Contour palette

A contour palette puts the two halves of sculpting side by side: one or more shading shades, cool and matte, to lay a shadow in the hollows of the face, and one or more lighter shades to bring forward the planes above them. The smallest are duos, a single shadow and a single light; the largest hold eight or more pans, from which the right pair can be chosen or mixed. Some add a warmer shade for bronzing, and the light shades may be matte, to brighten, or pearly, to catch the light.

It is not the same thing as a face palette, which combines blush, bronzer and highlighter for colour and glow, and has a page of its own. Nor is it simply several contour powders in one case. The point of it is the relationship between the shades: each shadow is chosen to sit with a light, so that the two can be blended into one another without a visible join, and the whole technique — shade below the bone, light above it — can be carried in one flat compact.

Most palettes are sold by depth — fair to light, medium, deep — and the first thing to check is that both ends of the one you choose suit you. The deepest shading shade should be a cool or neutral brown one or two shades deeper than your skin; the lightest should brighten without looking chalky or grey, which is the usual failing of pale powders on deep skin. If the standard ranges stop short, look for houses that make their palettes for darker skin, or sell them in several depth ranges.

Then decide how much shine you want. Matte light shades brighten the centre of the face and under the eyes without showing texture; shimmering ones read as highlighter and belong on the tops of the cheekbones only. A warm bronzing shade is useful for warmth but not for shadow. Powder palettes wear longer on oily skin and are easier for beginners, because powder builds slowly; cream palettes blend into foundation and suit dry skin. A palette earns its place if it holds one pair you reach for every day and others worth mixing.

Size is the last decision. A duo is the easiest to learn on and to carry. A larger palette pays its way for someone whose skin changes colour through the year, since the right shadow can be mixed as a summer colour comes and goes, and for anyone who does makeup for other people.

Work shadow first, then light. With a small angled brush, place the shading shade in the hollow beneath the cheekbone, under the jaw and, lightly, down the sides of the nose, blending the upper edge upward. Then place the light shade just above the shadow — along the top of the cheekbone, down the bridge of the nose, in the centre of the forehead and on the chin — and soften the join between the two with a clean brush until the change is gradual. Light sits on what should come forward; shadow on what should recede.

Mix when no single pan is right: a little of the light shade softens a shading shade that is too strong, and two shading shades together often match better than either alone. Keep separate brushes for dark and light, or the highlight turns muddy and the shadow chalky. Tap the brush before it touches the face, because pressed pans hold a lot of pigment and the first stroke is the one most often too strong; if it is, go over the edge with the brush you used for setting powder. And use less than a palette tempts you to: six pans do not ask to be worn at once.

Contouring compacts for the dressing table were on sale by the mid-1960s, when cosmetics houses sold shading as a kit. In 1965 Du Barry, the make-up line of Richard Hudnut, brought out Glissando Contouring Make-up: compacts holding three compressed powders — a basic skin tone with a highlighter and a shadow — with a mirror and a natural silk sponge. Its advertisement promised to “re-shape, re-make, ‘sculpture’ your face with an interplay of light and shadow”.^[1] The next year Max Factor launched Geminesse, an upmarket line sold only through selected department stores, whose make-up used highlighters and shadows to contour the face — an idea, the historian James Bennett notes, that Max Factor had helped originate in the 1930s. Its Contour Supreme was “a trio of subtle highlights and shadows, with an outliner and fill-in brush”.^[2]

Half a century later contouring returned as a public fashion. In 2015 a Sephora vice-president said it was the most requested mini makeover in the chain’s in-store beauty studios,^[3] and a trade report on that year’s sales in American prestige stores put the growth of face makeup down to “Instagram-driven trends like highlighting, contouring, strobing and sculpting”.^[4] The palettes here are what that boom left on the shelves. Most come from the less expensive houses, and all of them are sold on the principle the Glissando compact advertised: light and shadow, in one case.