A few tips
1. Don’t get intimidated! Contouring and highlighting isn’t as difficult as many make it out to be.. you’re basically just deepning the natural shadow under your cheek bone and brightening the top of it.
2. Remember anywhere you put the darker (contour) shade, it’s going to “push back” that part of the face and anywhere you put a lighter (highlighting) shade is going to be brought forward. Ie. If you have a bigger chin, you may just want to dust the contour shade lightly at the top to make the chin appear shorter and if you have a less than strong chin, put the brighter color to create the illusion of it looking a bit bigger.
3. There is a difference between normal matte highlighting powders and the highlighting glowy powders. It can get a bit confusing so try the basics of contouring and highlighting first, then research glow powders.
4. Make sure you know your skin tone before picking your contour shade. There are two main undertones, cool and warm. Look at the veins in your forarm, if they appear slightly blue and your skin has a pinkish hue and silver jewelry looks best with your complexion, you likely have a cool skin tone. If your veins appear to be slightly green and your skin tends to look a bit yellow and gold is your go to jewelry pick, it’s safe to say you have a warm tone. There is a third tone that may suit you best, neutral. Neutral skin tones can usually wear cool or warm contour powders depending on their preference, they also look good in both gold and silver.
5. Most folks will tell you that when you contour, you’re going to need a more cool tone powders to create a realistic shadow under the cheek bone… while that’s kind of the standard rule of thumb, it’s not always the case. If you have a cool undertone to your skin and you wear a warm contour, it’s likely that it will be a bit too orange to pass as a shadow. On the flipside, if you have a warmer tone and you wear a cool toned contour powder, there’s a chance it may just look ashey on you.
6. Have fun! While these tips are kind of the beauty world standard when it comes to highlighting and contouring, they are more like guidelines than they are rules. Don’t forget, make up is an art form and a creative outlet (for me anyway).. let your creativity guide you.. if you like wearing something contrary to the “rules of makeup” who cares?! If it works for you, you do you boo!!
Hope these tips help, even if just by a bit!
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