Your Face: How to Change Its Shape

Play up your good points, minimize the bad and proceed with caution. Too often contouring and highlighting is done with a heavy hand and the result is grotesque, but with extreme care much can be done with make-up to improve the basic shape of your face, eyes or lips.

First, face your problems — look at yourself in a really good light and work out the shape of your face, what you like about it and what you don’t. Next, look at your eyes — are they wide or close set? Narrow, protruding or too round? Do your lids droop or do your brows overhang? Are your eyebrows too heavy or an untidy shape? Now, your lips — are they too full, too narrow or uneven?

Take your face first and, using the principle of light and shade, decide what you are going to emphasize and what you want to diminish. The upper line of the cheekbone, the browbone, the temples, the ridge of the nose, the center of the upper lip and the center of the chin are all good places to try and highlight. A wide nose, heavy jaw and cheek hollows are places to experiment with shading — use a darker tone of foundation or one of the special contour powders or creams described as ‘face-shapers’. With both light and shade, use very little to start with and build up until you achieve the effect you want; this will take some time and a lot of patience.

Now eyes. If they are wide-set you are fortunate, but if they are too close together they will appear farther apart if you apply a deep, smoky tone of shadow to the outer corners of the eyelid, blending (Continued on under section…)

Changing the Shape of Your Face

Widen Your Eyes

Eyes that have too much lid showing should be colored across the entire lid, into the crease and halfway across lower lid and then blended as shown.

Widen Your Eyes

Eyes that are set too close together can be widened by drawing a triangular shape with an eye pencil from the outer corners, halfway across both upper and lower lids and crease. Then blend as shown.

Open Your Eyes

Eyes with little lid showing and lots of space and bone need a light eyeshadow on the lid, a dark line drawn in the crease than blended up and out.

Reshape Your Face

To slim the bridge of your nose take a paintbrush and a cream foundation of three shades deeper than your skin tone and draw a small triangle at the inner end of the brows. Blend carefully. To slim the lower part of your nose, paint a small elongated triangle vertically above the nostrils, then blend carefully.

To slim the jawline, paint a long wedge shape just above the edge then blend carefully. Use a cream foundation about three shades darker than your skin, but not a red tone. To raise the cheekbones, draw elongated triangles just below the bones, fill in and blend.

Balance Your Lips

If your lips are too full take a lip pencil and outline the center of the top lip, then fill in the center section of both lips, with a darker color lipstick than your chosen shade. Blend as shown in the drawing.

If your upper lip is narrow, paint a line with a pencil just over the top lip edge, fill in the upper lip with lipstick, and use a lighter shade on the lower lip.

it up towards the end of your eyebrow and just under the lower lashes. If they are narrow, try applying dark shadow close to the lashes, from the center of the lower lashes around the outer corner across the top to the inner corner. Smudge for a soft effect. If eyes protrude, they will appear less prominent if you draw a band of color right around the eye close to the lashes in a medium to deep shade. A pencil is good for this; smudge it lightly so the line isn’t too hard. If eyes are too round, elongate them by shading two-thirds of the upper lid (the outer section) and blending it upward to the brow and just under the outer corner.

Droopy lids will appear less sleepy if color follows the natural shape of the eye; widen the band towards the outer corner and blend it outwards and upwards, with a little color under the eye for balance. Overhanging brows can be lifted if you apply shadow from the inside corner of the eye over the top lid, then around the outer corner and bottom lid; smudge for a soft outline.

If you feel your eyebrows are too heavy and decide to pluck them yourself, take great care not to overdo it and remove a lot of the character from your face. Never pluck the top line and never cut them — only pluck from below, a few hairs at a time.

If you feel your eyebrows are too thin and sparse or too pale, use an eyebrow pencil. If it is depth you need, choose a brown or grey color, but if it is just added a line that’s required, choose a color to match your own brows. Either way, start near the bridge of the nose and work outwards, using soft feathery strokes and extending them slightly at the outer edge.