Contouring is a polarizing makeup technique, yet one that continues to increase in popularity. Either you master it, almost like a Kardashian, or you end up looking ridiculous. However, Sephora teamed with Map My Beauty for a new contouring app that hopes to make contouring easy for everyone!
Personally, I can't contour worth a you-know-what and I think that when you contour, everyone can totally tell you contoured. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm more of a fresh-faced gal myself. So I tend to avoid the products and the bronzer in favor of a little kiss of blush and that's it. I can't fake cheekbones, mmmkay?
Anyway, while the app might not help you achieve Kardashian-level of definition, and you may not want it to, the app does aim to teach you the often confounding contouring technique through a step-by-step process. Plus, it gives the selfie a purpose, too!
Basically, the Map My Beauty app offers personalized, not generic instructions. So yeah, it's all about you, you, and you.
Here's all the essential intel about the app, which eliminates the guesswork. If you were on the fence about enhancing those cheekbones, you're about to get some mobile support!
1. Virtual MUA
It's a virtual makeup artist that pretty much tells you how and where to apply your products based on the topography of your face and features. It's that customized and distinct as DNA.
2. No Cutting And Pasting
There are plenty of platforms that show you what, like, Jennifer Aniston's bob would look like on you or what Jessica Alba's lip gloss would look like on you, based on photos you upload. But those are pretty much cut and paste or "color try-on tools," where color is "pasted on your face without any specialized directions," as Map My Beauty founder Annabella Daily noted. Her app isn't doing that. It's offering step-by-step instruction.
3. Selfie Mania
Basically, you upload a selfie and your face shape and symmetry will be analyzed via proprietary technology. Tips are then dispensed based on your facial features. Cool, right? A selfie finally serves a purpose.
4. Upwardly Mobile
Links to products and the ability to post on social media or email face charts are other cool features of this app. Ultimately, it's fast. It's mobile It's personal. It's essentially millennial.
5. Other Cool Intel
Other pertinent details? Well, the app will live on Sephora's mobile site for the next three months. The beauty retailer noted that contouring is a growing category, according to WWD, no doubt spurred on by those Kardashians.
Sephora's Bridget Dolan told WWD that contouring "is an area where customers are often confused about how to replicate it. We don't want them to go home and throw the product in a drawer because the consumer can’t remember how the beauty adviser applied it. This literally shows, step by step, exactly where on the consumer’s face to add the product and how to apply it, and it’s also adaptable to the type of contouring consumers prefer — stick, powder, or cream."
Map My Beauty isn't stopping here, as Daily plans to team with brands and launch an iPhone app later this year. She is pretty much planning a beauty industry revolution, with "the first-ever beauty industry how-to hub in the cloud," with other product and face tutorials in the works, per WWD.
Oh technology! This is when I really crush on you!
So, who's going to try the contouring app ASAP? I did. It's pretty easy and very detailed!
You take a photo of your face with your hair pulled back in a pony.
You note your face shape. The app "argued" with me about whether I was oval or square, but I have always thought my face is/was squarish. It does offer the option to change your face shape after you take the photo for accuracy purposes. The app might actually teach you a thing or two about your face shape, so let it do its job. I am going to go back and see what it recommends for oval, too, because why not? Maybe I am more oval than I realized? TBD!
Tips, since it really does hold your hand.
Whoa! Those dots, though. I seriously feel like I can do this and make zero mistakes. Thanks, Map My Beauty.
The product recommendations are solid, too.
It's foolproof, really.
I love the tool suggestions, as well.
Arrows! Could they make this any easier?
Dunzo!
Images: Getty (5); Kim Kardashian/Instagram (1); Amy Sciarretto (9)
