Looking for a contouring for beginners tutorial? You’ve stumbled into the right place! Now my contouring is on fucking fleek, but it wasn’t always like that.

Bronzer is Scary!

I was like you once, watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians – not for it’s educational value, but coveting the contouring skills of those makeup artists. I could watch a billion tutorials and they’re all slightly different and some are crazy complex – and to add to the problem – I have a round face and I’ve got some Casper the Friendly Ghost pale-as-fuck skin, things like bronzer terrify the fuck out of me because I don’t want to transform myself into a member of the Jersey Shore cast circa ’09.

So how did I start? I used my resources – which was the Beauty Advisor at Sephora. I went in there and was not ashamed to tell them “hey I’m pale as fuck and have no clue what the hell I’m doing – Help!” And they were great at guiding me to the right starter product, which I still actually use in conjunction with my graduated contouring routine.

Sephora Rules!

My Beauty Advisor introduced me to the NARS Laguna bronzing powder. This is a nice universal color for lighter light to medium skintones. I love this powder because it doesn’t apply too dark right away and it’s very buildable. I apply it with Sephora’s Pro Airbrush #55 which is $34.00 and one of the best brushes I have ever bought.

Apply in the shape of the number three starting a little above your brow bone. From there,  come in at your cheekbone (I do slightly above my natural cheek bone) and then your jawline. This will make the center of your face seem highlighted, and in contrast creating a slimming affect.

As you get comfortable with this technique you’ll start to feel more confident in playing with the lines in your face as well as other techniques from watching YouTube videos. I felt that powders were easier to start with and as practiced I moved into creams and pencils and varied my techniques.