Contoured skin is in! Lately beauty brands have been creating palettes and products that make it easier than ever to feign perfect cheekbones, a svelter nose, and a deeper eye crease for your next makeup look.

You can buy contouring/highlighting products separately or in palette form. When searching for a contour shade, I recommend purchasing a matte brown eyeshadow that is two shades darker than your skin tone. This way you can get multiple uses of one product and save money.

Suggested Products

How to Contour Your Face with Makeup

First, prep your cleansed, moisturized, and primed face by applying concealer and foundation.

Contouring and highlighting your cheeks: Find the hollows of your cheeks (by sucking in) and apply the dark shadow shade into those contours of your cheeks with a soft blush brush. Take your favorite blush (a sheer coral or berry shade is recommended) and apply that to the apples of your cheeks. Use a large powder brush or a kabuki brush to softly blend both your blush and contour shades together. Apply a highlighter to the tops of your cheekbones, blending back toward the outer edge of your eye area.

Contouring your nose: Using a soft eyeshadow brush, take up your dark shadow shade and run it lightly down the sides of your nose starting from your eyebrows. These faint lines should not be too thick. Blend well.

Contouring and highlighting your eyes: Using a soft eyeshadow brush, apply your contour shade in sweeping motions across your eye crease to contour your eyes. Apply highlighter to your browbone and the inner corners of your eyes for a brightening effect.

Visual Learner?

Check out this video from Total Beauty to pick up highlighting and contouring tips. Very helpful!

Further Reading

Beauty bloggers are no strangers to the trick of highlighting and contouring! Daneen shares MAC’s answer to her quest for the perfect highlighter while Precious gives her contouring tips and tricks.