FAVOURITE CONTOURING PRODUCTS │♥│

Some say that contouring is going out of fashion... some people hate it... I call bull shit to that. As a plus sized girl, I cannot get enough of contouring. With a brown powder I can transform my chubby cheeks and double chin into an Angelina Jolie-esque face shape. Not quite... but kind of. 

I've been playing around with contouring and highlighting for a little while now, and I have my own little collection of my favourite products. The most current favourite contouring product is a part of Cliniques chubby stick range, it is a product called the "Chubby stick- sculpting contour". It is just like the chubby sticks for the lips from Clinique - it has a little twisty bit at the bottom to push up product. At first I had no idea how to use this. I was using it over my foundation but a small amount of product just disappeared after blending, yet a large quantity of product seemed to spread all over my face after blending, and it made me extremely orange. I was just about to give up on this product when I decided to give it a try UNDER my foundation. I had no idea how this would work out, or look. But I love it! I go in with quite a heavy hand and contour all the relevant areas. Using the real techniques brush I blended over the cream contour - I didn't swirl it, I just went over the area with a brush to soften it up - i found that swirling it around your face just made the product go everywhere, making you look orange. Prior to adding the contour I primed my face, and after applying the product I put my foundation on top. I didn't use a standard foundation brush for this, I used a stippling brush. The reason I didn't use a foundation brush is because I felt as if it would drag away the product, but with a stippling brush you are basically just bouncing and tapping the brush over your face - not disturbing the contour. I have tested this out with both a light weight foundation, such as Maxfactors Skin Luminizer, and a heavy foundation such as Estee Lauders double wear. The contour looks more intense under a lighter foundation, but is still visible underneath a heavy wear foundation. This product comes in at £19 and is available on the clinique website and department stores/clinqiue contours. 

After I have applied my foundation and concealer, I like to go in and intensify my contour. This is totally optional and varies per person - it just depends how strong you like your contour. You're all probably bored of hearing about this product, but I love intensifying my contour with benefits Hoola bronzer. This is a fantastic cool toned bronzer which is famously used to contour with. With a light hand I use this product with the real techniques contour brush - I have two of these brushes - one for cream contour and another for powder contour. I reapply this product with a light hand all over the areas I cream contoured.  Hoola bronzer comes in at £23.50, directly from Benefit. The price can vary on which counter/store bought at. A cheaper but equally as brilliant contour set which I picked up a few months ago is Barry M's Chisel Cheeks contour kit. This comes in at £6.69 in Boots and contains a highlighter (which I am not the biggest fan of in this kit), a bronzer, and a cool toned powder which is the intended contour colour. The kit comes with a little how to guide, which makes it the perfect option for contouring beginners. I also like to apply this with the real techniques contour brush. One thing which I do not like about Barry M's contour kit is the packaging - it feels very flimsy and as you can see it can get very dirty very easily, although the contouring colour is very good and very well pigmented, and a full kit for under seven quid is an absolute bargain. 

Thank you for reading this blog post, happy contouring and all that stuff! xoxox

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