Today you're in for a lengthy post. I'm going to review all previously unreviewed powder contouring products in my possession, both palettes and individual products, including those that are originally designed to serve other purposes, but I use them to contour or highlight. I limited my selection to typical highlight and contour palettes or powders, excluding highlight-blush-bronzer palettes.
The products come in order of my preference, though it needs to be emphasized that I like most items here and the highest positions belong to the most varied palettes, just because they're most convenient and practical.
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| Kat Von D Shade and Light |
I hesitated for quite a while which palette should occupy position number one and finally decided Kat Von D Shade and Light is the one. The main reason is that it offers more variety than its runner ups.
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| Kat Von D Shade and Light |
So, what makes this palette so special?
- It offers 3 matte highlighters, ranging in shades from a pinkish beige (Lucid), through a banana shade (Lyric) to a light peach (Levitation). Unfortunately none of these shades is fair enough to offer some serious highlighting on fair skin like mine, but they serve as nice setting powders.
- There are also 3 matte bronzing shades. The one on the left (Sombre) is taupey in the undertone, so it's perfect for contouring. The one in the centre (Shadowplay) is a nice bronzer which doesn't lean yellow or orange. The shade on the right (Subconscious) is too dark for me to use on my face, but it has turned out to be one of my favourite matte eyeshadows, which leads me to the next point.
- All the shades except the peachy highlight appeal to my taste and make a perfect palette of matte eyeshadows. They're pigmented, buttery soft, apply smoothly and blend like a dream.
- The palette itself is sleek and it contains a large mirror.
The only downside is that the powders are very soft and crumbly. The brush picks up tons of product, which first of all makes it possible to go overboard and secondly, makes the product disappear noticeably from the pan with each use.
Shade and Light is the winner because of its quality, versatility and colour selection.
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| Kat Von D Shade and Light |
Smashbox Step-by Step Contour Kit is a really close runner up.
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| Smashbox Step-by Step Contour Kit |
This palette is smaller, which also makes it easier to store and travel with. It comes in a black compact with a full-sized mirror and there's also a high quality brush attached to it, which I use every day.
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| Smashbox Step-by Step Contour Kit |
The pans are smaller than MAC blushes (MAC Harmony showed for reference).
The contour shade is very similar to its counterpart in the KVD palette, while the bronzing shade looks like the central one in the KVD palette or the one on the right in the ABH palette. The highlighter is more of a neutral beige, again, blends well with my own skin tone and doesn't offer much highlighting. This shade doesn't resemble any highlighter shade from the two other aforementioned palettes as it occupies the middle ground between peach and banana.
All powders are matte. They are drier and not as soft as those in the Shade and Light Palette, but they're more foolproof to use. Applied with the brush provided they make it possible for me to make my face look slimmer without looking too obvious. The downside of this texture, however, is that it performs better on the cheeks than on the eyes.
On the one hand this palette offers less variety than the six-pan ones, but on the other hand Smashbox has narrowed down the choice to all I ever need. The selection of shades is just perfect.
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| Smashbox Step-by Step Contour Kit |
And the third place belongs to Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit.
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| Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit |
Like Kat Von D Shade and Light palette this one contains 6 pans which are roughly the same size as Smashbox Contour Kit ones. The pans are removable and replaceable.
Similarly to the Shade and Light palette, this comes in a sleek, lightweight cardboard packaging with a magnetic closure. The palette is smaller in size, but it contains no mirror, which is a serious disadvantage, especially when travelling.
The quality of these powders is similar to that of the Smashbox palette. The powders feel dry and densely packed, really easy to use.
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| Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit |
How does this palette relate to its main competitor, the KVD palette? The peach powder on the right(Vanilla) has weaker peach undertones than its KVD counterpart. The banana powder Banana) is more yellow that the KVD one.
The one left (Sand) is a shimmery, flesh toned shade. It offers very moderate glow without icy sheen or discoball sparkle. I like having one shimmery powder among all mattes, it makes the palette more versatile.
I like the KVD contour shade more. It's is cooler and more taupe than Java.
The bronzer shade in the middle (Fawn) has no counterpart and it has strong ochre undertones. Not my favourite shade at all.
The last shade (Havana) here is fairly similar to the middle one in KVD palette, but since it's the darkerst shade in the palette I'm subconscoiusly scared to use this, even though it's just the same as the one I use daily from the Shade and Light palette.
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| Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit |
Next up are contour/highlight products sensu stricto, focusing on chiselling the face, not tanning.
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| Marc Jacobs #INSTAMARC in Mirage |
Marc Jacobs #INSTAMARC in Mirage is a gorgeous palette. Not only is the packaging a work of art, but also the product contained is top notch.
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| Marc Jacobs #INSTAMARC in Mirage |
The powder on the left is a light yellow shade which would offer a dramatic highlight on someone of Kim Kardashian's skintone. On me it looks very subtle. It's most similar to the banana powder from ABH. The one on the right is a cool-toned taupe that doesn't turn muddy or dirty and suits my complexion really well. It's similar to contour powders from Smashbox or KVD, but slightly darker.
The texture of the powder is close to that of the Smashbox palette, it's tightly packed so the brush picks a moderate amount of product without kicking up clouds of powder. A little goes a long way and the risk of ruining your make-up due to excessive use of this product is low.
The powders blend amazingly well and look natural, which is all I'm after.
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| Marc Jacobs #INSTAMARC in Mirage |
Next come some affordable powders, sold individually to be mixed and matched to create customized palettes.
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| Inglot HD Sculpting Powder #503 and #505 |
The first pair are Inglot HD Sculpting Powders. Texturewise these are very similar to the Kat Von D palette, soft and buttery, also the shades I picked upon the advice of the brand's MUA are strongly reminiscent of 2 shades from the Kat Von D palette.
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| Inglot HD Sculpting Powder #503 and #505 |
#503 is a slightly pink-toned light highlight which is a very close dupe of Lucid, perhaps ever so slightly whiter and #505 is similar in tone to Subconscious, but not as dark. It's a very pretty proper brown without ashy, mauve or ochre/mustard undertones.
This duo makes a perfect highlighting combo for my skintone. The products apply and blend just as well as the KVD powders, their main advantage is low price tag and the fact that you can mix and match the shades and curate your own palettes within their Freedom System. There are two more I'm eyeing, but first I'll need to get a new palette.
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| Inglot HD Sculpting Powder #503 and #505 |
Next up is a product which technically is a pressed powder, but because of its fair yellowy shade and ever so slightly shimmery nature this powder makes a perfect highlighter.
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| Inglot Pressed Powder #403 |
Inglot HD Pressed Powder in #403 is an excellent powder. It's super finely milled, soft and densely packed. The brush picks the right amount of product which goes on smoothly and offers a highlight which shows even on fair skin. I wouldn't recommend this powder for undereye area or for super dry skin types as this seems to be drying.
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| Inglot Pressed Powder #403 |
The camera failed to pick up the yellow undertone of this powder, the swatch is more reliable in terms of shade than the product in the pan. It's much lighter than the banana shades from Kat Von D and Anastasia contour kits and it's ever so slightly shimmery, but it's still in the same vein.
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| Inglot Pressed Powder #403 |
If the previous product isn't light enough to show on your skin, try Maybelline Fit Me Matte & Poreless which is also technically not a highlighter. When I was ordering this in shade #100 Translucent I thought this would be, well..., translucent. It turned out to be a fairly noticeable off white powder, which I cannot wear all over, but I found out that this is the only matte powder that really shows on my skin.
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| Maybelline Fit Me Matte and Poreless powder in #100 Translucent |
This powder, in spite of its drugstore nature, is a product of superb quality. It's soft and finely milled and never looks cakey. The fact that it helps me control the shine and conceal my pores, which is its another advantage.
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| Maybelline Fit Me Matte and Poreless powder in #100 Translucent |
If you're fair and have difficulty finding a matte highlighting powder, nothing shows up on your skin tone, this is the one for you. I love how it looks, blends and wears. But if you're hoping for a nice translucent powder, do skip this one or choose a flesh-toned shade.
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| Maybelline Fit Me Matte and Poreless powder in #100 Translucent |
And the two final products are the least favourite of mine which I hardly ever reach for and kind of regret buying.
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| Sleek Face Contour Kit in Light |
There is almost nothing wrong with Sleek Face Contour Kit in Light apart from the fact that I also got a similar trio by the same brand which is exactly the same, apart from the fact that it also contains a blush. I didn't know they were that similar, so I ordered both. I think it's obvious why I reach for the trio more often than for the duo.
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| Sleek Face Contour Kit in Light |
Objectively speaking, this contour kit is a pretty decent product. It contains highly pigmented, but blendable matte, cool-toned brown contour powder and a frosty light peachy highlight powder, which I don't quite like. It's too chunky-shimmery for my taste and too frosty for my oily skin.
The bronzer is similar in texture to KVD and Inglot powders, perhaps a bit less crumbly, while the highlighter is very creamy.
I must say a couple of words about the ingenious packaging. It's super sleek, compact, practical. It contains a full-size mirror, the plastic it's made of is sturdy and classy, the powders are in good proportion and size for every brush to fit in.
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| Sleek Face Contour Kit in Light |
I bought L'Oreal Glam Bronze duo on a whim. On the reverse it says it's#101 for blondes in Polish and #102 Brunette Harmony in English, I suppose it's the latter and the Polish sticker has been misplaced, and as you can see it consists of an ivory highlighter and a cool-toned contour powder. The bottom compartment contains a mirror and a totally useless brush.
The powders are the most tightly packed of the whole bunch. The brush picks up a minimal amount of product, which paradoxically makes it easy to use as it's impossible to go overboard.
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| L'Oreal Glam Bronze #102 |
First of all I don't like the packaging, which is so revealing of the drugstore nature of the product. It's shaky and unstable and the brush rattles in it's compartment. It's also impossible to use the powder and look at the mirror at the same as they come in different sections of the packaging.
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| L'Oreal Glam Bronze #102 |
I really hate the highlighter, but the powder is actually pretty good.
The highlighter is an ivory-lean-yellow kind of shade with shimmer and sparkle and what translates onto the skin is mainly the sparkle.
But the bronzer is really nice. It is a rather cool-toned sheer powder which may both serve as a bronzer or contour, however, I prefer it as a former. Similarly to The Body Shop Honey Bronze, this is a nice bronzer for fair complexions in winter. It offers warmth and shape without attempting to make anyone believe you've just returned from St. Tropez. Although there was a time when I was using this powder quite a lot, it shows no signs of being used at all.
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| L'Oreal Glam Bronze #102 |
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