The craze of contouring and highlighting has been around for a couple of years now, and one of the reasons for this craze is…Kim Kardashian.
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Achieving Kardashian-style contouring is no easy task.
First of all, you need to master the technique (which we provide below), you also need the best contour brush out there.
Choosing the right contour brush is no easy task either because you have to understand the differences between each one and how they change the application of the makeup.
Did you know that there are flat brushes, flat angled brushes and rounded brushes? Then you have to decide if you want a brush that’s made from synthetic fiber or real animal fur…
Sounds pretty confusing if you ask us, which is exactly why our guide to the top contour brushes is here to help you.
If you want to know what the heck a round brush is, we’ll tell you that, too!
Things to Consider When Buying Contour Brushes
It’s true that Kim Kardashian has played a huge role in promoting contouring, many people don’t realize that she achieves this look thanks to her large team of professional makeup artists.
But there is actually a way to master Kardashian’s contouring technique without having to hire the entire beauty salon’s staff.
- Pick the appropriate colors and tones for your skin tone.
- Opt for the best contour brush that you can afford.
If you find the contouring brush that perfectly suits your skin color and tone, this technique can actually become part of your everyday makeup routine.
Top 10 Contour Brushes Table
Picture | Name | Bristle Type | Price | Rating (1-5) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. Real Techniques Sculpting Brush | Synthetic | $$$ | 4.7 | |
2. e.l.f. Small Tapered Brush | Synthetic fiber hair | $ | 4.6 | |
3. Aesthetica Cosmetics Double Ended Contour | Synthetic | $$$ | 4.5 | |
4. Hotrose® US Flat Brush | Synthetic | $$$ | 4.3 | |
5. Kingfansion Professional Cosmetic | Synthetic | $ | 4.3 | |
6. Susenstone Flat Contour | Synthetic | $ | 4.2 | |
7. Real Techniques 301 Flat | Synthetic | $$$$ | 4.2 | |
8. GYBest Best Makeup Brushe | Synthetic | $ | 4.1 | |
9. HOSL Flat Contour Brush | Synthetic | $$ | 4.0 | |
10. HOSL Flat Makeup Brushes | Synthetic | $$ | 3.8 |
Choosing the Right Colors for Contouring
- While some people recommend contouring the face with cream or liquid makeup, it’s best to start with a powder-based product.
Powder allows you to get the grip of how the contouring technique works, so that you can gradually move to using cream-based products.
- Before making up your mind about one particular contouring tone, it’s best to test a great variety of colors to find the shade that works perfectly for your skin tone.
Choose a product that is one or two shades lighter than your foundation, while for shadowing, you need a powder that is one or two shades darker.
Women with fair skin may want to avoid orange in colors, and if you have medium skin tones, bronze is a great color for you. Darker skin tones will pop with red undertones.
- You don’t want to end up looking like a doll after contouring your face, which is why it’s crucial to add a tiny bit of blush to the apple of your cheeks.
This way, you soften your overall contoured look and make it more natural. Remember: smile and then add the blush where you see your cheeks become most round.
- Last but not least, you need a quality contour brush to have that perfect Kardashian-like look.
The perfect brush for contouring must blend well. If you’re using contouring powder, opt for natural contour brushes, since the hairs have cuticle that absorb the powder and then release it into the skin naturally.
With natural brushes, you must apply the powder onto the hollow of the cheeks and keep blending it until you see definition.
In order to add brightness and create a more natural look, apply highlighter under the eyes, above the lips and along the bridge of the nose.
Contouring Your Face Like a Pro
Professional makeup artists recommend pairing contouring with highlighting. Here, we’ll tell you how you can contour your face like a pro even if you don’t have the luxury of being in a professional studio!
- Create shadows and then add highlighting above the shadows to put emphasis on the hollows.
- Regardless of your skin color, opt for matte and muted tones. If you have fair skin, opt for deep creams and avoid grey pigments, which give you an ashy look.
- To perfectly place your contours, turn on an overhead light, which casts natural shadows. These are the shadows that you want to recreate in your contouring makeup. If you don’t see the natural shadows, suck in your cheeks.
- Contour under the cheekbones from the hairline and then blend down and out toward your mouth.
- Highlight across the top of your temples and put highlights over the apples of your cheeks. The best contour brush that can freshen up your look is a peachy brush.
- To shade down the sides of your nose, opt for small contour brushes. You should blend them down and put some highlight along the centerline of your nose to soften the contour.
- A tiny secret to create the illusion of a fuller pout using the contouring technique is to highlight the cupid’s bow.
Top 5 Best Contour Brush Reviews
1. Real Techniques
This contour brush by Real Techniques wins our today’s chart for being a reliable helper in a makeup kit of any woman. With its wide, angled head and synthetic fiber hair, this brush allows you to make a professional-like contouring.
This brush features ultra plush bristles that provide you with high-definition results. The brush is very soft, which means it’s also a perfect choice for applying blush and highlighter.
2. e.l.f. Small Tapered
The contour brush by e.l.f. is also a great choice for those looking to achieve perfect results at contouring and highlighting.
This anti-bacterial brush that features synthetic fiber hair can be used with both liquid and dry makeup products.
Thanks to its ability to create even coverage, the small tapered brush for contouring by e.l.f. can be used with powder to set under the eyes.
It’s also recommended to use this brush with a bronzer on the hollows of the cheek, or use it with foundation to have a light finish.
3. Aesthetica Cosmetics
Just like our today’s champion, this double-ended contour brush by Aesthetica can be used for both cream- and powder-based products.
The brush’s unique feature is that it’s a 2-in-1 multi-functional contour brush that can be used for both contouring and highlighting applications.
Aesthetica Cosmetics Double Ended Contour Brush is extremely lightweight, which allows you to have full control over it while applying makeup.
This contour brush is made of synthetic fiber hairs and is nonporous.
4. Hotrose®
The flat contouring brush by Hotrose is made of synthetic fiber hair and is comfortable to use even for unexperienced users.
This contour brush, made of highly-quality natural wood, can be used on sensitive skin thanks to its skin-friendly synthetic fiber hairs.
5. Kingfansion
This contouring brush features man-made silky soft fiber and can be used for eyebrows, eyelashes, eyes and cheeks makeup.
The professional flat contour brush by Kingfansion can be used to apply powder, cream and liquid-based products.
However, some users complain that it takes them about 5-7 minutes to get the suds out of the brush.
It took a long time, plenty of research and some nerve to buy another MAC brush. Mind you, they’re madly expensive! The MAC 109 Small Contour Brush retails for an insane SGD67. I bought it online, of course, but still.
Before I got the MAC 109 Small Contour Brush, I tried using the MAC 168 Angled Contour Brush to contour my cheekbones, temples and jawline, as what I always see Marlena of MakeupGeek do to create shadows on the face.
But because my face is much smaller and I have absolutely no cheekbones even when I pucker up and do the ‘fish face’, I always ended up with muddy, blotchy cheeks that extended almost to my jawline, when all I wanted to do was contour under my cheekbones. The 168 just made the powder blush/bronzer go all over the place.
I kept thinking ‘Wow, I must really suck’ to be always doing a bad contouring job, but later realized I was merely using the wrong tool!
Bun Bun’s Makeup Tip: Don’t fret if you’re getting it wrong. Sometimes, it’s quite alright to blame it on the tool. Heh.
So began my quest of finding the right tool for the right job. I Googled ‘MAC 109 dupe’, but while it’s usually rather easy to find lists of dupes for other brushes, it seemed the MAC 109 was IRREPLACEABLE and UNDUPABLE.
WOAH.
It bit into my bones to be throwing money on yet another MAC face brush, but when you are reminded of how lasting they are, the initial hefty price tag hence divided over a long time period, you feel much better.
It’s an investment worth making. In the long run, you will save money by purchasing a high quality brush.
Let’s get to the part where I tell you why the MAC 109 Small Contour Brush is part of my daily makeup routine.
Best Makeup Brushes For Contouring
Picks Up And Deposits The Right Amount Of Powder Product
Made of natural hair, the MAC 109 is dense yet soft, making the application and blending of products very easy. MAC suggests using the 109 for contour powder products and that’s what I use it for.
The 109 face brush picks up the right amount of contouring product with its dense bristles and deposits it on the face where you want it. It also buffs out products nicely so you don’t have ugly stripes down the cheeks.
The thing I really like about the 109 is its precision, something I could never achieve with the 168 Large Angled Contour Brush (or any other brush in my makeup brush stash) even though it is highly recommended by many beauty gurus for contouring.
Bun Bun’s Makeup Tip: No two faces are created equal, so just because someone said a face brush is The Face Brush doesn’t mean you have to force yourself to use it.
(Just in case you're wondering what that silly thing on my hair is, check out this post on the Hair Velcro Pad)
Versatile Brush – Contour, Blush, Highlight
I reserve the MAC 109 solely for contouring powders but have tried using it as a highlighting and blush brush just to test its versatility.
As a blush brush, because of its dense bristles, more blush product is picked up with the MAC 109 Small Contour Brush as compared to the MAC 168 Large Angled Contour Brush. As a result, accidental over application of blush may occur for the first few times when you are still getting the hang of using the brush. But once you get to know the MAC 109 better, blush color will go on effortlessly, and look natural and well-blended. To tell you the truth, if I had another 109, the 168 would be on the dole.
Even among different contouring powders I have to change the weight of handling the brush – lighter for MAC Gold-Go-Lightly and heaver for NYC Bronzer in Sunny.
Since this face brush is small enough, it can also be used as a highlighter brush. Lightly swirl the brush into the highlighting powder (my staple is the MAC Too Chic Beauty Powder), tap off the excess and apply it on the top of the cheekbones, and wherever you want highlighted. For highlighting though, I much prefer using the MAC 188 Small Duo Fibre Face Brush because it picks up and deposits less product. It’s always better and easier to build than slap on a eye-blinding amount of shimmer on your face.
Mac Brush For Contouring Before And After Photos
Contouring Makes Chubby Faces Appear Slimmer
As you’d have seen from my many pictures, I don’t have model cheekbones. Which is perfectly fine with me because where I am in this side of the world, faces with less prominent cheekbones are prefered.
I can tell you why, but I’d like to reserve that for another series of posts. Heh heh.
Anyhow, bronzer brings warmth to the face otherwise ‘flattened’ by foundation and contouring helps give the face more dimension.
Shedding Monster – Don’t Use It For Liquid/Cream Products!
I believe MAC recommended the MAC 109 for powder products, and specifically stated so, because if it sheds even with powder products, I can’t imagine how many more bristles will be shed with the weight of liquid and cream products.
Stray black hairs on the face are rather the norm for the 109 – it’s really annoying – but despite it, most people who use the 109 merely suck it up and remove them. Like me. Because it is irreplaceable.
The good news is that over time, less hair is shed. And I’d advise everyone to take a last check in the mirror before leaving the house.
Fun fact: While traveling to work one day, I noticed many people staring at me. I thought I was particularly pretty that day, having spent more time on an elaborate eye makeup look. Halfway through the journey, I took my mirror out to do a look check and to my horror, saw a piece of dried tissue stuck on my cheek. Thanks, strangers, thanks for looking and not having the courtesy to tell me! Grrr!
Initial Washes Issues
It doesn’t bleed anymore, but it bled black blood during the initial washes. Bristles used to shed in 4 or 5, but they don’t occur that often anymore even when dry. With all brushes, be careful not to get water into the brush ferrule (the metal part), dry your brushes at a slant, and shape them while they’re wet. Invest in brush guards!
Best Contouring Brush
Contouring Brushes Guide
In summary, the MAC 168 was too big for me and couldn’t give me the control I yearned to create natural-looking shadows on my face.
The MAC 109 small face brush with a rounded-dome tip, densely packed bristles gave me the precision I desired. HG contouring brush.
I hereby crown the MAC 109 Small Contour Brush For Contouring, Holy Grail Material.
(Do I still have to rate it?)
Best Mac Brush For Contouring Cheeks
Bun Bun rates the MAC 109 Small Contour Brush:
Mac Brush For Nose Contouring
I'd like to know what brush you use for contouring! =) Oh, and do you face any problems with contouring? Do let me know!