This morning I got the opportunity to take part in something really awesome that select Sephora stores offer, I took part in one of their free beauty courses. These courses are offered to anyone who is signed up to be a free member of Sephora. To be a beauty insider, you simply need to sign up on their website or in store and you can redeem points for every purchase you make. These points can get you amazing rewards and once you've made it to a certain number you can even become a VIB (very important Beauty Insider) and they receive special deals with Sephora all the time. It's really an amazing program. Anyway, as I was browsing their website I saw that the Sephora near my house was offering a Contouring and Highlighting Class today, February 9th and I was super excited to get the chance to take part of this awesome course. Now, I went into the class knowing I would be blogging about my experience and telling all of you exactly what the in and outs of the program are. I did not mention that I am a beauty blogger until the course was drawing to an end so I got the real experience that any one of you would as well if you were to take one of these classes.
The class itself was two hours long and there were six of us who got to work one on one with some amazing gals. The women that were helping us included Alyssa, Yasmin, Denise, Stella and Kellie. Each girl had a different complexion, shape face and used different techniques so it was really a versatile program in which we, the students were able to find out exactly how to contour and highlight for our specific faces. It was a introduction to contouring and highlighting but the rest of the students and I were all varied in our knowledge on makeup. I really enjoyed how open we all were about our specific goals for the class. Alyssa was our main representative who talked us through most of the program and what I loved was that she constantly took the time to ask us exactly what we are looking for. She made sure to individually address our personal needs while still teaching a broad subject and I think we all broke the ice together when we admitted contouring and highlighting can be pretty tricky. I also loved the ethnic pool of ladies I was surrounded with. We were a group ranging from African American to latino and even had a gorgeous Asian gal. I like to mention the ethnic diversity simply because our face shapes depend a lot on our skin tones and bone structure and every ethnicity has certain attributes that we really learned about and focused on. I know the ladies with darker complexions were taught to contour with lighter colours to really define their faces and Jenn, who had Asian features really learned to elevate those cheek bones and define her round face.
One thing we had to clear up right away was which shape group we belonged to. The four basics were introduced - square, round, oval, and heart shaped and we all went around the room helping one another determine which category we fell into. I have a face that's a bit hard to categorise. We ended up choosing more of an oval face shape however, I do have heart shaped features as well. It can be really tricky placing ourselves in one distinct shape group because sometimes it's not that simple. We're all different and beautiful in our one ways and you can't categorise that. We then moved on to learning about the triangle of light which is used for highlighting. That's basically just the areas that you really want to elevate and pop out with a bit of a highlight. I openly admitted that my skin flaws cause me to hide away from highlighters a lot of the time because the shimmer in some just accentuates the texture in my skin. Alyssa and the girls understood right away and steered me toward only matte shades so that no shimmer or glitter would hinder my contour and highlight. I ended up using the YSL Touche Eclat in the Shade #2 and that provided just the right amount of highlight without being too harsh or too noticeable. Moving onto the actual contour, Jasmin found me a beautiful matte bronzer and it's actually the one I already use and own at home so it was refreshing to see I'd already picked out a bronzer that was ideal for my skin tone and complexion. I used the Too Faced Chocolate Soleil Matte Bronzing Powder and applied my contour using a Sephora Pro Precision Powder Brush #59. I fell in love with this tapered brush and something I had been struggling with for such a long time was which brush to use in order to get the ideal contour. This one has a long handle and a tapered flat brush that just applied everything so wonderfully. My only complaint would have to be that it did shed quite a bit which was bothersome. Something Alyssa taught me which I found super helpful was that we should hold the brush on the end so that we have a lighter hand with the product. I always feel like I'm applying too harsh of a contour and when I simply moved my hand down the handle a bit more, I saw an immediate difference. I contoured my cheekbones, forehead, brow bone, jawline and nose. That seems like so much work but it came out beautifully and slimmed my face, accentuating my features so much more. I even went in with a gorgeous blush to complete the face look. I believe it was Nars's Taos which was just the perfect cherry ontop of this highlighting and contouring workshop.
What did you think about this post? Would you want to attend a class like this too? Let me know, down bellow!
Stefanie xx
Ooh! Lovely post! I would recommend that next time you perhaps use one photo inbetween each paragraph cause it appears a little text heavy!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Eleanor from In Eleanor's World
Thanks for the comment and I'll take your feedback to heart (:
DeleteI would love to attend a makeup class at one of the Sephoras near my house! I should check into this!! I love reading your post, and that makeup looks gorgeous on you!! Beautiful girl! It's really nice that you actually learnt something that will be useful to you! :)
ReplyDeletexx
Alexandra | The A Style | Beauty and lifestyle
Alexandra, I really recommend it if there's a Sephora near you! Thanks so much girly (:
DeleteThis is a really nice subtle contour, I'm so heavy handed mine always looks ridiculous!
ReplyDeletewww.hmfjewels.wordpress.com
I am usually as well don't worry! Just try some of the tricks mentioned above and hopefully it won't be so heavy!
DeleteYou've done this really well and it really suits you, you have good cheekbones already but this has definitely defined them!
ReplyDeleteJust discovered your blog & am now following on BlogLovin'
Brunette in Louboutins -
BlogLovin'
I've been keeping an eye on the Sephora website for classes at the one nearest me, but I haven't yet seen one class offered! I'm thinking of treating myself to one of their classes for my birthday in April, and hopefully they can help my highlight/contour because I'm terrible at it. I absolutely love how it looks on you, I have to say. Like, awesome. It's great that their classes are so great, and that you had a pretty small group.
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