Breaking Down Beauty: How To Highlight

By Sheila Arkee

When it comes down to giving your makeup application extra polish, I find that adding a little light to the face is always a nice touch.While highlighting and contouring often go hand-in-hand, its not always necessary to do both at the same time.  Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how and where to add highlight on your face.

Before we dive into the details, where exactly should one place highlighting products? It depends on what type of product you’re using.

Highlighting products typically come in a cream, liquid, or powder form and I prefer using all of them on top of foundation.  Cream and liquid highlighters I typically place on top of foundation, but before setting powder, while powder highlighters go on top of foundation AND setting powder.

What highlighting products should you choose? It’s all about your personal preference. If your skin is normal-to-dry you might prefer cream and liquid products. If your skin is normal-to-oily, powder highlighters would be best for you.

You don’t necessarily need to use a product that has shimmer as your highlighter. I love a matte white eyeshadow, like MAC’s Gesso, for this very purpose!

Step 1: Where Do You Apply Highlighter?

Apply highlighting products on the high planes of the face – the areas most likely to naturally be hit by light, such as:

- the bridge of the nose

- tops of the cheekbones

- on top of your brows

- the cupid’s bow

- the space right underneath the lower lip

Step 2: How To Apply Highlighter

You can use a brush, but when it comes to cream and liquids, I prefer to use the pads of my fingers to tap and lightly blend the products where I want them and then set with translucent powder.

When I’m using powder highlighters, I use a fluffy domed brush to apply the product where desired, and then I’m set!

All set!

I’ve been using the e.l.f. Shimmering Facial Whip lately and am liking it a lot! Besides this product, I like MAC’s Cream Color Bases, and any light, shimmery or matte eyeshadow to add a bit of light to faces.

What are your favorite highlighting products?