Fatima knows the art of contouring your nose

Anne Molope

APPLYING make-up every day when going to work or for shopping, is something that most women enjoy doing to enhance their looks.
But applying make-up for special occasions, events and weddings is a skill that one has to master, to make us look good in photos or on special occasions. Fatima Suara, originally from Ibadan in Nigeria, who studied Beauty at the University of Lagos, is a make-up artist who shares her tips on how to apply nose-contouring make-up. “Contouring your nose is the art of making it look straighter, instead of wider,” she said. “With a small angled brush starting at your brows, draw two straight lines down the sides of your nose using a powder 1-2 shades lighter than your skin tone. Connect these lines at the bottom, at an angle, between your nostrils. It should look like a downwards arrow.”
She discussed seven nose shapes and how to contour them:
• Flat: If you have a flat nose, the bridge of your nose appears flat or undefined. To add definition and create the illusion of a more sculpted bone structure, contour in two straight lines on either side of the bridge.
• Triangle: Triangular noses are much wider at the nostrils than at the top of nose. Create balance by contouring just the tip of the nose and applying highlighter under the inner corners of your eyebrows.
• Crooked: Rather than following a straight line from eyebrows to lips, crooked noses appear uneven or slightly slanted. To correct the shape, contour a straight line on both sides of the bridge and apply highlighter in the middle.
• Bulbous: If your nose is bulbous (with a thin bridge and wide-set nostrils), she recommends contouring the very top and bottom of your nose and applying highlighter to the centre of the bridge.
• Irregular: Irregular noses often have a small indentation on one side of the centre of the bridge. To correct an area that is indented, apply highlighter to it to combat any tell-tale shadows.
• Heavy: This nose shape features a heavy, prominent brow that creates a shadow over the bridge of the nose. She recommends applying highlighter in a triangular shape between your eyebrows to visually lift this area up.
• Narrow: Narrow noses have a very thin, narrow bridge. Add thickness to the bridge by highlighting in two straight lines on either side of the bridge of the nose. “The first thing to remember when contouring is, the more you shade, the more obvious it will look. I see women everywhere and on social media, and am automatically drawn to the middle of their faces because the contouring is either too harsh, too orange or too muddy, making the nose look more prominent and masculine, so most ladies should know the correct way of nose contouring,” she said. Fatima says the contour shade we choose for our nose must be lighter than the one we use for our cheeks and the rest of our face. She says whether we’re using cream or powder it always has to be a cool tone, cool tones mimic the natural contours and shadows of the face.
anne@nmgroup.co.za