Beginners: How To Contour Your Face In 5 Easy Steps

Contouring and highlighting is the backbone to creating a beautiful makeup look creating depth and dimension. Learning How to Contour your face may seem intimidating or time-consuming, but the truth is you can contour in 5 easy steps.

Choosing The Right Contour Shade

Choosing the right shade to contour with is the most essential step when learning how to contour. The best shades for contouring are nudes and taupes to create shadows rather than bronzers.  Typically I never go more than two shades darker than my natural skin tone. You can decide whether you would like cream or powder formulas based on your skin type. Tip: Oily skin usually does best with powder formulas and dry skin usually does best with cream formulas.

Applying Your Contour

The easiest way to know where to apply your contour, simply suck in your cheeks to find the hollow and this is where you would lightly apply your ‘shadow’.  Then lightly dust some product along your temples, jaw line, and underneath your chin. Personally I like to add a little under my bottom lip to accentuate my pout. You can use my face map above as a guide but remember everyone’s face shape is different.  Tip: If you are using a powder always remember to tap off the excess powder before application. You can always go back and apply more as needed.

Blending is KEY

Blending is the next essential step when learning how to contour. If your contour isn’t blended evenly you may end up with a muddy makeup look or streaks. Tip: It is hard to blend a shade that is too dark for your natural coloring.

Three of my favorite contouring products are Benefit Cosmetics Hoola Matte Bronzer Powder and Hoola Lite Matte Bronzing Powder. My favorite tools for applying powder contour are angled and/or light fluffy brushes. For powders, I prefer the Sigma F40 Angled Contour Brush and the MAC 137s  Long Blending Brush.

My two favorite cream contour sticks are the Lancome Teint Idole Ultra 24H Foundation Stick and the Benefit Hoola Cream-to-Powder Quickie Contour Stick. Tip: Cream formulas are best blended with a damp sponge. The particular one that I use is the Beauty Blender.

Lock It In Place

Once you have finished blending you will want to lock your work in place. Creams should always be set with a translucent powder to prevent smudging and melting if you’re in the heat. Lightly dust the powder to create a long-lasting contour. To create more depth you can apply bronzer on the areas where the sun would naturally hit your face. My two favorite setting powders are Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder and Chanel Natural Finish Pressed Powder.

Highlighting

To finish off any makeup look I always like to apply highlighter to create that lit from within glow. Applying highlighter to the high points of your cheeks, cupids bow, down the bridge of your nose using a tapered brush. My favorite is the Morphe M501 Pro Pointed Blender Brush.

Whew if you made it through all 5 steps then you are my hero!! You can shop all my cult-favorite contouring products and tools below. If you loved this post you can share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest by clicking the buttons below.

I always love and appreciate your feedback, questions, or reading what techniques you love for contouring in the comments section below! Be sure to subscribe to my blog to receive your FREE copy of my 11 Beauty Tips That Will Change Your Life.