I feel like us beauty fans are always on the quest for the one perfect product. The one foundation that will have amazing coverage but still leave a luminous finish; the one mascara that will add length, volume and flutterability; the one-sweep wonder lipstick that’ll be highly pigmented but still light on the lips and maybe even bring peace to the middle east. But recently I’ve gone for a slightly different tactic – why not combine two good products for one perfect finish? View Full Post
I admit, when it comes to beauty products, this ho ain’t loyal. One of the major perks of blogging is trying new products and, even when I really love something, it’s never long before a shiny new version comes along that I want to try even more. So if I end up actually buying a product again and again, forsaking all others, then you know it’s a really good one.
If you’ve read my bog for a while then you’ll know I’m into my contouring. Like, very into my contouring. Like, ‘burn all photos of me before 2013 because I can’t stand looking at my natural moon face’ into my contouring. So of course when I saw that Sleek were releasing their Cream Contour Kit, I nearly piddled with excitement. Like most of other females on the planet, I’d lusted over the Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit for a long time, but could never quite bring myself to fork out the £40 to buy it. At £10.99, the Sleek dupe was much more up my (skint) street, so I couldn’t resist snapping it up. View Full Post
I don’t think there’s a woman out there who doesn’t love contouring – the ability to give ourselves skinnier faces without giving up Hobnobs? Hell yeaaaah.
I wrote an Idiots Guide to Contouring earlier this year, and my routine and products have been much the same since then. However, I recently caught wind of a new contouring kit from Seventeen and of course HAD to give it a whirl. Seventeen is one of our favourite drugstore brands and they’re always bringing out pretty innovative stuff.
I picked the Define and Conquer Contour Kit up the next time I was in Boots for the teeny tiny price of six quid. Packaging-wise, it’s sleek and sturdy, and has a big mirror in the compact for extra super handiness.
What really appealed to me about this contour kit was that both shades are matte. Highlighters in contouring kits are usually shimmery, which is fine for cheekbones and the bridge of the nose but can lead to a serious case of sweaty upper lip syndrome – and who the devil wants that? The Seventeen highlighter is a matte, light powder, which is more pigmented than a finishing powder but still quite subtle. 
Unbeknownst to me, I picked the kit up in shade Medium. How was I to realise there are two options? My mind is busy thinking about important world issues such as who my favourite is on X Factor and when exactly tortilla chips become nachos. Anywho, the two-shade option is really good, because my only criticism of this product was going to be that the highlighter may not be light enough for those with pale skin. It suits my perma-tanned face just fine, but the contrast would be much more pronounced if I had the lighter kit. I’d recommend actually using your brains and your eyes to see which palette best suits you before buying.
The kit comes with a handy little guide showing you where to apply the powders in order to get the shadow and highlight that contours your face. I will say that the one thing I’ve learned about contouring is that everyone’s bone structure is so different that one technique doesn’t really fit all in this way, but it’s still really useful for those brand new to contouring.
Overall, I really like this product. I tend to go for a more matte makeup look in winter, so contouring with powders as opposed to cream products as I was before suits me really well. I also think the pigment of powders makes contouring smaller areas like the nose much easier as you don’t end up with a look so subtle it’s actually unnoticeable. The highlighter also has the extra benefit of covering pores really well, making the skin look much more flawless.
I do have one additional little niggle, and that’s how quickly I’m getting through the highlighter. As you can see from the picture, I’m already seeing the pan and this is only after like two weeks of use. Maybe it’s me getting carried away with all of the pore-hiding goodness, or maybe there needs to be a bit more product. WHO KNOWS, EH?
If you’re in the market for a new contouring kit, then I would definitely recommend giving this one a go. You can pick it up in Boots stores or on their website. There’s currently a three for two offer on across all cosmetics in Boots so GO GO GO, little monkeys.
Have any of you tried this product?
Hey you, spade face! Do you have a face that’s all big like a spade and you would like to know how to get it to look less like a spade and more like a face? Well lucky you, you’re in the right place!
‘Contouring’ has without doubt been the buzz word of the makeup industry for a couple of years now. Made famous by that chiseled lunatic Kim Kardashian, contouring is the art of creating shadows and highlights to make your face look like someone else’s the best it can.
I’ve trawled through endless tutorials on contouring and now have a routine I’m fairly happy with. I’m by no means a pro (I don’t even have my own reality show OR a rapper boyfriend yet so I’m obviously no good at all really) and everything I do is just an amalgamation of other tutorials, so I’m not really going to be saying anything revolutionary. But if, like me, you find yourself a bit lost in some of the more complex contouring guides out there (and end up shouting “But I don’t own any Ben Nye Banana Powder!” furiously at the screen) then you may find something in this beginners’ guide useful.
I’d say that all you essentially need for contouring is a bronzer that is several shades darker than your base and a highlighter that is several shades lighter. The greater the difference in these shades, the more prominent the contrast will be. I’ve tried powdered bronzers and highlighters before, but found that cream ones work best for me as they’re much more blendable. I’m currently using two Seventeen products: the Instant Glow Cream Bronzer (there’s only one shade I believe) and the Stay Time 18 Hour concealer in Extra Fair. The key is for both of these products to be matte – you don’t want glitter all over the place or you’ll look like a discoball.
For blending, I use either my buffing brush or my Real Teachniques Beauty Blender. Both work really well, so as long as you know you have a tool that’s good for blending then you should be fine.
After applying my base as usual, I then shadow and highlight in these areas:
When I initially ventured into the world of contouring, I thought it was just about the cheekbones – bronzer below and highlighter on the bone. However you can basically shadow and highlight just about your entire face. Underneath the cheekbones, down the jawline, down the sides of your nose, on your temples and even a bit around the chin can all be made into shadows.
You can then highlight across the cheekbones and underneath the eyes (aim for a triangle shape), down the nose, on the cupids’ bow, your chin, your forehead, the archs of your eyebrows and the bit of cheek between the jaw and cheekbone. Once this is all blended in, the effect should be subtle – you shouldn’t notice any harsh lines whatsoever.
And here are the results. As you can see it’s nothing extraordinary, but I do feel significantly less like a spade once I’ve contoured.
An optional extra step here is to add more highlighter onto certain areas, namely the top of the cheekbones, a bit on the bridge of the nose and the cupids’ bow. For this step, you can use more of a shimmery highlighter (I use Seventeen’s Wow! Skin 3 Way Highlighter), though be sure not to place it anywhere where it can be mistaken for oil/sweat – sweaty upper lips are so not Kim K.
What do you all think of contouring? Are you a pro or new to the whole thing? Share your tips below!
|| Don’t forget that you can follow us on Instagram, Bloglovin’ and Twitter! ||
Hello chums.
Well here I am again, legging it after the bandwagon because I have well and truly missed it.
On a recent shopping trip, I nipped into Boots and decided there was nothing in life I needed more than some kind of bronzing cream with which to contour. After watching Laura Leigh’s (from Belle’s Boutique) contouring tutorial (in which she used Tom Ford’s Shade and Illuminate), I have been a-hankering after a cream to use with my foundation – instead of using highlighter/bronzer after powdering. After sneaking around Boots wondering if such a highstreet product existed, I had a stroke of wizarding genius. BOURJOIS BRONZING PRIMER*
I have read so many blogs that have reviewed the Bourjois Bronzing Primer and most have raved about it. But I have to say, it’s completely baffled me why you would want a primer that bronzes your face too. Fine if you are a gal who just wears primer out (do any lunatics actually do this?), but for us gals who like to trowel on foundation with gay abandon – WHAT IS LE POINT?
So I decided to be a maverick and use this product for something it wasn’t meant for. ‘Pardon and what?!’ I hear you say. Yes, that is correct; I don’t play by anyone’s rules, not even my own.
I figured that because it was cream based, bronze in colour – it would do the job that Laura Leigh’s Tom Ford product did so brilliantly. AND WAS I RIGHT OR WAS I RIGHT?!
As you can see, this is quite an orange product. I would suggest that if you don’t slap on St Moriz like the Fake Tan Fuhrer is after you, it might be a bit too orangey for pale skin. However, I am permanently an orange, glowing beacon of hope ridiculousness – so the colour is perfecto.
I won’t bore anyone too much with how I went about contouring. In brief, I stippled product onto my hairline, cheekbones, nose and chin. I blended vair well (to avoid looking like I had tried and failed at lion fancy dress) and added highlighter. Watch Laura’s vlog for the full how-to, she’s much better at it than I am.
And this was the result. Not too shabby for my first attempt at cream contouring and I’m pleased with how the Bourjois Bronzing Primer performed in it’s second role. I’m sure there’s a joke here about being a poor, single mother working two jobs to survive but unfortunately I can’t quite reach it. My look is much more subtle than Laura’s, but as I’m off for luncheon and it is only 11am, I didn’t want to look too mad.
The Bronzing Primer retails at £9.99 if any of you gals are interested.
*They also do a bronzing cream. Which was right next to the primer at Boots. Do not question my logic, I have none.
What do you all thnk? Tempted to try using this as a contouring product?
I’ve mentioned a few times in this blog how one of the main beauty techniques I’m interested in developing my skills in is contouring. I dabbled in it a bit, just by using my bronzer and blusher but was keen to see what else could be done. So as part of our E.l.f haul last week, I couldn’t resist trying out their contouring kit. For under £4, how could I say no?
I chose the ‘St Lucia’ shade, which I think is the lightest shade in the range – but I was a bit worried about the bronzer being too light on days that I’ve fake tanned and am sporting a touch of Orangeface (which is a technical term, just in case you were wondering). What I didn’t like about the look of this kit in comparison to ones from other companies like Sleek was the fact that it’s more of a bronzer-blusher duo as opposed to a bronzer-highlighter. I did wonder whether it would look any different to what I currently do, so also ordered a highlighter with the intention of maybe incorporating that too.
Contouring Kit / ‘Spotlight’ Colour Stick
So, what do I make of it? The contouring kit itself is good quality. I like the packaging, and the mirror inside the compact is a nice touch .I needn’t have worried about it being too light, the bronzer is quite dark. The colours are really pigmented too, particularly in the bronzer. This means that less is definitely more – the first time I applied it, I ended up with way too much product and looked like I was trying to do army camo down my cheeks. Less Kardashian, more Rambo. Mistake.
The blush is a bit less intense and once I applied it I was left feeling a bit like it didn’t add a great deal to the look. So this is where the highlighter came into play. I applied this across the top of my cheekbones and it had a much better effect with the bronzer. I actually ended up being quite in love with this product and might do a full post on how to use it once I’ve mastered the art myself.
The contouring kit IS good, but like I said – it wasn’t a huge difference to what I was already achieving myself with my bronzer and blusher. So it’s a nice product if you’re new to contouring, but not one that’s really going to change your life (some people might say no makeup product can change your life; to these idiots I say ‘SHUT UP, YOUR PRIORITIES ARE WRONG AND YOUR PARENTS DON’T LOVE YOU’)
Have you tried this product? What are your fave contouring kits?
