Hair contouring: how to achieve the PERFECT look for your face

Aug 10, 2015

Hair contouring – yes, you heard that right. Hair contouring is the new beauty craze that loads of stylists have grabbed on to in recent weeks.

As we all know, contouring is an outline to bound and change the shape of something else. Gone are they days of using contouring on your face (that's so last year) as we see a new method which could change your face shape without even having to wear make up!

This optical illusion, which we can thank Kimmy Kay for, took the world by storm as every girl and woman tried their hand on highlighting and bronzing specific areas of their face to make them appear slimmer. All we have to change up is our bronzers for lowlights and shimmers for highlights.

The creator of the hair contouring method, hair stylist Marc Trinder, recently spoke to Harper's Bazaar about what it actually is and how to achieve it.

Marc said: "by using light and dark tones to create shadow and depth to the face, as well as applying colour in specific areas of the hair, you can completely alter either an entire face shape or specific areas".

So if you want to try the new trend here's a how-to guide on what suits various types of faces.

Round faces: Most round faces have really good bone structure so light tones are applied from ear to ear and around the hairline. Darker pieces are placed at the bottom of the ears and lower ends of the hair.

Square faces: Usually square faces have wider facial features so to slim that down multi-tonal layers of light and dark are applied to the corners and around the jaw line and temples.

Oval faces: Oval faces are one size fits all as they suit most styles and colours. So ovals, go crazy with your hair! You can accentuate it even more by adding depth with darker colour, thick texture and shine.

Heart faces: This face shape can sometimes look like an inverted triangle so to soften the overall shape lighter pieces are woven around the jaw line and ears.