Is Contouring Harmful To Women?

In 2012, Kim Kardashian brought contouring — a shading makeup style that harks back to theatrical makeup tricks used for centuries — to the current mainstream when she posted two photos to her Instagram. One shot showed her face in heavy, unblended makeup; the other included the remarkable contour work of makeup artist Scott Barnes.

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With just the right strokes and prominent shadowing, Kim’s face had transformed to emphasise slender cheekbones and a thinner nose — a makeup trick everyone seemed to notice.

Instantly, the age-old method once used on screen sirens in old Hollywood — actresses like Marlene Dietrich and Audrey Hepburn were sometimes contoured to create a certain aesthetic on camera — had caught fire outside film. Social media was flooded with Kardashian-esque makeup contouring shots, with women trying to nab the shape-shifting look themselves.

Beauty bloggers were creating tutorials to get those cut cheekbones and garnering millions of hits in the process. Even cosmetic companies began rolling out contouring products, like Tarte the Sculptor Contouring Face Slenderizer or Smashbox Step-by-Step Contour Kit.

However, after a few years, some beauty experts and writers are finally saying enough is enough with this trend. In W, makeup artist Maxine Leonard called contouring “the most inappropriate trend to ever be promoted in society.”

Leonard says that it’s strange to paint sharp lines on every person’s face, which are taking away from the individuality of a woman’s beauty. “I find there’s a perversity about it,” she tells Yahoo Health. “It’s negative to promote that a person’s natural face shape doesn’t fit the mold — something with this heavy linearity to it.”

The super-sculpted look has now infiltrated our editorial spreads, magazine ads and online images. You may not realise how often you’re exposed to the trending contoured face, but it’s everywhere. Case in point: Leonard was recently on set with a young actress shooting a magazine cover, and the first thing she was asked to do as makeup artist was to contour the star’s face.

“The idea that I would take this beautiful, pale, cherub face and sculpt it — it’s just expected that women should look this way now,” Leonard says. “It’s taken away the freedom in how we look. It’s stripped away our self-confidence, because now what we see without sculpting is ‘flawed.’”

Tired of the narrow view of beauty promoted in pop culture, Leonard has founded the magazine Beauty Papers with a “screw the formula, we are looking for a liberated view of beauty” mindset. “We wanted a sense of freedom,” she says.

Legendary beauty pro Bobbi Brown has echoed Leonard’s sentiments, as well. She told the New York Post that she was against a technique that insinuated a woman needs to change the features she was born with.

“The contouring trend is so wrong because it tells women there’s something wrong with their face,” Brown says. “There’s beauty in a full face, so I don’t like to paint in a cheekbone that doesn’t exist.” Example: the face of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Kate Upton, who sports her own natural, rounded facial structure in campaign ads.

Elite Daily writer Izabella Zaydenberg points out the flaw in reaching for facial perfection. “The truth is this,” she says. “Contouring visually restructures your entire face. It makes your nose smaller, cheekbones more prominent, and jawline more pronounced.”

Zaydenberg says that although the trend was never intended for everyday wear, it’s starting to pin an undercurrent of constant perfection to our makeup routines. “Contouring has become so ingrained in our culture that when you go to get your makeup done at a cosmetics counter or beauty bar, your artist will assume that you automatically want your nose slimmed and your cheekbones more pronounced,” she writes. “That, to me, is terrifying.”

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In the end, makeup isn’t about changing your face. It never was. Instead, cosmetics are about enhancing the gorgeous features you already possess. A culture of contouring threatens to steal away our natural beauty, so let’s all put down the bronzer and reshaping tools. We never needed them anyway.