Cheekbones as high as Cara Delevigne and a nose as narrow as Karolina Kurkova, now, who wouldn’t want that? Ever since Kim Kardashian outed herself as a fan, contouring became the make up trend all over social media.
Contouring basically means that you contour your face by using light and dark colour accents. You form and model the shape of your face using a darker tone of make up than your own skin tone, to shade away more problematic areas.
Of course, I had to try this for myself, as contouring allegedly makes everyone look like a model. If contouring is done correctly (applied by a professional) the results can be overwhelming, as shown in the video below.
Five Youtube tutorials and at least ten how-to’s later, I had tons of goo on my face. Somehow, I resembled a clown more than I did Kim Kardashian. Despite my many attempts, I completely failed at contouring. And let’s be honest, who among us has time every morning to cover their face so laboriously with a multitude of products? This trend is clearly one just for the pro’s.
Imagine my relief when I came across the newest trend in make up heaven: strobing! I felt like a pro immediately after my first try, my face beaming with my latest make up experiment. Strobing is virtually the opposite of contouring, and derives it’s name from stroboscopic flashes. Simply put it means highlighting your face to the max.
Instead of creating shadows on the face, you emphasize the parts that you’d normally want highlighted. To me, this immediately sounds like a much more positive approach to make up: instead of trying to hide the ‘bad’ parts, you focus on what is beautiful instead.
The only downside: if you have a very oily skin type, strobing might not be the trend for you, as adding too much shine to an already shiny face might not have the ephemeral effect you were hoping for.
The trend has been around for a while, since highlighting has been around forever. Applied a bit thicker though, highlighting can create some real miracles. It’s a lot of fun, playing around with strobing. Also, extra bonuses for all of us with little time: it’s convenient, quick, and you don’t need to be a pro.
It’s actually very easy. First, hide your contouring cream and bronzer in the depth of your cosmetic bag, and hold on tight to your highlighter. This will be the source for all your newfound make up confidence. Choose either a highlighting cream or powder, whichever you prefer, and take as much as possible of the product and apply it either with your fingers or a brush (eg HIRO, Kjaer Weis) on the following areas of the face:
Above the cheekbones – center of the forehead – below the cheeks contour – chin – above the eyebrows- nose – lip bow- on brow bones – inside the corner of the eyes.
When you’re done highlighting, add a bit of rouge on the cheeks and your radiant look is all set. Luckily, there is a whole range of natural cosmetic products to choose from to go nuts with strobing:
My conclusion: you can definitely create visual miracles with the art of contouring, but the downside is that you need to be the right type of magician to be able to pull that trick off. For all of you, who, like me, do not have the luxury of time every morning, or even the skills of a professional make up artist, strobing is an amazingly easy alternative.
*Pictures: Dunja Kara Make up: Claudia Runge Model: Anastasiya
Tags: Highlighter, Makeup, Tutorial
Kirstin loves to go out dancing. She's addicted to icecream, drinks a lot of coffee, and never leaves the house without eyeliner.
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