HIDE AND SHINE

Sharp, chiseled, sculpted – that look is here to stay, at least for a season. Here’s how you can embrace the technique and do it like a pro.

Oh yes, we know how intimidating those contouring videos with cross and knots marked on faces with light and dark pigments look like. It really does look like war paint and makes you wonder that can the Kardashian sisters’ videos be as simple as they actually claim to be? Well yes and no. It is a breeze if you have the right tools – makeup product and brushes – but otherwise it can be a task. Further, like any skill, it takes some amount of practice to master the technique. Blending is key to great contouring, and that definitely needs practice to perfect.

ANALYSE THIS

However, before we get to tools, techniques and practice, let us first understand what is the actual concept or intent of contouring. It is essentially a technique where you use dark pigments on areas that you wish to suppress and apply highlighters on areas you wish to “bring out”. Once you understand that, your face is then but a canvas and your makeup is like your paint box. Study your features carefully and determine what you want to highlight and what you wish to hide.

PICK YOUR ARSENAL

Eighty percent of great makeup is about good makeup products and right tools. So when that’s so important, it crucial to know which products and tools are suitable for you. If you are a novice and would just like to try your hand at contouring with Sephora Highlight Lowlight Face Contour Duo. The easy-to-use, double-ended contour stick compact and is great for on-the-go makeup as well. If this seems easy for you to handle and you’d like to take a step further, then try Benefit 10 Bronzing and Highlighting Duo. The two-in-one palette also contains a brush which needs to be simply swept over the product and then brushed over your cheek bone. You can use the Beauty Blender to refine the finish. Stay with this till you feel confident enough to graduate. In your next level you can try Marc Jacobs #Instamarc Light Filtering Contour Powder. After you have mastered this stage, you are already a pro and you know what products your need to get and how to use.

GET A MENTOR

To put your products to right use, read the instructions and tutorials given with the products carefully. I would also recommend you to watch and practice along with the YouTube tutorials. My favourites include the videos of Alexa Chung and Lisa Elridge. M.A.C Global Senior Artist, Vimi Joshi’s recommends the tutorials of Tiffany Johnston. Her own favourite contouring trick is about creating dimension to the face, by layering colours that create depth and that make the face look three dimensional. Take cue from these masters and adopt their tricks. You could even book in for tutorials at M.A.C, Bobbi Brown and Sephora counters.

NEW KIDS IN THE BLOCK

Now, now just as you think that you have mastered the basics of contouring and finally feel like your Kim Kardashian makeup game is on-point, strobing – younger and simpler sister of contouring has slowly and steadily won hearts of Hollywood A-listers like Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Miranda Kerr and Nicki Minaj. Traditionally contouring involves a darker shade and a lighter shade of pigments to bring out or recede a feature but the strobing technique involves only a skin illuminator that can be applied on the areas where light falls naturally like cheekbones, brow bones, down your nose and chin. Try NYX Born To Glow Liquid Illuminator, Revlon Photoready Skinlights Face Illuminator, and L’Oreal Paris Youth Code BB Cream Illuminator.

No sooner was this catching up, what has now set both contouring and strobing aside the new makeup Tontouring. It is every woman’s dream to look good without makeup and waking up looking naturally perfectly contoured. One way to do this is by following the tontouring trick, which unlike the standard contouring (which uses a cream or powder to sculpt your face), uses a self-tanner. The term was coined by Marissa Carter, the founder of Cocoa Brown, who demonstrated how to master this technique on her Snapchat account.

It’s simply defining your features with a self-tanner. You actually just need to have a self tanner and brushes to master the technique. And the best part is the look stays on for few days so no need of making an effort every day. Follow the steps to learn the trick:

–          Apply a gradual self-tanner all over your face.

–          With a stippling brush apply a darker shade of tanner to the forehead near the hairline, and with an angled contouring brush apply the same tanner under the cheek bones (from ears to mid-cheek) and on the tip and sides of the nose.

–          Blend the tanners properly so that no streaks are formed. One can also use fingers to blend in properly and to give a natural glow.

According to Joshi, “Whilst tontouring can make you look tougher and tanned, strobing makes you appear fresher, younger and more radiant.” If you want to try your hand at tontouring try Sephora Gradual Self-Tanning Face Water, Clarins Self Tanning Instant Gel, Clinique Self Sun Face Tinted Lotion or Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Self-Tan.

So quickly master these techniques before another one starts knocking the door.

An edited version of this article was published in Khaleej Times.