Cream contour stick

A cream contour stick is contour colour — a cool, greyish or taupe brown, the colour of a shadow rather than a tan — in a cream firm enough to stand in a twist-up case. It is drawn straight onto the face in short lines under the cheekbones, along the jaw and beside the nose, then blended with a brush, a sponge or the fingers until only the shadow is left. Because it is a cream, it melts into foundation rather than sitting on it, which suits dry skin and anyone who dislikes the look of powder.

Its twin on the shelf is the bronzer stick, and the two can look identical until they are swatched. A bronzer stick is warm and adds the colour of a tan where the sun would land; a contour stick is cool and adds depth where a shadow would fall. Some houses sell both, and a few sell a stick they say will do either job, so read the shade descriptions rather than the case. Many contour sticks now have a second end, carrying a highlighter or a blending brush.

Shade first: one or two shades deeper than your skin, neutral to cool, and deep and rich rather than grey on deep skin, where an ashy stick reads as a smudge. Swatch it along the jaw, blend it out and look from arm’s length in daylight; the right shade disappears into a shadow instead of showing as a colour. Then the formula. A cream-to-powder stick goes on creamy and sets to a soft matte within a minute, which makes it longer-wearing and better on oily skin, though it has to be blended quickly. A creamier or dewy stick stays mobile for longer, blends more easily and suits dry skin, but moves more through the day unless it is set.

Then the tip. A chubby, domed stick covers the cheek in one stroke; a slim pencil or stylus is easier to control on the nose, the jaw and the edge of the lips. Dual-ended sticks carry a highlighter at the other end, which is convenient if the two shades suit you and wasteful if only one does. Built-in brushes save a tool in a handbag, though a separate dense brush or sponge usually blends more smoothly at home.

Apply after foundation and before any powder. Draw a short line in the hollow under each cheekbone, starting near the ear and stopping in line with the outer corner of the eye, then blend it upward at once with a dense brush or a damp sponge, pressing and buffing rather than dragging. Work one side at a time: a cream-to-powder stick drawn across the whole face before blending will set in stripes.

Along the jaw, draw under the bone from below the ear towards the chin and blend downward, so that the neck carries the shadow away. For the nose, draw two thin lines down the sides from the inner corner of the brow and blend each one outward; a light touch under the tip shortens it. At the temples, a short stroke near the hairline blended back into the hair narrows the forehead.

The failure every makeup artist warns against is the unblended line. Asked about the fashion for contouring, one Toronto makeup artist said that a lot of the time people “just look like they have a roadmap on their face”, with “stripes on their cheeks” and noses that “look dirty”.^[1] Blend until you cannot find the edge, check in daylight, and set lightly with translucent powder if the stick is creamy or your skin is oily. For a contour that lasts into the evening, press a matching contour powder over the cream once it has set.

The contour stick is stage make-up in a smaller case. In 1873 Ludwig Leichner, an opera singer with an interest in chemistry, set up a make-up business in Berlin and sold greasepaint in sticks: thick ones for the base, and thinner ones, called liners, for shadowing, highlighting, age lines and brows. With them, shadows and highlights were easier to create under the brighter lighting that had come to the stage.^[2] A stage manual of 1901 set out the principle a contour stick still works on: by light and shade “the whole shape, size, and the character of the face may be entirely changed. Thin cheeks can be made round, hollow cheeks full, and fat ones thin and hollow.”^[3]

What changed on the way to the dressing table was the scale. Stage contouring had to be bold, because it was seen from a distance; film, magnified in close-up, needed it subtle.^[3] A newer chapter began with a photograph. In 2012 Kim Kardashian tweeted pictures taken while the makeup artist Scott Barnes contoured her face, showing the layers of contour before they were blended, and the public, a newspaper reported three years later, had been clamouring for contouring products and tips ever since.^[4] The sticks here are that photograph made practical: the actor’s liner, cooled to the colour of a real shadow, and blended until no one can see where it went.