How to contour | The Beginners Guide

Kim Kardashian was the catalyst that started the trend of contouring, with images of her perfectly made up face flooding social media.

So what exactly is contouring and how do you do it?

Contouring is a way of defining your facial features to get a sculpted look. Essentially to contour you need three makeup essentials, blusher, bronzer and highlighter.

Like any makeup product you'll want to choose a shade that's right for you. Aim for a bronzer that's just two shades darker then your natural skin tone, this will make the look a lot more natural. You can choose to either use liquid or powder bronzer depending on your skin type, those with dry skin may prefer a liquid bronzer as it's easier to blend in.

When it comes to contouring you'll need to focus on different sections of your face to get that structured look. In this guide I'll break it down into several parts.

Cheekbones
Your cheekbones are probably the integral part of contouring. Get your bronzer and sweep diagonally towards your ear lobe blending out as you go using firm but light strokes. Apply blusher as normal on the apples of your cheeks and highlight on the top of your cheekbones.

Jawline
If you want to make your face look thinner you can apply bronzer along the bottom of your jawline.

Nose
Apply bronzer along the sides of your nose to give it a thinner look. Use highlighter on the bridge so that light bounces off it.

Temples and forehead
Blend bronzer into your temples and if you feel your forehead needs thinning you can apply it just under your hairline.

Brow Bone
Apply highlighter just under your eyebrow and on the top of your brow to open your eyes.

Cupid's bow
Applying highlighter to your cupids bow can make your lips appear bigger.

Things to remember

• Don't use a circular motion when applying bronzer to the cheeks as you'll end up with dark circles on your face.Try to keep to a back and forth motion. 
• Don't get too close to your eyes as they will appear smaller than they are
• Make sure you blend it or it will be very obvious you've got a load of makeup on
• Sweep a little bronzer onto your neck so the look transitions naturally

I hope you found this guide useful. If you would like to see any other tutorials like this just let me know in the comments box below!