How to Contour & Highlight: Step-by-Step Guide

am doing a tutorial on how i contour and blush and highlight my face on a daily basis this is my contour and highlight and blush routine i like to do this all with powders so i will do a video on how you can contour with creams um later on not today so i've been getting a lot of requests to do my contour and highlighting and blushing routine for years and years now and i thought that today would be the perfect day to show you how i tackle this space so yeah there really isn't much to it so without any further ado i'm going to show you how you can sculpt and holla this fist your face not mine yours okay enjoy so my favorite product to contour with on my fair skin tone by far is heroin eyeshadow by illamasqua this is my holy grail it doesn't matter which powder i gravitate towards i always go back to this one right here because this has the perfect amount of cool toned slash warm tone it has a perfect mix of warm and cool toned it looks like a shadow on the skin which makes it perfect for contouring it's just the perfect shade for light skin tones like me my favorite brush to contour with is by far the mac 163 this brush is my right or die i have tried a gazillion trillion billion brushes to contour with nars eda this other brush and that other brush tall just fade away in comparison to this one right here this just has the perfect shape density size it just it's perfect for contouring all right so let's get started i'm taking the powder on my brush and i just tap it in like this until i feel like i have enough on the brush almost everyone on planet earth you have this like little curve here it follows the temples and then it curves and it goes behind the ear what i usually do is from that curve there is my starting point and usually what i do is just follow the curve of my cheek so with my cheek if i go really plastic with you now you can see that my cheek goes like this that is exactly what you want to enhance and contour so starting at that little curve i make soft motions and i follow my cheek so what i usually do then is grab more powder and i'm going to start intensifying it so just with soft circular motions like this you start diffuse and blend that out round it out right to that side of that nose and follow the curve so far we have totally enhanced our cheek you can see that this is a lot more prominent and and this is just like whatever you always want the strongest part of your contour to be right at that curve you never want the deepest darkest part to be right here because then it will look like a smudge it will look like a smear it will look like mud if you keep the darkness right to the sides of your face it's perfect grab a little bit more and go at the sides just basically directly onto my temple and follow my hairline and if you have a big forehead like i do this will do magic on camera so right now we've got a really nice soft contour going on as you can see just compare so what i usually do then is go to a new brush which is the makeup studio s01 it's a really big fluffy blending bronzy brush and what i do with this is diffuse and blend out the contour and also give my skin warmth so it's bronzer time my two favorite bronzers for this are the too faced milk chocolate soleil um light medium matte bronzer i like this because it's great for fair skin tones like my skin but it still gives it warmth and still makes you look healthy and glowy now i might be fair but i like my bronzy days also so then i go to the refined golden bronzing powder by mac and this is for when i want to look extra warm and extra bronzed up and just get that beachy feel i'm going to go for the mac one and what i do is i just basically swirl my brush in the bronzing powder lightly i'm barely touching it so what i do then is place a brush on my contour and start doing circular shape motions upwards never go below that line we just created so just circular shape motions on your contour line going up again for this i keep it all to the side of my face this bronzer does not go into that curve now a bronzer is also great for is for that big forehead of mine so i take more of the bronzer and as we just did i just follow the hairline and i just buff and blend the bronzer in and then also what i do is blend it in to my neck of course i also have days where i'm like okay nick you stepped too far with this one today you need to take it down a few what i do then is take my face powder this is by benefit it's the flawless powder and my real techniques blush brush i just go into my face powder and then what i do is just soften the entire feel of everything this will also help blend certain parts a little bit nicer and it will just make the overall look a little bit softer now what you would automatically go to is blush but no no the trick for a perfectly highlighted skin is highlight first and blush after i usually find that if i put blush on first and highlight after the highlight kind of looks like it's laying over top it's just not blending easily into the skin it's not cohesive it's not beautiful and when you do highlighter first and blush after the highlighter just melts into the skin and looks beautiful my favorite highlighter by far and you guys know this by now is my becca sharing skin perfector pressed in moonstone i live by this i cannot live without this it has knocked all the other highlighters out of my world this is what i use on a daily basis i cannot live without this i love this and my perfect highlighting brush is by inglot and it's the 4ss brush i use this all the time and again i've tried so many brushes for the perfect highlighting application and tall fill in comparison to this one i take the powder on one side of the brush and then i tap it off i place it directly under the side of my eye so right here i place it there and then softly i start blending it out and down now i like a strong highlight so i always go back in and apply more and i also come right on the wall of my cheek so that when i'm smiling you really see that glistening then i like to take the bobbi round sheer powder brush and this is my favorite for blush because it really blows out the blush color really nicely and i take my favorite blush which is luminoso by milani of course luminoso and just on the apples of the cheeks so i always smile and you can see that little ball pop out right here right on top that is where we're focusing on first and then i always take a little bit more and i blend it to the back into my contour and bronzer and this just makes everything melt in together and make it look seamless and then if i really feel like it i cook that line so what you want to do then and i will make a separate video on this very soon all about cooking makeup i take a powder that's light enough for my face and those regular old white triangle sponges i grab a ton of that powder and that will make it more prominent plus also it will highlight the space that hasn't