Makeup can really improve your appearance and build up your attribute and it’s an art that is in constant innovation much in accordance to the latest fashion trends. The most popular recent trends include defining and sculpting our facial features to add dimension to our face. This can be accomplished through contouring or strobing. Although they accomplish similar goals, the results and application are quite different.
What Is Contouring?
Contouring creates the illusion of very defined chiseled features through the combination of darker skin tone shades, with lighter shades. The purpose of this technique is to subtly help define your natural features through shading and highlighting. Contouring can provide very flattering results, however, it is very time consuming and requires more skill than strobing.
- Using a small eyeshadow brush apply a matte shade slightly darker than your natural skin tone on your temples, under your cheekbones and under your jawline
- Use a regular foundation brush and tap it into the contour lines you have created to avoid demarcation lines
- Add a bright colored blush to the apples of your cheeks
- Add a highlighter along your forehead, cheekbones and bridge of your nose
- Extra highlighting will give you a dewy, shimmery, more youthful glow
See it here:
What is strobing?
Strobing is essentially the technique of highlighting, but contrary to contouring, strobing does not use any dark powders. The goal of strobing is to highlight certain facial features (specifically all the high planes such as the cheek bones and the bridge of our nose), and thus creating a dewy and more youthful appearance. Strobing essentially highlights the parts of your face that would naturally “brighten up” if you were standing under bright, flattering lights, all while avoiding an oily or sweaty look.
- First, liberally apply moisturizer to your face, and then try mixing in a bit of luminizer with your foundation.
- Use highlighter to enhance where light would naturally hit your face, which for most of us is across the temples, cheekbones, and bridge of your nose, below your brow bone, in the corners of your eyes, and above your cupid’s bow. If you have oily skin, skip areas like your forehead or chin, which have a little shine already.
- If you have a light complexion, stick with champagne colors for strobing, while darker skin tones will look better in more golden hues (is. terra-cotta tones).
- After you’ve applied the highlighter, blend it out with your fingers, a fan brush, or a damp makeup sponge.
- To avoid blobs of product and obvious makeup lines, make sure you blend any harsh edges of highlighter so it fades into the rest of your skin.
- If you have oily skin, opt for a matte bronzer, blush, or other facial products, and only use a shimmery highlighter. To avoid looking overly shiny, choose a matte formula for most of your makeup (primer, foundation, bronzer, powder). Finish the look with blush.
See it here:
Makeup is an art which can be learned, but requires dedication. For all the makeup aficionados, there is a wide gamut of products available, which can assist you in strikingly altering and/or improving your appearance at will. Techniques such as contouring and strobing can definitely offer a good starting point and beautiful results when done correctly.