Contouring Basics for Beginners: Enhance Your Natural Features with Confidence

Contouring is a makeup technique which is becoming famous among people in recent year, but beginners find it more complex process. It is an art of using light and shadow to enhance the skin natural bone structure for a beautiful transformation. It brings great features, adding depth to your face, more defined look. Knowing the use of tools and technique, anyone can gain this skill and achieve a natural, elegant and effortless outcome.

This article guide can make it easy to understand the basics of contouring for beginners. Like choosing the right products, placement for specific face shape and blend like a pro for a natural looking finish.

The essentials

Contour products: Cream vs. powder

• Cream Contour - A cream contour is mostly advised for beginners as it's easily blend and provides a more natural and lustrous finish. They are great for dry or mature skin. You can apply that with fingers or a beauty sponge.
• Powder contour - Powder contour may be a good option for people with oily skin and preferring a matte finish. It is applied with fluffy or angled brush. For beginners, starting powder contour is best which easy to build up color gradually and blending away with light dusting.
• Choosing the right shade - In contouring, most fundamental thing to consider one or two shades darker than your natural skin tone. Color should be cool or neutral undertone to a natural shadow other than a warm or orange toned bronzer. Choose a very dark or warm might make you appear muddy or unnatural.

Brushes and tools

• Angled contour brush - It's one of the most preferred for powder contouring which gives perfect shape for fitting into the hollows of cheeks and jawline.
• Fluffy blending brush - It's a soft and fluffy brush which is important for blending harsh lines and enhances natural looking finish. Larger brush can be used in the forehead and smaller brush used for the nose.
• Beauty sponge - It's ideal for blending cream contour products. It helps in warm up the product and blending smoothly into the skin to avoid harsh lines.

Step-by-step guide to basic contouring

Step 1: Make ready your base

You can start with clean and moisturized face. Then apply foundation and concealer, this will create an even canvas and ensure the contour applies evenly.

Step 2: Find areas for your contour

You can start with finding the hollows of your cheeks by placing your fingers just below your cheekbones. Apply the contour product in a diagonal line, starting from the top of your ear and extend it towards the corner of your mouth. Then, apply the contour product along your hairline and temples to create the illusion, dimension of a shorter forehead(only for larger forehead). For sharpen jawline, apply contour along the jawbone, start from the back(near the ear) and blend it down into your neck, this defines the jawline. For more detailed nose, draw two thin, vertical lines down the sides of the nose, start from the inner corner of your eyebrows.

Step 3: Blending

Blending can the most important thing to accomplish a natural looking contour.

Cream contour - Use a beauty sponge to gently pat and blend the product into the skin. For cheeks, you can blend upwards to create a lifted effect.

Powder contour - Use a fluffy brush to blend the powder in soft and circular motions. By using lighter hand, it's always easier to add more product than to remove excess.

Step 4: Highlight

Highlighting contouring by bringing light to the high points of your face. You can apply a lighter shade to the tops of cheekbones, which connects the nose, brow bone and cupid bow.

Step 5: Add blush and set

You can apply a touch of blush to the apples of your cheeks to enhance flush of color. Finish by lightly dusting a translucent setting powder over the face and it can lasts all day.

Contouring is powerful process which is fun and empowering makeup technique by playing with light and shadow to enhance the bone structure. With basic understanding of basic facial placement and right tools, you can easily master the perfect skill to contouring with self confidence. I hope we cover the detailed article the achieve a natural, detailed and easy want to have a radiant makeup every time.

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