Nyx Blush Taupe

It's difficult to find a contouring shade for pale skin. Bronzers look too orange or muddy and plainly just unnatural as a contour. Nyx Taupe is a cool taupe shade, so a brown with grey tones. It imitates the natural skin colour in the shade and is therefore perfect for us pale Snow Whites (NC 15-20 or paler). It's more suited for those with cool or neutral skin tone, but plenty people of different skin tones say they love it. There is no warmth in this shade, it's definitely not a bronzer type of shade and it won't make you look more tan. I also tried it when I was much tanner (I wore Bourjois BB cream in 21) and it looked too cool in a sense that it was a bit too grey and draining, because my skin tone was much warmer than normal due to self tanning.

The texture is averagely soft and it's finely milled. Pigmentation is medium, however, it's better if you apply it gradually, slowly building it up, otherwise it can look too obvious, but you can really build it up. Finish is completely matte, making it perfect for contouring. It a really nice colour as a neutral eyeshadow.

Honestly, I not really convinced about contouring yet. I have been wearing Taupe every day for the past month and I'm not sure it contributes much to my look (or, you can tell me, based on the last picture). Granted, contouring can look amazing, however, I think it looks much better on darker skin tones, because you can really play with the light vs. dark to shape the face.

There are so many tutorials, but there are rare ones that focus on individual face shapes. I do contouring, highlighting and blush according to this picture I found on Pinterest, which is one of the rare ones that shows how to contour based on your face shape rather than just some general contouring instructions.

Source: http://data1.whicdn.com/images/117146246/original.jpg

My face shape is the second in the top row. I use Taupe to contour my cheeks bones, a bit under the jaw and on my forehead to make my face look less long. I don't contour my nose, because it makes it look really weird. I use the Real Techniques Contour brush which is perfect for such a task. I do a subtle contouring, so it looks like a natural shadow and you can see it more as you're moving and from different angles, rather than just have a dark streak on my face. I applied a lot in the following pictures for the purposes of this post, because I had such a hard time showing it up in the pictures, I do it much more subtle normally. This was my third attempt at trying to get a good picture where is would show up, so forgive the a bit fed up look.

How do you feel about contouring? Do you use contouring to shape your face? Thanks for stopping by.

Edit: I just wanted to share a review of my fellow Slovene blogger Petra (Adjusting Beauty), who has a warm (yellow) undertone and she's also fair. Nyx Taupe looks very brown on her and she can't wear it as a contour. This confirms my assumption that this is a shade best suited for those with cool or neutral undertone.