shimmery brown powder or muddy cream blush to artificially create a hollowed cheek, a whitish beige eye shadow on the C zone connecting the brow bone to the highest point of my cheeks and a brick-reddish mousse blush somewhere in-between on the apple.
In the 90’s, contouring products didn’t exist, at least to non-professional customers, hence the use of different products diverted out of their primary purposes.
Also, my painting just didn’t have the “Contouring & Highlighting” marketing name lol.
If you’re into contouring btw, please don’t follow this aforementioned technique: I understood some pictorial concepts at that time indeed but obviously ignored yet how to play light tricks!!!
My current assumption regarding all that contouring circus is that it might be linked to that equally crazy ideal of thinness.
What’s the purpose of contouring, according to Occidental beauty ideal? To create “sucked in cheeks”, “razor sharp cheekbones”, “cutting glass apples” and so on.
In a nutshell, a skinny face that would reflect a skinny body! These metaphors aren’t exactly mirroring the lexical field medias would use to define a thin body (“washboard abs”, “matchstick arms”, “perky boobs/ bum” bla bla bla) but still, the whole thinness obsession is lurking behind!
I suspect cosmetic companies to push consumers to go for a quasi-emaciated, bone-sticking visage under the pretense of politically correct vocabulary. Imagine magazines praising openly the last stage of starvation with overboard phrasing! Nah, they’re being much more insidious and vicious!
Just looking at fashion pics or videos, some models look excessively skinny, with convex rib cages, hollow cheeks and all.
Right, some of them were born this way. Being myself naturally very thin, borderline skinny (my collarbone and spine have always protruded as far as I can remember), I certainly won’t judge!
But what about the professionals who may starve themselves to keep their jobs? I can only feel but revolt for their harsh working conditions.
Body fat is synonym of laziness, lack of self-control, shameful social status etc [type in other absurd prejudices we’re being hammered with]
Face is what we see 1st, hence an over-chiseled look is supposed to make a favorable impression of strong personality, dynamism or what else [again, type in other absurd prejudices we’re being hammered with].
As I said before, I grew up in the 90’s and the “heroin chic” look was very hot at that time: this celebrated the dawn of the extreme thinness era. This affected me deeply and negatively as a teen eager to look cool!
Contouring doesn’t stop to the face: airbrushing is being used routinely to create fake 6 packs or slim down the calves on photoshoot/ runway. I won’t be surprised at all if the emergence of specific abs/ bum/ legs contouring products to the mass-market follows next.
Not that I’m against the principle of contouring or against people practicing contouring, don’t get me wrong.
I’m just quite disgusted at the real motivation behind beauty companies/ editors, especially because I suffered from their subliminal messages from a young age. Hence honing precocious contouring skills lol
Just to keep a clear and balanced vision, I’m more than happy to share with you guys some resources from fantastic professionals, whose outlooks are slightly outside the box ;)))
* Give Good Face Comprehensive Natural Contouring Face Chart:
Not restricted to the duo cheeks and jaw contouring only!
http://www.geekinheels.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/makeup_contouring_chart.jpg
* Monsiieur Alex’s video: The Difference: Contouring & Bronzer
An absolute must-see video that made me understand further the master principles behind these 2 techniques!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4VF4gDhHx0
* Monsiieur Alex’s video: Makeup Mistakes Being Made In 2014!
His part about highlighting doesn’t have any equivalent over the net:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKXRF-ruu68
* Wayne Goss’s video: DO NOT APPLY BLUSHER TO THE APPLES OF THE CHEEKS!!!!
I consider this video right within the theme of contouring because blushing placement really defines your face shape:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIYwe7OW5xQ
* Wayne Goss’s video: REVERSE CONTOURING MADE EASY!
The 1st of its kind I’ve discovered
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kytw2cKg1A0
Sunhyemi’s Pictorial: {TUTORIAL + TIPS} HOW TO CONTOUR YOUR FACE THE KOREAN WAY (NO BRONZER)
The “small face” contouring is an interesting alternative for those who aren’t into sharp features
http://sunhyemi.com/tutorial-tips-how-to-contour-your-face-the-korean-way-no-bronzer/
Thanks for taking the time to read my rant, it’s been in the back of my head for ages! I hope these resources above will be useful too xxx
PS: With a hind sight, my teenage cheeks weren’t remotely chubby at all. But even though they were, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM, honestly???
Oneself may be his worst critic…