Category Archives: Contouring Products

Contour and Sculpting Powder Comparison, Swatches

Benefit Hoola; MAC Sculpt; MUFE Sculpting Kit #2

I’ve been on a contour powder kick lately; when I visited Make Up For Ever LA and bought the Sculpting Duo, I also visited the nearby MAC Pro store and bought MAC Sculpting Powder in Scupt, a contouring powder.

Today, I have comparison swatches of my favorite contouring products for you: MUFE Sculpting Duo #2, MAC Sculpt, and Benefit Hoola. I’ll have full reviews of the MUFE and MAC contouring products up later this week.

I was surprised to find out that Benefit Hoola – which had previously been my favorite contouring product – is much more yellow than the two products actually designed for contouring. I probably won’t use Hoola for contouring at all in the future, and will only use the actually contour products.

It’s hard to tell from the swatches – though you can see it a little in the product photos – but MAC Sculpt is a little bit lighter than the MUFE powder, which is little bit deeper. Overall though, they’re extremely similar, and there’s really no need to own both – though I’ll eventually use both up, since they’re really the perfect shade for me!

What’s your favorite contouring product?

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My Visit to Make Up For Ever Los Angeles

I’m lucky to live near the Make Up For Ever flagship boutique, which is located in Los Angeles. Today, I decided to go check it out – and I had a really wonderful experience. As I was browsing, I noticed that they offer free makeup lessons with purchase. I asked about them – and although they generally recommend getting a reservation – the store was slow enough this morning that I was able to get an on-the-spot lesson.

The makeup artist who helped me was named Brittany, and I cannot recommend her highly enough – she’s very talented, helpful, and friendly. I was interested in buying one of the Sculpting Kits, which contain a matte contour and matte highlight. Brittany recommended #2, which I will review in full in a separate post. Then, I sat down, and she applied contour, blush, and highlight, explaining carefully what she was doing and how to do it.

She did a really great job – it was very natural looking, yet more sculpted than I looked without the product, sort of a “my cheekbones but better” look that I can see myself doing during the daytime. I can also use the same contour powder, but with a shimmery highlighter (of which I have plenty), at night.

I decided to buy both the contour duo and the brush Brittany used; I’ve always used angled brush to contour, but I really liked the method she showed me using a flatter, non-angled brush (the MUFE 24S).

I also asked for help with eyeshadow placement, and got some very helpful tips on where my crease is (for my eye shape, the crease for makeup placement is actually above the eyelid fold). More on that in another post!

Overall, I had a really great experience at the MUFE freestanding store in Los Angeles. They were happy to let me browse and play for as long as I wanted, and I loved the mini makeup lesson and learned a lot. If you live in LA or are planning a visit, I definitely recommend checking it out!

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Project Swatch #6: Highlight & Contour

Probably the two prettiest makeup products I own . . .

I still have one lipstick post to go – the fun colors – but I’m waiting for my Illamasqua Kontrol to arrive in the mail before I put that one together. So, next up we have highlight and contour!

Luckily I haven’t gone TOO overboard (. . . yet) with the highlight & contour products, so I can put them together in one post – I have two of each. However, for face products, I tend to go high-end, so these are a little more pricy (for things like lipsticks or eyeshadows, I tend to have a mix of high end and drugstore products).

It’s really hard to photograph highlighters! This is the best shot I got.

MAC Lightscapade: ABSOLUTE FAVORITE HIGHLIGHT EVER. It looks like light hitting my skin, it’s just perfect.

Guerlain Parure de Nuit: I wanted this for months before I gave in and bought it, and it’s the most expensive makeup product I own. I actually don’t like it as much as Lightscapade, but it feels so luxurious to use – it’s scented, it’s beautiful – so I’m glad I bought it.

MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Medium Deep: Nice product to contour. I also really like the texture of this, and if I ever need another powder (just you wait until you see how many powders I have!), I’ll probably buy an MSF in my skintone, which is a couple shades lighter. However, when swatching, I realized that this has a little bit of red in it – so I probably won’t repurchase this one as a contour product.

Benefit Hoola: I just have a mini one – this is a really nice contour product. After comparing the swatches, I think I prefer this as a contour product to the MSF – so I will eventually buy the full size. It’ll probably take me a very long time to use up the mini, though!

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