Hey ladies,

Today I'd like to share with you the highlight and contouring technique. We all know that makeup gives us a lot of opportunities to flaunt our best features as well as hiding our least favorite. We can look great even we didn't get our beauty sleep the night before or we can hide acne, dark circles and create fantasy and costume looks.

But there is one particular technique that I adore and that is highlight and contouring.  With this technique we can make ourselves look perfect, without any imperfections.

How it's done:

1. First you need to use a light foundation (1-2 tones lighter than your  natural skin tone.) With this color, we highlight the points that we want to pop out, like: under eyes, center of the forehead, center/bridge of nose, cupid's bow, which is the point above your lips. You can apply a small circle on your chin and under the outer arches of your eyebrows as well.
2. Using a dark color foundation, apply this to the areas you'd like to diminish. Remember, this is going to be a little different for everyone, since we have unique face shapes. I'll list the most common areas where we'd normally apply the contouring shade. The outer edges of the chin or the jawline and blend downwards into the neck. Apply a thin line between the highlighted areas of the nose and to the crease of the eyelids. Apply to the outer edges of each side of the forehead or along the temples. For cheeks, contour by starting at the hollow part of the cheekbone. A good guideline is following the center part of your eye, straight down to the end of the hollow part of the cheekbone and then dragging the color all the way to the hairline. You can see this in image one on the second step.
3. Now all you have to do is blend very well. When I blend the colors, I like to also apply a foundation to the brush that matches the model's skin tone. This will make it appear a lot more natural.

Because I love this technique so much, I thought I'd show you how this is done on a couple of models. I think this way you will see the results better than if I did this on myself. Plus, you can see how the technique varies on different face types. You will see the difference between the first picture and the last one. I suggest when you use this technique do not exaggerate with the foundations. It should make you look fresh and natural not like a mask.

Model 1:

Model 2:

Comment below:

Do you use this technique on yourself?

Lots of Love, M!

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