Contouring Makeup Tutorial Videos Grow In Popularity On YouTube

Contouring makeup video tutorials are crazy popular, especially ones like this one from GlamBooth TV on YouTube, which promises to teach others Kim Kardashian’s secret to glamorizing her looks with contouring foundations in a variety of colors. Amazingly, that video has received more than 14.8 million views on YouTube in the 10 months since it was uploaded the day before Valentine’s Day in 2014.

It’s not the only contouring makeup tutorial going viral on YouTube. A search for “contouring makeup” on YouTube returns results for plenty of popular videos that teach viewers contouring and highlighting tricks. It’s a practice that initially confused me when I saw the “before” pictures of women looking silly with light and dark colored foundations on their faces. But upon seeing the finished products, this reporter now understands why these contouring videos are so popular, because highlighting and shadowing the face with various makeup palettes can truly make a person appear like a totally different person.

As reported by the Daily Mail, celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kelly Brook have turned to their Instagram pages to share before and after selfies of themselves, showing the contouring process.

Indeed, using makeup to contour the face to look like Kim Kardashian is a lot less extreme than what British make-up artist Jordan James Parke did to look like Kardashian. As reported by the Inquistir, James Parke has undergone more than 50 cosmetic procedures in order to look like Kim.

The newfound trend of using multiple shades of foundation to contour the face has changed the types of cosmetics I see when I’m out and about shopping for new products in stores like Ulta. Whereas in the past, the foundation section generally featured one solid color per make-up compact, these days shoppers are greeted by contouring makeup kits made up of multiple shades in one compact, as can be seen when one searches for “contouring makeup” in Google’s Shopping section.

As reported by the Daily Telegraph, although Kim Kardashian may have inspired the latest popular round of contouring makeup, she didn’t invent the look. Contouring cosmetics have been around since the days of Max Factor, a cosmetic maven who created the contouring look for women who appeared in film so that their faces wouldn’t look too flat on the screen. With today’s emphasis on celebrities and everyday folks being celebrities in their own social media worlds, no wonder contouring makeup is more popular than ever.

[Image: YouTube contouring makeup video from GlamBooth TV]