Contouring Your Nose

How to Contour Your Nose

Contouring your nose is to help you create your “perfect nose shape” and different techniques are used depending on if you want your nose to look thinner, shorter, longer or straighter.

There are many different nose shapes and different contouring techniques for them, just like my post, “Contouring Your Face”, which you can read here if you haven’t already. Nose surgery is expensive and or it’s just a scary thought. Why not just contour!

So lets get to it!

Wide Nose:

If you want your nose to look and appear more narrow, what you want to do is make two thin contour lines by the sides of the bridge of your nose. Once you have your lines done, blend them outward toward your cheeks to give that area a more diminished look. Add highlight down the bridge of your nose and toward the tip.

Long, Narrow Nose:

A long narrow nose has a very thin, narrow bridge. You can add thickness by highlighting two straight lines on both sides of your bridge and creating a thin contour line on the outside of the highlight to give it a wider appearance. If you want your nose to appear smaller, you can also contour the bottom tip of your nose giving it a shadowed effect.

Aquiline Nose/Bump on Nose:

If you have a bump on your nose, you can contour the bump so it will hide it, giving it that illusion of a smooth bridge. Add highlight in the dip above and below the bump.

Crooked Nose:

Rather than following a straight line from the eyebrows to the lips, crooked noses appear slightly slanted. To correct the shape, contour a straight line on both sides of the bridge and apply highlighter in the middle. Tip: Where ever the nose protrudes out is where you add contour.

Bulbous Nose:

If your nose is bulbous (with a thin bridge and wide-set nostrils) contour the very top and bottom of your nose and apply highlighter to the center of the bridge.

Upturned Nose:

Because your nose is turned up, the tip attracts a lot of light. To balance this, you need to apply a shadow shade to the end of your nose to lessen the effect of the turned up look. By adding a little highlight to the dip of the nose, this will flatten out the end of the nose creating a smoother, more even profile.

Triangle Nose:

Triangle noses tend to be wider at the nostrils and narrow at the top. You can create balance by contouring the tip of your nose and highlighting the top in the inner corner of your eyebrows.

Prominent Nose:

This nose shape is where your features are heavy and stick out more (Prominent) where the brows are by the beginning of the bridge of the nose, creating a shadow. You can apply highlighter in an upside down triangle between your eyebrows to visually “lift” that area up.

Flat Nose:

The bridge of your nose seems flat or undefined. To add definition and create the illusion of a more sculpted bone structure, contour in two straight lines on both sides of the bridge. Add highlight to the middle of the bridge to add definition. be sure to blend outward on the contour to give it the illusion of your nose appearing more narrow.

Contouring Tips:

There is a contour solution for every nose type and you may find that your nose type may fall between different categories above. Simply remember the rules and apply highlight to the parts you want to stand out, and shadow the parts you want to hide, then you can’t go wrong.

Have you had any problem areas that contour has helped you fix? If so, comment your secret tips below.