How to Contour and Highlight for Your Face Shape

STOCKSY

Hi, hello, and welcome to today’s brief beauty history lesson (I promise no pop quizzes): Contouring, baking, and extreme highlighting originated in the drag community decades ago as a way to shape the face with makeup. Got that? Only in the last few years has the mainstream beauty industry adapted these makeup concepts so everyone can have a chiseled look in their everyday life. 

And if you’ve tried contouring your face in the last, IDK, seven years, you probably followed a face chart based on your face shape—whatever that really entails. But it’s 2019 now, and things have officially changed since you last picked up your bronzer.

“From 2012 to 2018, contouring based on your face shape was seemingly very important,” says L.A.-based makeup artist Jenna Nicole. “But now, in 2019, less is more, and we’re embracing natural, dewy skin. The old contour and highlighting trends were about changing your whole face to look a certain way, but now it’s about embracing your natural shape and giving yourself realistic-looking depth and dimension.”

So if you came here for a face chart specifically made for your face shape, sorry to disappoint, but I promise you won’t need it by the time you get through the end of this article. And let’s be honest, it was hard figuring out WTF your face shape was anyway.