A Contouring Tutorial With The Blur Kit By Bassam Fattouh Cosmetics

Contouring is not dead, it’s just had a little makeover itself, it’s no longer about looking like a 3D Barbie doll with mismatched rainbow foundation tones. But make no mistake the extra-chiseled cheekbones are here to stay, we’ve just seen them on runways everywhere and we continue to see them all over Instagram.

Plenty of brands are sprouting up with their own versions of how contouring oughta be, and though I’m always curious about most of them, I was especially excited about Bassam Fattouh‘s unique take on it as soon as he teased about releasing his own kit awhile back. It’s one thing when a brand releases a product and a whole different ballgame when a makeup artist reinterprets it, because I know it’s a result of daily expertise and trails, deciding what to nit pick and keep and then dropping the best features in one full kit.

I was expecting a creamy palette or sticks and was quite surprised when instead he chose a 6 shade powder palette. Yes, powder! It’s called The Blur Kit described as“a carefully curated combination of six incredibly blendable and buildable universal shades designed to mold, sculpt, define and add new depth and dimension to your natural features.”

I’ve contoured with liquid formulas, sticks, even pencils but never before with powders. So you can imagine my intrigue. The formula is as fine as they come, uber-milled particles with a medium coverage that’s easily buildable without coming off as exaggeratedly pigmented or else you would imagine how that would look on your face and cheeks. It’s ridiculously smooth, velvet-like, with an excellent color release. It’s also feather-light, almost weightless on your face, and for someone who usually avoids powders thanks to my currently dried out skin, this was nothing to fear, in fact, as you can see in my pictorial I layered and layered, and no cakiness and no flakiness and no over-doneness. The formula on most of the shades is a luminous matte one, except for one of the Highlighters which is shimmery.

The best part about The Blur Kit is you don’t have to be an expert at contouring and highlighting to get it right, nor do you need to watch random YouTube videos. On the inner side of the cover you can find a illustrated guide on where and how to apply product depending on the shape of your face. It’s Foolproof.

I’ve gone ahead prepared my own little pictorial, as I walk you through each of the 6 shades in the palette and how best to use them:

Step 1. Cheekbones– the one-size fits all bronzer, I loved this shade, but if you like your bronzer even warmer then you can use the Nosejob shade instead. I like to start by sculpting my cheekbones first and then I’ll move on to my upper forehead and lower sides of my chin- basically where the sun would naturally hit my face.

Step 2. Nosejob- As the name suggests, this shade is perfect for basically contouring those imperfections about your nose. I prefer to use a small brush for precision; start all the way at the top side bridges and work my way down to narrow my nose and give the illusion that it’s thinner… and hide a bump I got from a terrible fall in Elementary school. It’s basically like painting. By the way, this shade looks amazing as an eye shadow as well.

Step 3. Banane- place this one right under your eyes, to conceal and warm up any dark circles and heal red or blue discolorations. As a mom of toddler, I’ve actually been putting this one on even when I’m not using the rest of the palette to conceal as well, and it works wonders for me.

Step 4. Highlighter- the first one is a matte one, but don’t mistaken that with dull, it still gives that glow minus the shimmer. As you know there is no contouring without highlighting, so this shade is your friend, use her wisely, on your forehead, cheekbones right below where you used the bronzer and chin. It is perfection.

Step 5. Joue- No other contouring kit contains a blush so thank you Bassam Fattouh for this little bonus. At first glance you may consider it slightly too bright, but nope, this is the universal blush shade, natural, healthy and luminous. Too bad there is not more of it in there.

Step 6, Highlighter- Now this one is shimmery. For those gorgeous upper cheekbones and tip of your nose. I am currently obsessing over highlighters, this one has a yellow/goldish tone to it, and though it seems subtle a little will go a long way so be prepared to glow!

Bassam Fattouh’s words echo in my head “blend blend and blend some more.” He’s right, you can have the best products in the world but if you don’t blend it well all together, you can look blotchy and patchy. I like to blend with my trusty beauty blender. For this look I applied my foundation first as a base, but feel free to use The Blur Kit even without a base. It really all depends on how made up you want to look.

So there you have it. I loved the final results and totally appreciate how nothing looked piled up, and although I molded and sculpted as desired, my overall look was a natural one, while reflecting just the right amount of light to my face.

I’m very excited to be a part of the official launch of The Blur Kit by Bassam Fattouh Cosmetics tomorrow in Beirut. Stay posted with me on my Snap Chat IvySays.

You can now shop it online from anywhere in the world HERE