Contouring is the latest beauty craze made famous by Kim Kardashian over the past few years. I personally have been very apprehensive to experiment with contouring since I’m so fair. However, I found the dream contouring product – Laura Mercier Flawless Contouring Palette!
I picked this gem up during a recent trip for Sephora during their VIB sale (extra 15% off!) after one of the associates did a contouring look on me using this palette.
Are you also confused about contouring? Don’t know where to start, where to apply, or what to use to apply? Well all your answers are solved in this post, keep reading for your flawless contouring look!
The Palette
Laura Mercier Flawless Contouring Palette – $50
According to Sephora, here are some more details on the palette:
What it is:
An exclusive Contouring Palette that brings Laura Mercier’s artistry techniques to life in an easy, fun way—allowing you to play with light to enhance, sculpt, and add shadow to the face.
What it does:
This palette of blendable creams delivers foolproof application every time. Shade intensity is much lighter than it appears, so it’s perfect for all skintones. Through her artisan lens, developed over years of working as a professional makeup artist, Laura Mercier has carefully chosen these neutral shades in a darker range to help sculpt the face. The key to everyday contouring is to be discrete. This Contouring Palette is designed to define and highlight your best features with five delicate, but buildable creams. The extraordinary formula is more blendable than typical contouring powders, allowing for a natural, flawless, and seamless application every time. For a complete flawless look, finish with the Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder.
This palette contains:
– 0.17 oz Contour #1
– 4 x 0.1 oz Contour in Medium #2, Deep #3, Highlight #1, and Highlight #2
– Instruction cards for easy application
Application
This cream-based palette may seem very intimidating to apply. However, fear no more! You only need 2 inexpensive tools to achieve a flawless contour. You’ll need a dual headed, rounded brush with a both a small and large head along with a setting brush to blend out your contour. Use the small end of the dual headed brush to apply the darker contour, and use the wider end for applying highlighter if you’d like. I tend to use highlighters minimally since I have oily skin, and they usually amplify that.
(1) First, to apply the color at first I use: Studio Basics Foundation & Concealer Brush
(2) Second, to blend out the color I use: The Real Techniques Setting Brush
To apply you’ll want to contour out the hollows of your cheeks and upper part of your forehead. If you want a more dramatic contour, you can also apply allow the bridges of your nose and along your chin. Remember to use the small head of the Studio Basics concealer brush for this. Then, blend out your contour using the Real Techniques setting brush.
For more details on how to contour depending on your face shape, check out Sephora’s helpful Contouring Guide. For the purpose of this post, I’m skipping over highlighting. However, this palette also comes with a great highlighter which I’ve also used in the photos below. I just swipe a bit of the highlighter above my cheek contour for the most natural look.
The finished look is below. You can see I went for a VERY natural, daytime contour look. The great thing about this palette is that it’s very buildable. So you can get as dramatic as you’d like. Laura Mercier really does the contouring look well. The palette is so natural and great for all skin tones with the variety of contouring shades. I typically use #1 and #2 for my looks.
Happy Contouring!
allison kehoe 
I typically use the powder. Do you like the feel and look of the cream better?
Since I’m so fair, most of the powders were looking too drastic or orange on my skin. This cream formula is the first perfect color I’ve found! I have oily skin, and this surprisingly works very well on my skin! I also feel like the cream is longer lasting.