It is pretty normal for Asian not into contouring their face, unlike Caucasian whereas contouring and highlight is a part of their makeup regime. I am certainly not into bronzing or contouring my face. I grew up in a beauty society that the fairer and brighter your complexion, the better it is. Which explains why Asian (and me) are into whitening products and highlighting / illuminating.

Many years ago I bought a blush + contour palette so I started applying the contour powder onto my jaw line. Well, that’s where I was told it should be. Let’s just say it turns out horrible when I looked into the mirror as I saw a huge brown patch from my jawline to upper neck. The rest of my face and neck are fair. So much so for trying to have a slimmer face :D. I don’t have a wide face at that time to begin with. But that soon was changed when I was diagnosed with a rather serious early stage of Hyperthyroidism. My face and body now are the result of 4 years of intensive medication. At this point of time I’m slowly recovering and gaining back my previous look before medication. It’s a painfully slow process.

Here’s a confession. I’ve been slacking off everything recently because I was hooked to You Tube. Gosh these videos can be addictive ya’know. I notice all the beauty You Tubers are into contouring their face with a bronzer. I absolutely love the after-contour look but I thought it looks weird especially on the side. One day while looking into the mirror in my office’s washroom, I thought my face and makeup looked flat. My curiosity in contouring was building up day by day and I wanted to give dimension to my look. I guess I was lucky because I have AUPRES Dimensional Face Creator #RD1 sitting in my drawer. That’s when all the craziness started.

AUPRES Dimensional Face Creator was launched a few months ago back in August 2013. I was one of the lucky one to get this palette a month before it was launched, thanks to a pampering event co-organized by MIVVA and AUPRES. This beautiful palette has been sitting in my drawer unused because I have not taken any picture of it. So once in a while I’ll take this out and admire the floral print on top of the blushes, highlighter and contour powder.

This palette is quite huge in size. It was housed in a shiny black outer box and comes with a black velvet pouch. Seeing a pouch included for a palette never fail to put a smile on my face. I think that it’s a pretty good gesture as the palette is smooth and shiny so a protection would be good.

The top part of the palette is opaque light pink with “AUPRES” printed on it while the bottom is a clear base. I can see all the powder residue that somehow managed it’s way and trapped underneath the pan through the clear base. Hmmm.

Well, hello there! :D. AUPRES is also known for it’s signature flower logo. Not sure what flower is this because I wasn’t at the brand launch last year but I like small details like this on a simple packaging. This is actually a button to pop the lid open. Just press and the lid will open up with a ‘click’ sound.

Unlike any other blush or eyeshadow palette I ever seen, AUPRES Dimensional Face Creator comes with a clear inner separator. This is not just a divider but it also close tightly, which is rather interesting or unnecessary and yet I wouldn’t mind this extra lid to prevent powder residue on the mirror.

So far I’m already liking what I see, especially all the extra gesture included 😀

A dual-ended brush is included instead of the usual single side brush as this palette is a contour, blush and highlighter all-in-one. Usually I don’t see these brushes to be at the best quality which often are scratchy and not working as it was suppose to, this AUPRES Dimensional Face Creator dual-ended brush however beg to differ. It is the most softest brush I ever felt. The quality is actually quite good considering no one ever gave out a good brush in a palette. Having said that, I only use the blush side of the brush for highlighter. I find the angled side are too small for me to contour. Anyhow you can still use it to contour the side of your nose 😀

There are four shades of AUPRES Dimensional Face Creator to choose from namely PK1, RD1, OR1 and RS1. The one I have on hand is RS1 which is the most wearable shade among all four in my opinion. The below shade description of each palette are based on my personal opinion. You are advised to head over to AUPRES counter to try out and choose the best palette for your skin tone 😀

PK1 – Pinkish blush with yellow-tone highlighter and lighter shade of contour.
RD1 – Pinkish coral blush with white highlighter and medium shade of contour.
OR1 – Orangey, coral yellowish blush with pink-tone highlighter and medium shade of contour.
RS1 – Fuchsia pink blush with silverish white highlighter and lighter shade of contour.

The blush is a tri-color blush which range from dark pink to medium pink and to lighter pink. The darkest color is the most matte and less shimmering of all three. These blush is super pigmented with good color payoff but far too powdery. You are advised to apply this blush with light-handed application stroke or else ended up looking like a baboon butt lol :D. I usually dip my brush on the blush instead of swiping my brush over so that my brush doesn’t pick up too much of the color. Color is definitely buildable, that’s for sure 😀

The highlighter and contour is matte and also powdery. For some reason the highlighter is less shimmering that the lightest blush color. But there is definitely shimmer bits in it. One thing I learn from You Tubers is that matte contour powder is the best to use when it comes to contouring. I don’t think so I have seen any contouring powder that are shimmering but if you have, just stay away from it. Or if you plan to use your shimmering brown eyeshadow…just stop. Shimmering powder tend to bounce the light back making your face look oily and swollen or bigger.

Now here comes the most exciting part. Face contouring :D. Although I have watched a lot You Tube videos but never once have I watch a video on how to contour the face. All these while I only went gaga over ready contoured face lol. A day before I contour my face with AUPRES Dimensional Face Creator palette, I You Tube (of course) for Lisa Eldridge tutorial video. I knew that I cannot simply just search for a video so I was hoping this famous UK makeup artist have done one and I was in luck. Hers was a complete and intense type of contouring, blush and highlight tutorial. I knew people would be staring at me if I were to do that to my face so I simplified the contouring and came up with my version of contouring *proud* :D.

Before I begin, let me just say this again. This is MY VERSION of contouring. It may not be the right way but it was 90% close and done according to my preference and liking. So don’t be judgemental ok? Makeup is suppose to be fun! 😀

(1) Prep your face with skin care, put all base makeup on follow up by eye makeup etc. You get the drill. Usually I’ll wait for a while for the base make up to set as I want to avoid the chances of sweeping off the base makeup. Take a fluffy brush. Here I’m using Definite Contour Brush. You can use any blusher brush. Just make sure it’s soft, fluffy and not too big. Next, suck your cheeks in and make a kissing mouth. Look for your cheek bone. Once you’ve found your cheek bone, swipe the contour powder along and a little bit below the cheek bone gently. My personal favourite way is to run my brush along AUPRES Dimensional Face Creator highlighter AND contour powder. This way the contouring is not too harsh and dark.

(2) Run the brush along highlighter and contour powder again and swipe the brush along the jawline gently. Then swipe up and down from the jawline to the upper neck, bringing the contour powder down a bit so that your jaw and neck is the same color. This also help to shape the jawline. At this point of time you can already see the difference on the jawline WITH contouring.

(3) It is also important to contour along the hairline. In my case both left and right corner of my hairline are more higher, leaving me with a larger forehead space. Usually I’ll do a “C” shape from hairline to my temple.

(4) I have higher nose shape already so I would skip contouring the sides of my nose or tip and proceed to blush. As I mentioned earlier, the blush is pigmented so I’ll just dip the brush on the blush and dip along the cheekbone line, just above the contour line. Once I’m done with dipping both cheek (with the same brush), I’ll run the brush along the blush to smoothen the application. I choose to use the same contour brush as the brush is smaller, softer and it works well for me. Take the dual-ended brush and use the brush to apply highlighter above the cheeks, nose bridge, cupid’s bow and chin.

Here is the Before and After. My contouring wasn’t an intense one because I’m not sure how people will accept the look but there is indeed significant differences.

The difference is more obvious from the front. My face is more dimensional, more toned looking and more lively. There is more color to it instead of just a flat fair face from the usual base makeup. My face is also a tad bit smaller on the jaw in real. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture that in the photo.

What do you think? It’s not a major improvement but I’m pretty happy about the whole dimension face look :D. Oh and another tip. If you contour too much and you want to tone the contouring down, just use a clean brush and smoothen the area out. Works everytime 😉

Disclaimer: Product was given to me as door gift during AUPRES X MIVVA Pampering Workshop. This doesn’t affect my judgement in the review in any way.