Quick Contouring: bronze, blush and highlight

Well hello there! I was doing an eye tutorial this morning and realized that I had never really shown how I quickly contour my face most mornings…….Soooooo a tutorial on the eye look shown will come the day after tomorrow! You can use contouring on any area of your face. In fact, anytime you apply dark and light eyeshadow you are contouring your eyes according to where you place each. One day I will go more in-depth with contouring different features like your forehead, jawline and nose….but for today we are just going to focus the basics to get you out the door quickly. The three important things you have to know about contouring :

1. Using darker colors makes thing recede.

2. Using lighter colors makes things come forward.

3. You can contour as you apply foundation by using light and dark shades or you can contour on top of your foundation using bronzer, blush and highlighters.

Products Used:

For Bronzer: MAC Eyeshadow in “Moleskin”, NARS Bronzer in “Laguna”,

For Highlight: MAC Eyeshadow in “Shroom”, LORAC Perfectly Lit in “Luminous”,

For Blush:MAC Eyeshadow in “Girlie”

Prep:

I do my quick contouring after I have applied my foundation and my eye look…..I can’t pick a blush until I know what color of eye look I am doing.

Step 1:

I always like to start with bronzer. Make a fish face….I don’t know a a better thing to call it but you know what I mean-just suck in your face so you can clearly find the crevice under your cheekbone. If you are contouring your face in public for some reason and don’t want to look too crazy…find your cheekbone with your finger and know that you will be applying bronzer directly underneath it. Taking an angled blush brush or using the thin side of a blush brush, apply your bronzer (lightly, you can always add more) in the crevice in a diagonal(so that the crevice will recede)…If you kept going with the diagonal it would stretch from the corner of your mouth up towards your ear. I also apply bronzer straight down my nose. I actually used MAC’s “Moleskin” eyeshadow for my bronzer today because I am a bit fair right now and it looks better on my skin. However, if I want a deeper contour, I use my NARS bronzer in “Laguna”.

Step 2:

Smile! Now apply your blush to the apples of your cheeks. You can apply blush in different places to play up different face shapes but we are going with the apples today. I used MAC’s “Girlie” Eyeshadow because I am currently obsessed with it…it is the perfect pink. I just realized I never talk about any actual blush….I always just talk about eyeshadow. The truth is that I promise that I do actually own blush….it is just at the bottom layer of my kit and sometimes I am too lazy to get it out when I am doing my own makeup and my eyeshadows are so close! But I will soon…

Step 3:

Apply a highlighter right on the top of your cheekbones (to make it come forward and stand out). I used my LORAC Perfectly Lit in Luminous for this….hands down THE BEST highlighter I have found. So many manufacturers put glitter or big shimmer in their highlighters….it is such a turn off for me because 1. It doesn’t look good in pictures on brides and 2. It looks like a confetti party exploded on your face. That’s why this one is so perfect! It is not too shimmery, not too matte and it gives you a perfect glow..and it comes in three shades. However…if you don’t have a face highlighter, you can use something like MAC’s Eyeshadow in “Shroom”. I have another way to do highlighting with those of you who do not like any amount of glow or shimmer but I will touch on that and the best products for it later on.

Once you have done all of this…take a kabuki brush or any kind of big brush and blend your cheek colors together. The picture on the left side is my face without contouring…the picture on the right is my face with contouring..sorry about the lighting difference– it has been storming on and off all day and changing the lighting on me every 10 min:

Here is a side view and a super strong black in white for you so you can see the cheekbone contouring better:

Many companies sell bronzer,blush and highlight trios but there is usually one color of it that I don’t like! The exception to this would be Eve Pearl’s Bronzing Highlighter Trio….I genuinely like each color in it so it might be one you want to check out if you are interested in contouring. I hope this helped you with a quick way to contour! Next time we will cover other parts of the face with some deeper contours so you can see better……be sure to check back Wed. for the corresponding eye look tutorial!