Last weekend, my sister and I were supposed to go to an Urban Decay counter at the Trafford Centre for a contouring and highlighting tutorial. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Long story short, we didn’t make the appointment because there was an accident on the motorway making us an hour late and I had a very hungover sister in the car next to me who needed looking after. But not to worry! I decided that I would still share how I contour and highlight, which I can’t imagine would have been too different to how to girls at Urban Decay would have taught me how.

Bear in mind, this is not something I do every day. I only contour and highlight using this particular method for nights out or when I know I will be having pictures taken, when I want to enhance my features as much as possible. Many people flit between cream, powder or cream and powder contouring. It all depends on how subtle/dramatic you want it to look and what suits your skin type. For me, I choose to use both cream and powder products as I feel this gives me the best effect on my skin.

I started off by prepping my skin with a primer and applying my foundation how I normally would. Today, I used MAC Studio Fix Fluid.

The two cream contouring products I decided to use today were MAC prep n prime highlighter in the colour Light Boost and Chanel’s Bronze Universel.

With a Real Techniques Contouring Brush, I took a small amount of the bronze universel and applied it to the hollows of my cheeks, around my temple area, down the sides of my nose and below my bottom lip. I then took light boost and applied this directly below my eyes in a downward triangle shape, extending it across the top of my cheek bones. I also applied this, in the centre of my forehead, down my nose, across my cupids bow, a small amount on my chin and below where we placed the bronze universel. You should have something that looks like this:

Can we all take a moment to appreciate my bed hair?! …. ok let’s move on.

If you have something that looks similar to this, the next thing to do is to make sure that everything is blended out. For the highight, I used a Real Techniques Duo-Fiber eye brush to blend this out and make sure there were no streaks. For my contour, I used a large powder brush and buffed round the edges so that there were no harsh lines.

Now is where the powder products come in if that is what youre choosing to use. I took a warm toned bronzer from Bare Minerals to set the Bronze Universel which also helped to intensify the colour and aided the blending process. Then wherever I applied Light Boost, I set over the top with Ben Nye Banana Powder and then used the golden side of Stila’s Kitten to highlight my cheekbones.

And this is what I ended up with. Nothing too heavy or obvious looking, it just helps to define the natural contours of the face and make the most of your face shape.

How do you contour and highlight? Let me know in the comments or tweet me at @beasbeautyblog.

Thanks for reading!

Bea x