We’ve all seen those tutorials with contour stripes all over a woman’s face, but what these tutorials don’t tell you is that it works a bit differently if you have darker skin.
We caught up with Kim Kardashian and Ciara’s makeup artist, Rob Scheppy, who told us deeper skin tones need to go lighter, not darker. “With light skin, you use a darker product to create contrast, but with darker skin, you need a lighter shade for dimension,” he says.
“You won’t get much contrast by using an even darker contour product. Instead, strategically highlight.”RELATED: Celebrity Makeup Artists Reveal the Best Foundations for Every Skin Tone
Here’s how: Use a concealer or contour cream that is 1-2 shades lighter than your natural skin tone. Focus on the areas under the eye, creating an inverted triangle to bring brightness to the center of the face. Draw down the center of the nose, as well as the center of the chin and forehead. Blend with a soft dome brush (Scheppy likes Tweezerman’s Foundation Brush for blending, $16; tweezerman.com). Finish off with a dab of illuminating liquid or a shimmery highlighter for extra luminescence, and say hello to your newly chiseled complexion!
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