Contouring in 4 Somewhat Unsuccessful Steps

Contouring. Interesting word! It's like... contortionists. In a way it is. The goal is to create an illusion of a more well-defined face. Sharper features, higher cheekbones, and every other impossible thing that every girl wants but doesn't have. Except for HER.

 Who the heck is she, you ask? She is Nazanin Mandi, the gorgeous girlfriend of my favorite singer, Miguel. She likes cats. She also happens to be a model. See those cheekbones, that narrow nose, and those sharp features?

Basically, the goal of contouring is to look something like her.

Now, this happens to be a VERY difficult task for me. I have inherited my mommy's Japanese cheeks. I have the chubbiest cheeks ever. My chin is not very well defined, and basically, I look nothing like the lovely lady on the left.

Okay, so here's me. I have tried contouring in 4 steps. I forgot that contouring doesn't show up well when you smile, so I accidentally took my non-contour picture while smiling. Oops. And then I look really scary on the other 3 photos. Oops.
Picture 1, upper left: No bronzer
Picture 2, upper right: Bronzer under my cheekbones, so that my non-cheekbone cheeks look receded, if that makes any sense
Picture 3, lower left: Around the edges of my face and on the sides of my chin. This part did NOT go too well.
Picture 4, lower right: On the sides of my nose, plus i blended out the bronzer from picture 3


For the sake of exaggeration, I used e.l.f. contouring bronzer which is a darker color than what I would normally use. I thought it would turn out better in pictures, but it looks way too harsh.

Anyways, extreme contouring is NOT recommended for unskilled people like me and should generally be left to skilled people and professionals. Yeah, I wish I had more angular features, but I just was not born that way and need to deal with it.

However, I find it really interesting that you can change the shape of your features with a swipe of makeup. Notice how my nose looks a lot bonier in the last picture? It's definitely something worth experimenting with, maybe with a much lighter bronzer.