Is contouring actually worth the hype?

Ah, makeup. It’s an incredible tool that takes average looking women and men and transforms them into works of art. Even though makeup sometimes gets a bad rep because it “tricks” people into thinking people are better looking than they actually are, it’s actually an art form.

There are so many different kinds for different talent levels. The most common is just simple every day makeup that’s easy to do and natural looking. Then there’s the extremists. The ones that have super sharp contours and highlight so bright it’ll blind you.

More than anything, makeup is fun. Lately, the love of makeup has expanded immensely in communities across the globe. People like Kim Kardashian and her contouring skills have opened a world of possibilities to us regular folk.

Whether you like her or not, contouring wasn’t really a thing for the general public before she posted a selfie of her contouring process.

The makeup loving community took that selfie and ran with it. Due to incredibly creative minds, we now have different types of contouring techniques. Tape contour, spoon contour, knife contour, nontour, strobing, clown contour and more.

The clown contour is probably the most time intensive and crazy looking one. So, naturally I had to test it out. Does it really make a difference? Is it really worth the time it takes to do it? How much different is than classic contouring?

Let’s start with a bare face. You can clearly see the scars, dark spots, and exhaustion.

Classic contour

Classic contouring consists of mapping out the highlights and shadows of the face and enhancing them. A concealer a couple shades lighter than your skin tones goes on all the high points of the face like the forehead, under eye area, tip of the nose and chin. For the contour, a foundation a couple shades darker than your skin tone goes on any parts of the face in shadow (cheekbones, hairline, jawline). This is used to essentially create the face shape that you want.

For example, I don’t have very pronounced cheekbones naturally, so I use more highlight on the cheeks to bring them forward. I have a larger forehead, so I use more contour on the hairline to shrink my forehead down. I have a little bit of a double chin situation so I use more contour on the jawline to hide the second chin.

After outlining your new face, blend with a sponge or a brush.

Clown contour

Clown contouring does essentially the same thing as classic contouring, but the prep work is way more intensive. It involves twice as much makeup and more extreme mapping. The high points and shadows of the face are drawn out like before but they are denser. Unlike the classic contour, blush is outlined in the clown contour.

Clown contour compared to classic actually provides a better result. I expected it to be too difficult and to hate it. But it actually made contouring easier and results were more favorable in my opinion. It made blending more seamless than classic contour, however the makeup was extremely heavy on my skin. It’s not an every day thing but it was certainly fun to do and warranted great results.

This technique wasn’t created because it will give you a drastically different outcome, because it doesn’t. It was created in order to have fun with makeup. It’s not something that has to be taken seriously; it’s a fun hobby, stress reliever, and way to showcase your talent.

So go ahead ladies, contour away. If I can do it, you can too.