How to contour your face using plastic cutlery

I was inspired when I heard about someone contouring with a spoon


Let’s get one thing straight…I hate makeup. So you could imagine my shock when the contouring epidemic struck the makeup universe.

I remember laying in bed, minding my own business, when my roommate suddenly started applying some sort of war paint all over her face. I watched for a few moments in utter amazement, trying to analyze the situation. After unsuccessfully racking my brain for possible explanations, I decided to ask.

That, in a nutshell, is how I discovered contouring.

After watching my roommate contour her face several more times, I asked her to contour my face, too. As she drew lines of multiple colors, I felt completely ridiculous…until voilà. It all blended together so perfectly and it looked incredible.

I felt giddy. Was this the first makeup craze I could finally get into? A few days later, my roommate escorted me to Sephora (apparently some sort of heaven) and I picked out the contour stick trio by Smashbox.

After excitedly trying to contour my own face – and failing miserably – I put the contour sticks into my nearly barren makeup bag and forgot about them until the fateful day when I heard about someone contouring their face with a spoon. Something hit me, and I knew I had to bring out my contour sticks. I would not only try using a spoon to contour my face, but I wanted to use the whole cutlery family, fork and knife included.

I started out using the knife to make a line from the outside of my eye to the tip of my nose.

Then I applied my highlighter on the inside of the line and colored it in.

I applied the highlighter in the middle of my forehead, chin and nose according to the usual contouring rules. When I got to the nose part, I used the knife again to assist in making a straight line down my nose.

When I got to the contour stick, I switched to my spoon. I put the spoon on my cheek bone and traced the contour stick below it.

I also used the spoon to contour the top and bottom of my face.

It was really tough trying to find a function for the fork, but I finally decided on using it for contouring my nose. I ran the contour stick through the hole between two of the forks prongs. It actually worked really well and I got a fairly straight line on both sides.

I blended it all in and BOOM.

I’d say it’s a fairly good beginner’s contour from cutlery.

Now it’s time to put the contouring sticks back in the bag to collect dust until another urge to use them creeps up again.