I notice this way of highlighting and contouring becoming more popular of late but it’s a technique developed (or made mainstream) by the late Kevyn Aucoin (who also has his own range of makeup. Wonderful makeup artist and author too. RIP) where you use cream foundation UNDER liquid foundation to create depth/highlight/contours by certain placement of white and dark brown cream foundation. Then you buff over your liquid foundation and since the two are different consistencies they don’t blur together and become muddy. It’s quite clever, actually.
Now, it’s the way Kim Kardashian’s makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic (who learnt it from Kevyn Aucoin books) and many drag queens (really!) do their makeup.
If you look closely, you’ll see even her lips are contoured with a brown lip pencil to add fullness and to make them symmetrical.
Here is makeup artist Scott Barnes using the method. He’s also coming out with a book w/ Kim on the cover.
Here is Mario Dedivanovic’s take on the method:
Goss on YouTube has also done several tutorials on this. I believe he explains it better than anyone else I’ve seen do it because I never understood how people could buff foundation over it without making everything one hot mess but Wayne uses a Beauty Blender sponge to dab foundation in.
[YT]Ow1rdFOlxnk[/YT]
[YT]UAtJkOk7PKE[/YT]
[YT]Pa-O0H45BxE[/YT]
[YT]sTb5vOIuzBE[/YT]
[YT]Ju-wWNFdH4I[/YT]
[YT]bBLHE0ME-GA[/YT]
What do you guys think? Do you find it clever and perhaps more subtle than powder contouring/highlighting? I believe this works better for photography than in-real life because it can make a huge difference without really altering the texture of the skin like powder products can. Most makeup artist use the Graftobian HD cream foundation but I know some makeup artist use stick/pencil cream foundations like the kryolan TV stick, Bobbi Brown stick foundation, or the Shu Uemura stick foundation. I would even try practicing first with the Benefit Eye Bright pencil (this is the product I have and have seen a makeup artist use this to lift the eye by drawing a vertical line similar to the kind pictured above).
This is VERY interesting! I would love to try this out and see how it looks in real life. Not something I would do on a daily basis but for special occassions...this looks awesome.
But how do I choose the light/dark shades? I'm about NC40ish (NC42 but at time a little lighter). Most of the videos are on much ligher skinned ladies. How much lighter and darker should I try? M (or anyone else).....specific brand and/or shade recs? :)
omg....I was looking this up on youtube and found so many tutorials that I didn't know how to distinguish good from bad without just trying them.
thanks for short-listing.......I trust your judgement.
hey, Muzna!
I had been looking for this myself and had no clue so many makeup artist did this because of how undetectable it is. But it's def. not a new technique and has been around for ages. Mario Dedivanovic did a workshop with Sigma Brushes and taught the people attending how to do the signature red carpet look where he used this method for contouring and highlighting. Some girls uploaded on Youtube what they learnt and his technique is the same technique taught by Goss (all the videos I linked above are by him) where they use a brush to apply the cream foundation and dab liquid foundation over it.
This is VERY interesting! I would love to try this out and see how it looks in real life. Not something I would do on a daily basis but for special occassions...this looks awesome.
But how do I choose the light/dark shades? I'm about NC40ish (NC42 but at time a little lighter). Most of the videos are on much ligher skinned ladies. How much lighter and darker should I try? M (or anyone else).....specific brand and/or shade recs? :)
Paheli!
If you look at the very first pictures you'll see that Kim has quite a tan and she's probably around NC37-40 for sure. The highlighter should be nearly white because it blends into the skin either way and the dark shade should be dark enough that it would pop through your regular foundation. Think going NC45 if you're NC4. I would go with Graftobian HD cream foundation but I know Mehron and several other brands like Ben Nye and Kryolan do one.
Just get one color which is nearly white or cream-like in color (think NC5-10 or even a pure white. Just get the lightest shade) for highlighting and the darkest or 2nd/3rd darkest shade for the contour shade. You should also get a Beauty Blender sponge or if you have a duo-fiber brush then that will do also. The authentic way has been to use a sponge.
whenever I have even attempted to contour in the past I feel like I’ve eliminated the effort when I’ve blended…(perhaps blended too much?)
from these videos I’m wondering if I simply did not use a light/dark enough shade for the highlighting/contouring. I’ll try to follow along these videos and see if I can see a marked difference.
btw…how would you make my chipmunk cheeks look less full?
Try avoiding putting emphasis on the apples of your cheeks (the bit right under your eyes) and place blush on the tops of cheek bones on the sides of your face so pull your face up and make your face look less round. Other than that there isn’t much else you can do.
Try avoiding putting emphasis on the apples of your cheeks (the bit right under your eyes) and place blush on the tops of cheek bones on the sides of your face so pull your face up and make your face look less round. Other than that there isn't much else you can do. :D
wouldn't you suggest putting more emphasis (highlighting) the area under the eyes and thereby drawing attention away from the cheeks?
I was thinking of contouring the outsides of the cheek and around the jawline so that it recedes while highlighting the apples to bring them forward.....no?
wouldn't you suggest putting more emphasis (highlighting) the area under the eyes and thereby drawing attention away from the cheeks?
I was thinking of contouring the outsides of the cheek and around the jawline so that it recedes while highlighting the apples to bring them forward.....no?
Usually the fullness of the cheek is at the apples which is the bit under the eyes/beside the nose. Depends on where your fullness if but you should do what you think works better. I have full cheeks too and I find if I place blush ON the apples that they look way too puffy and chipmunky. :p Putting emphasis right under the eye would actually draw more attention to the fullness of the apples so I would stick with high blush placement away from the centre of the face (to lift and elongate the face) while contouring to recede any fullness in the middle of the face. Highlighting the tops of cheekbones will also elongate the face but don't drag that any lower or you'll just make the fullness of your apples pop even more.
^^She does look a bit alien-like but the transformation is quite impressive :D The makeup seems to have been toned down since she's been with Kanye tho..
(Still can't work out if she's had her nose done or it really is just contouring plus a side-effect of fillers/botox lol)
Re: KK - She has her bad moments but the MU transformation is definitely dramatic. Of course, in KK’s case, I’m sure the artists pile on a lot of more after the countouring. And in many of her pics, I’m sure they photoshop the heck out of it too. Plus personally, I hate it when she pulls her hair back in that tight ponytail I like her much better with loose hair.
M: :hug: Ok woman…I need your expertise in helping me choose contour shades to try this with. If anyone else is familiar with shades and can give advise, that would be appreciated too.
My normal shade: NC42 in Studio Fix (actually, it’s probably a bit lighter…around NC40 now). 153 in MUFE HD and Barcelona in NARS Sheer Glow. Since I rarely do full MU these days, I’m thinking of buying the creme palettes from Graftobian HD cream foundation. Instead of paying $14 for full size cream foundation…$23 will hopefully get me both the light and dark shade I need. Plus I would love to try some of the shades in between. If I like the texture/feel…I may purchase the full size of a color that actually matches my skin.
I lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve Goss MUA and these videos. I want to highlight and contour like this for some pictures I want to take soon.
I tried contouring by creating an inverted 3 on both sides of my face once and it worked well I think. Its a bit strange when you first do it because you need a foundation MUCH darker than your skin and I think I was afraid of just turning out ten shades darker than what I was. But that didn't happen. I used Mehron just because I love Mehron...their concealers are AH-mazing! I used a flat brush to apply and then the Beauty Blender to blend just enough.
As good as she looks, I tried this on myself and my face looked oddly broad. I don’t get why, because my face shape is similar to kim’s but this contouring made me look like a broad faced drag queen.
^^She does look a bit alien-like but the transformation is quite impressive :D The makeup seems to have been toned down since she's been with Kanye tho..
(Still can't work out if she's had her nose done or it really is just contouring plus a side-effect of fillers/botox lol)
Definite nose job. The bump she used to have on her nose is totally gone. Contouring really only slims and shapes.. it doesn't make bumps disappear LOL
It has both the light and dark and in-betweens for you to mix and match. If you enlarge the picture in the link above you’ll the first shade is WAY too light and the darkest is WAY too dark. Plus, the brown isn’t that warm and is slightly cool enough to make a good contour shade.
She still has the bump on one side of her nose (she says she only poses from left side where her nose looks bump-less). However, she def. got a nose job to make it less wide. Look at this old picture where she looks so much like Kourtney and even has that mole on her forehead which she got lasered off. However, if you look at her makeup you can still see the bump of where that mole used to be.
She definitely has gotten fillers to make her cheekbones more pronounced and any lines pressed out, a chin reduction and her teeth fixed (she has veneers and has had braces). Not to mention the breast augmentation since hers look natural and not implant-y. And of course her fake butt. Wow, this woman has gotten a crap load done to her but it’s all been subtle and very skillfully done that you can’t really point your finger at it. Aside from the butt which looks fake and beyond tacky/out of proportion that you can spot its fakeness from 10 miles away.
