Love her or hate her, you can’t ignore, nor deny the fact that Kim Kardashian totally has her contour and highlight game going strong all the freaking time. I won’t lie: even I was very fascinated. And more than contouring, I was very intrigued by highlighting, because I love all things glam and shiny and glittery. Teehe! Anyway.

Searching for a guide to contouring & highlighting Indian skin? Look no further, my child, just keep reading.

Basically, contouring means shaping or let’s say, defining your face. When you use foundation your face may look “flat”. By contouring your face, you add some dimension to it.  You use a bronzer (matte) or brown matte eyeshadow, powder or foundation which is a few shades darker than your actual skin color. You have special contour brushes, or you could use an angled brush, whatever you find easy to use. Depending on your face shape you can contour your temples, right under your cheekbones, and jawline. If you’re not satisfied with your nose cuz it’s too big, who got money for surgery. Just contour the heck outta it.

Best bronzers:
The Balm Bahama Mama Bronzer
Benefit ‘Hoola’ Bronzer
Calvin Klein
Rimmel Natural Bronzer
NYC Big Bold Bronzing Powder

Many people also use a bronzer to warm up their face a bit. This could be perfectly done with a shimmer bronzer. For shaping, I purely recommend a matte one.

Okay.. And what is highlighting?
Probably my favourite makeup product after lipsticks are highlighters. The name says it all: highlighters highlight your face. It makes you look healthier and it gives your face a glow. As most foundations are matte, they might leave your face look dull, this is when the highlight game starts. You can do that by either using a concealer that is a shade or two lighter than your face (under your eyes, so you look more “awake”) or a light shimmery powder which is called a highlighter and put that down the bridge of your nose, cheekbones, Cupid’s bow & chin (pssst I know a natural ingredient to highlight *click* and check no. 7)

Best highlighters:
MAC Mineralize Skinfinish
Bobbi Brown Shimmer Bricks
Makeup Revolution Vivid Baked Highlighter
MUA Undress Your Skin Shimmer Highlighter

So here’s a little introduction to the world of contouring and highlighting. Stay tuned for the next part where I show you how I contour and highlight.

PS. New to makeup? These Back to Basics series will be your guide to everything pretty!

– Manisha