#1: Highlighter Placement Tip
Do you look your best with highlighter on your inner corners, or on your brow bones? It usually depends on your facial proportions.
Highlighting the inner corners makes eyes appear closer together than they are, while putting highlighter on the brow bones makes the eyes appear wider-set than they are.
So, highlighting the inner corners looks especially flattering on people with wide set eyes. And putting highlighter on the brow bones looks best on people with close-set eyes.
Remember, this isn’t about correcting a feature or proportion. Instead, it’s about creating balance, and just finding what looks the most complementary to our own features.
But how do you know if your eyes are close or wide set? There’s a way to measure them. The width of one eye (the distance from your inner corner to your outer corner) is considered to be one “fifth” of the face. Eyes are typically set apart by the distance of one eye’s width. If they are set wider apart than this, they are “wide-set eyes,” and they are “close-set eyes” if they are set closer together.
Tip #2: Cheekbone Contour Placement
Should you place your cheekbone contour high up on your cheekbone, or underneath it?
A lot of us have seen the “snatched” makeup trend becoming more popular these days. The “snatched” trend refers to placing contour super high up on the cheekbones, almost on top of the actual bone rather than underneath it. This tends to make cheekbones look higher and sharper than they are.
But, like most trends, the snatched look only harmonizes with some people, depending on their facial proportions.
So how do we know where to place our contour? We can tell by examining our facial proportions.
Dividing the length of the face into thirds can help. This is typically done by looking at the distance from the hairline to the eyebrow (top third), from the eyebrow to the nose tip (middle third), and from the nose tip to the chin (bottom third).
Makeup artists say makeup styles that balance the effects our facial features and proportions create will feel the most harmonious on us. For example, someone with a very long top third might feel their best in a makeup style that shortens the look of the top third, creating a balance.
This isn’t about correcting a feature or proportion. Instead, it’s about creating balance, which helps us highlight the beauty in our natural features!
Why would balancing our facial thirds highlight our natural beauty? It’s because the longest third of the face tends to draw the most attention to itself. When we balance the appearance of the facial thirds, we have the chance to bring attention to/show off the other parts of our face.
So back to cheekbone contour. Placing contour very high up on the cheekbone (that “snatched” look we mentioned), makes the bottom third look longer. That looks amazing on people with small bottom thirds. But it might not look as harmonious on people with very long bottom thirds – instead, they’ll look more balanced with contour placed underneath the cheekbone, almost level with their nostrils, because it makes the bottom third look shorter.
Tip #3: Forehead Contour Placement
Should you place your forehead contour on the top of your forehead near your hairline, or on the sides of your forehead? It depends on your facial proportions.
To examine our proportions, we’ll want to divide our face into thirds (see tip #2). Like we mentioned before, makeup artists say makeup styles that balance the effects our facial features and proportions create will feel the most harmonious on us.
So someone with a very long top third might feel their best in a makeup style that shortens the look of the top third, creating a balance. The opposite is true for someone with a short top third.
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Putting contour on the top of the forehead near the hairline, almost like a headband shape, shortens the appearance of the top third.
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Putting contour on either side of the forehead makes it appear longer.
Tip #4: Blush Placement
Should you place your blush on the apples of your cheeks, or extend it outward toward your ears and cheekbones?
What about ideal blush placement? Extending blush outward on the cheekbones draws attention to the outer portions of the face, and makes the face look a bit wider than it naturally is.
That looks especially flattering on people with narrow faces, whose features naturally avoid drawing attention to the outer parts of the face.
You can tell if your face is narrow by dividing your face into fifths (we’ll get to that in one second).
The width of one eye (the distance from your inner corner to your outer corner) is considered to be one “fifth” of the face. Eyes are typically set apart by the distance of one eye’s width. If they are set wider apart than this, they are “wide-set eyes,” and they are “close-set eyes” if they are set closer together.
Similarly, if the distance from the outer corner of the eye to the tip of the ear is wider than the distance of one eye, the outer fifths are wide-set. If they are narrower than the distance of one eye, they are narrow-set.
To simplify that concept, you can think of outer fifths as a way to see if the outer portion of your face, like your temples and cheekbones, is wide or narrow.
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Someone with narrow outer fifths would look amazing with blush that extends outward, because it makes the outer fifths look a bit wider. This complements a narrow face really well.
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Someone with wide outer fifths would want to put their blush on the apples of their cheeks. That’s because their face is already pretty wide, so keeping attention focused near the middle part of their face will look harmonious.
Tip #5: Eyeliner Placement
Does your eyeliner look better with a long wing or a short one? You guessed it — it usually depends on your facial proportions.
A long, extended wing usually makes the outer portion of your face (like your temples and cheekbones) appear narrower. That looks especially flattering on people with wide outer fifths (which we talked about in tip #4).
Extending eyeliner outward makes the eyes appear bigger, and therefore the outer fifths appear even smaller.
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Someone with narrow outer fifths might feel like winged eyeliner with a long flick looks a bit overwhelming. They’ll want to wear eyeliner that ends where their eyes do.
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So if your outer fifths are narrow, you might want to avoid a long flick. The opposite is true if your outer fifths are wide.
Tip #6: False Eyelashes for Your Eyes
Sometimes, we feel like our eyes need a little something extra after finishing our makeup. False eyelashes can be our best friend in those scenarios.
But as most of us who have tried them have found out, they can feel overwhelming or clownish if they aren’t the right size and shape for our eyes.
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Protruding eyes: Look at your side profile. Do your eyes extend outward past the edge of your eye socket bone? If yes, your eyes protrude. Extra-long lashes might look overdone, so shorter lashes are better.
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Hooded eyes: If your brow bone or fat pad covers your eyelid, your eyes are hooded. Shorter lashes prevent heaviness.
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Non-protruding/non-hooded eyes: Can carry long, dramatic lashes beautifully.
Tip #7: Makeup Color Selection
Imagine you’re trying to describe the color of the sky to a friend today. Maybe it’s cloudy, so it looks gray and muted. Or perhaps it’s sunny, and the sky is a crystal, bright blue. We can use the same words to describe the makeup colors that we wear.
We use three main characteristics to group and identify colors into color seasons:
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Temperature: Warm vs. cool
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Brightness: Bright vs. soft
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Value: Light vs. dark
Colors are grouped into four main color seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn), with three sub-seasons each, for a total of 12.
The Four Color Seasons
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Winter (Cool): Dark Winter, True Winter, Bright Winter
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Spring (Warm): Bright Spring, True Spring, Light Spring
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Summer (Cool): Light Summer, True Summer, Soft Summer
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Autumn (Warm): Soft Autumn, True Autumn, Deep Autumn
Wearing the right colors can make a huge difference. You’ll know a color is right for you if:
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Your skin looks healthier, more even, and radiant.
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Your features (eyes, lips, smile) become the center of attention.
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The viewer notices you, not just the makeup.
Takeaway: Know Your Proportions
Understanding what looks best on you individually can help you stop chasing makeup trends and start seeing your natural radiance.
If you want to find out what color season you are and learn more about your personal facial proportions,