Your Guide to Natural Looking Contouring

Briony's natural, no fuss contour application that anyone can do.

Summer - a bronzed shimmery shade best for medium to dark, or tanned skin.

Autumn - an earthy shimmery shade best for light to medium skin

Winter - a matte shade ideal for fair to lighter skim

OR try a darker foundation shade like Coco.

TRANSCRIPT

So what on earth is contouring, and should you be contouring or not contouring? Have you even got time to be bothered with contouring?

That again is subjective, and it's completely up to you and what look you are after and what time you're prepared to invest. But what I can say is that there is a certain age where probably contouring is not a great thing or not traditional contouring that's quite severe. As we age, we tend to lose fat in the face, and our faces tend to look thinner and more drawn. The whole concept around contouring is to give the face more structure and to give that really drawn-in look. Often when we're a bit older, we already look that way, so we don't want to enhance that.

If you're a little bit younger and you do want that nice structured, chiseled looking face, then you may want to look at one of the darker foundations in the Adorn range. The cocoa, the dark tan, or the olive are super popular for contouring the face. Or you might like to use one of our sticks in a darker color. So occasionally when I decide to contour my face, I may use the medium olive stick, and then I just blend that into the areas that I would like to have more structure.

But for those of you that can't be bothered with contouring but just want to have a little bit of enhancement to the face, I'm going to show you contouring for women who are a bit older or already have quite a thin, drawn face. So what I like about this particular three-method is that it not only breaks up the foundation and makes you look more healthy, but it's something that anybody can do. So this is contouring for the absolute novice, and it's the contouring that I personally do every day, all the time. I find it's the most flattering for most faces.

All you need to do is, again, select a product that you're happy with. It could be a darker foundation than what you currently are wearing. So maybe if you're wearing light to medium, you might use the medium olive or you might like to use a bronzer. For me, I prefer to use the winter bronzer or the cocoa foundation for this method. This particular method is something that I recommend everybody can do, and the reason for that is, I think when you're wearing just foundation, while it's great and it gets rid of our flaws or minimizes them, it can make us look a little bit one-dimensional, which is how I'm looking at the moment. I've got my foundation on, I've got a little bit of concealer, I've done my brows, of course, but I still feel a bit flat. It's okay, but I will look healthier with this three-contour method. And again, it's something that everybody, no matter what your age, can do, and I promise it will give you more of a glow. You will feel a bit more youthful looking. But it'll also just give the natural elements back to the skin that you would have without foundation.

Alright, so using either the single blush bronzer brush that you can purchase by itself (you may already have one if you've sampled one of our boxes), or you might like to use one of the smaller brushes in the 15 piece brush kit or the seven piece brush kit. The key with this method is to use a smaller brush, one that's shorter in length and more dense. Not to use something that has longer bristles and that's more sparse. Okay, you really want a dense, short brush. You can see I use this every day, but the reason for that is you've got more control. So when you're using a larger brush with more sparse bristles, you're going to get lighter coverage, and they're probably better for things like illuminizers and blushes. But when you're wanting to contour, something that's short and more dense will give you quicker and a better coverage, better result.

Alright, so for this look, I'm going to use the winter bronzer. If you feel that that particular product is a bit maybe too orange for you, then you may feel that the cocoa is a bit more of a tanned finish. Alright, so for me, this is the winter bronzer again. The winter bronzer is a pure mineral pigment; it's available in a sample size. All of the bronzers are, and of course, refill satchels, so please make sure you get those and refill your pots. Alright, so the three that we're going to do is following the hairline to this part of my ear, down back, and around the jawline. So it is a three. Now what that does is it gives the illusion of a nice sun-kissed look, which is where the sun would naturally hit you. So it's also going to help those of you that might have pigment damage like I do up the top here; it's going to hide the pigment damage without having to put concealer on. So there's an added bonus of contouring the forehead.

I like to start about an inch down and brush it backwards. The other benefit of this is that if you've got quite a large forehead and you want to minimize that, making this area slightly darker will create the illusion of the forehead not being as big. So that's another added bonus. Popping it all the way along here to this part of the ear and then underneath, making this area darker makes your cheekbones look lighter and therefore bigger. Running the bronzer or your contour product down the jawline also gives a more structured jaw. But if you pop a bit of the bronzer and continue it down the neck, if you've got a bit of a skin or a turkey neck that you're not quite happy with, making the neck that little bit darker is going to give more structure and the illusion that that's not sagging in that area.

Alright, so let's get started. Now if you put too much on and you think, "Whoa, that's too much," don't worry about it. I just want you to get the shape right because I'm going to show you where I've put too much on; I am going to fix that really quickly and effortlessly with the kabuki brush which has a bit of foundation on it. So what we want to do is just get this on into the shape. Okay, for those of you that have got lighter hair or gray hair or platinum blonde hair, you might want to go with the cocoa or a darker foundation color because we don't want this in your hair or staining your hair.

Now I've only dipped a small amount on and I've blended it; it's quite heavy. I just want to show you how if you do go heavy with it, you can fix it. Normally, I wouldn't put this much on, but I just want you to see that you can fix that. Alright, so doing the other side. So that's probably how much I would normally put on, just this amount there, not as heavy as this side. But this just, I just want to show you; you never have to start again. Okay, just don't because people often go, "Oh, I've done it wrong," and they start rubbing it. No, you don't need to do that with our range because you can always fix it with the kabuki brush. Alright, so we're blending back here to that part of the ear underneath the cheekbone, along the jaw, and now what's left on the brush, I'm just going to pop that down my neck.

Now if you've got your hair back, wear it. Pop some behind your ears. I like to put a bit over my ears as well; these are always a bit pasty back there. You got your chest exposed; you might want to put a bit on your chest. Okay, what's left on the brush, which is minimal, I will just gently just go around the edges now, anyway, and a little bit over my mouth, a little bit over my brows, and just a little bit over my nose. And I'll even just put a tiny bit over the eyes like that. So that was the very last step with what was a remnant of bronzer left on there. I've just brought it all together with the same brush with the remnant that's there, just by going over the mouth gently over the nose, the areas that I didn't contour. I've just gently dusted over the top just to bring everything together, and already without even touching it with the kabuki brush, just that extra little step there has made a significant difference to it looking perfectly blended. Okay, so you don't need to panic until the very end. And if you still think, "Oh, that is too heavy for me," grab your trusty kabuki brush, which will have foundation on it from your minerals, preferably. Then what you will do is just blend it backwards. Okay, so the slight bit of foundation that's on it will blend away or just soften that color. You don't want to see where the makeup starts and ends. Okay, perfect. So now I look healthier and, of course, more radiant because I'm not just one tone from the foundation. Okay, and again, as I said, make sure you pop some on your neck just to give the neck a really nice defined look around the jawline. If you're wearing a white shirt like me, you might want to pop that on after you've done your makeup around your neck. But being that it's water and sweat resistant, our makeup is less likely to get off on the clothes, but nothing, nothing stops it getting on there from friction. So maybe just make sure you're careful when you're popping your shirt on and off. But this is the winter bronzer; it's given really nice structure to the face. It's given me a little bit of a drawn-in appearance here; it's hidden the pigment damage up here. But again, it's giving me nice structure, youthful-looking skin. And as I said before, just get that three shape right, go back over it with your kabuki brush, or at the very end, wipe this over a tissue, or with what's left, you can just bring it all together by blending it gently over the top. So there's my contouring, really quick, easy novice way of contouring your face. I hope you grab some nuggets of advice out of that. Have a play. I promise you after a couple of applications, you'll just be able to do it without even thinking.

2021-07-05 07:21:00
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