Highlighting & Contouring Done Right

The dance moves in this video are Phat with a capital P. With all the black and whiteness in the above video, what immediately comes to my weirdo makeup artist mind is highlighting and contouring a.k.a. "hac-ing".

So many women are into this these days! Two out of the ten competitors in this year's Allure Beauty Blogger Awards even spoke about it in their first challenge. While mentioning the awards, you should go vote for your favorite blogger. Each week they're giving away swag to voters that even Justin Bieber himself would approve of. Place your votes here. Yup. Just go ahead & make these bloggers even more famous so I have even more competition. Thanks...

Whoever had the opportunity to do her makeup
daily for the show must of had a lot of fun.
I'm jealous ;o(

Any who, highlighting & contouring is something that is usually done for TV & film. The concept is that you highlight the parts of the face that you want to stick out & then darken or contour the parts that you hate. Contouring can create cheek bones even on Mimi from the Drew Carey Show. For Riz-eals, yo! We mean zero disrespect to the actual person behind this character, by the way. Highlighting can also give the appearance of a perfect nose even if you yourself despise your honker.

Generally speaking most women do in fact bronze themselves. However, please allow me to advocate that most don't put it in the correct spots to really accentuate their features.

If you're a powder diva, you'll want to use a matte bronzer with no sparkle for the absolute best effect. Now, stop bronzing your whole darn cheeks and just put the bronzer right below your actual cheek bone. Then, to make your cheekbone pop, slap on some sparkly vanilla-ish or gold-ish shade to a fluffy brush. Tap off the excess & then go to town right above where you put the darker powder which should be exactly on your cheekbone. This should also be the area where you put your blush.

Need some inspiration?
Read these books!

Can't afford to purchase these in this economy?
There's this fab place that exists...
It's called the "Library".

<<< Now, take a look here <<<  to the fabulousness I call Kevyn Aucoin. You know him as the beauty Lord with that huge beauty bible called "Making Faces" & "Face Forward". If you've never done this before, I'd highly advise you to do it with creams or creamy substances first. Then, when you get the hang of it move onto liquids. Oh yeah, and obviously you'll want to blend in this look to our left with a sponge or MAC's "Don King" Brush #187 Duo Fibre Face Brush available here for $42. Please also notice that the highlight color you choose should be at least 1-2 shades lighter than your actual foundation color & the contour color should be at least 1-2 shades darker. The colors you choose also depend on how chiseled and skeleton-like you're trying to become. Oh, just go ahead and choose black & white. Then get back to me about how stinking long it took you to blend it out! Heh. Heh. Thanks, guys. I'm here all night... trying to look like the Grim Reaper, that is.



This dude even shows you how to highlight your decolletage & cleavage. But I say rock on with your bad self and cue in Gerard Butler because This is Sparta! One can even do these techniques to achieve what I like to call "spray on abs". Furthermore, pass on the note to Gerardy boy that I've got an open page protector reserved just for him in my vertical organization I call my "Binders Full of Men"...

Enjoy.

Luv,

~J.~