Hey Everyone!
Contrary to what you might think, blush doesn’t just come in peaches and pinks and contour powder or bronzer isn’t just brown. Here’s my quick tip guide to picking the right colour for your blush, contour and highlight. First things first, you gotta know your undertone. An undertone is the underlying color of your skin color and is primarily cool or warm. To find this, simply flip over your arm and observe your veins. Are they green (blue x warm) or are they purple/blue (blue x cool)? If they are green, you’re warm and if they are blue, you’re cool. Also if you think silver jewellery suits you better, you’re cool and if gold jewellery suits you better, you have a warm undertone. Now that we’ve gotten that sorted, let’s start.
Picking the Right Blush
Fair – If you are a fair skin tone, you can go for pinks and peaches, even light ones like Benefit Dandelion or NARS Deep Throat would suit you very well. Mainly any blush when applied correctly will do well.
Medium – If you have medium, you can experiment with pinks but peaches would look great on you. Be careful of the undertone at this point. If you have above a fair skintone, find a blush that suits your undertone. If you have cool skin, find a cool blush. You can see by observing if the blush color (usually pinks) have a bluish tinge to it. Pink peaches like NARS Orgasm are great for medium skin tones because they are a balance of both.
Dark to Ebony – If you have dark skin, go for bolder blushes with a higher pigmentation with colors such as peaches and reds (lightly applied). Ebony skin should stay away from cool pinks to prevent an ashy tone. The general rule of thumb is to match your undertone to the undertone of your blush.
Picking the Right Bronzer/Contour
Your bronzer can be used as a contour powder. Generally, any shade 1 or 2 shades darker than your original skin color can be used as a contour powder. So that includes mineral foundations, compacts, etc or even cream foundation if done well. So contouring doesn’t just need a bronzer, it can be any product as long as it is 1 or 2 shades darker. It’s just that bronzer is the easiest to fall on. Now the tricky part is finding a good shade of brown. Basically, if you are using the bronzer as an all over bronzer, find something that does not have an orange tone to it. You don’t want to look like fake tan.
Fair to Medium – If you have fair to medium skin, you can experiment with matte and shimmery bronzers.
Dark – If you have dark skin, then you can get a little bit of shimmer just to spice things up. Matte tends to dull out on darker skin and if not the proper color, it can make your skin grey or ashy.
Contour – Now if you are using a bronzer as a contour, the best contour powder has a grey tone to it as you are mimicking the colour of shadows which are primarily grey. So you will want to find a bronzer that has a grey color, is very matte and not orange. I love the Hoola by Benefit for this.
Picking the Right Highlighter
There are so many kinds of highlighters in the market. All you have to know to tackle this is your undertone. There are highlighters with silver or pearl shimmer and that should only be used on cool skin tones. Other highlighters with a warmer shimmer can be great for olive to warm skin tones. This is really important to prevent the what I call floating ghost head syndrome or a white face on a neck because it really does matter. Also, if you have dark skin to ebony, it is best to use a highlighter to contour your face than a bronzer or contour powder. Simply place the highlighter on places where light hits your face – such as nose bridge, cheek bones, tip of your chin and brow arch. A natural contour will be placed. Generally, you should find a highlighter that is 2 or 3 shades lighter than your original skin tone.
I really hope this helped and if you have any questions, feel free to let me know in the comment section below! Do follow me on instagram @roseannetangrs to find out more about what I do besides typing on this thing haha. Ok bye.
Love,
Roseanne