Art of Contouring

Art of Contouring

According to Max Factor’s chief make-up artist, Jan Thomas, contouring and highlighting your face can bring out your cheek bones, shorten your nose, slim your face and rid you of a double chin. Here’s how to do it …

1. “Think of your face as a canvas,” explains Thomas. Once you’ve applied foundation to even out your complexion you need to shade and highlight areas to create shape. Think of the principles of light and dark – any areas made darker will appear as though they’re receding, and anything made lighter appear as though it’s coming forward.

2. “I think the easiest product to use is a bronzing powder without too much shimmer,” explains Thomas. Always start with a little on your brush and build it up gradually.

3. Begin by building your cheek bones. To do this, add a little bronzer below your cheek bone, from the hairline to towards the apples of your cheek, in a wedge-like shape. This trick is especially good for women who have very round faces. “[Contouring is] all about reshaping your face and giving it sharper edges – you can never have too-high cheek bones,” says Thomas.

4. To make a wide or very round forehead appear narrower, shade just the temples or sides of the forehead, and to slim a wide nose, apply the bronzer down the sides of your nose. Want your nose to appear shorter? Shade the underside of the tip.

5. Disguise a double chin by shading the area under your jaw line. Blending is key in contouring your face – the idea is that you can’t see where the contouring starts and stops.

6. If you don’t have deep-set eyes (ie lids that are still visible when your eyes are open), make them pop by shading along the crease line. Do this either with the bronzer or an eyeshadow that’s a shade darker than the colour you’ll wear.

7. To bring areas of your face forward, thus emphasising them, do the opposite to contouring and use a highlighter (most likely a shimmery powder a bit lighter than your skin colour). The areas you want to do this to are your new-found cheek bones, and the centre of your eyelids. When it comes to your lips, dab a lighter lip shade or illuminating cream just in the middle of them.

Contouring and highlighting your face can take a little practice, but as Thomas says, “Once you start, you’ll want to do it every day.” His tip: try it next time you have a big event coming up and take note of how you look in photos taken on the day. “People in film, TV and pictures can’t live without [this trick].”

NB: You don’t have to use a bronzer and highlighter to do this make-up trick – darker and lighter foundations can be used as well.