‘Non-Touring’ Or ‘Strobing’ Makeup Trend: Highlighting The Face Replaces Contouring

The makeup trend known as “strobing” or “non-touring” has been touted as a style on the rise that replaces the contouring craze, as reported by The Inquisitr.

As reported by ABC News, contouring is a makeup style that has gone the way of 2015, with its heavy and dark foundations used to contour the areas close to the hairline, chin, and neck. Then contouring entailed placing lighter-colored foundations or concealer on the cheeks, nose, forehead, and areas that light would naturally hit. However, contouring can take plenty of time — up to 30 minutes or so for those who aren’t pros at contouring their makeup. Also, those who don’t know how to blend the contouring makeup well will end up with older looking skin.

Strobing, however, doesn’t focus on contouring the face. Instead, strobing encourages a soft, dewy, and younger look by placing highlights on the tops of the cheeks and the inner portions of the eye area to offer a freshened look. Because it’s not contouring, it is being called non-touring. Strobing doesn’t use heavy dark colors in order to fake a person’s face to make it seem thinner than it is — and as such, it requires fewer amounts of cosmetics. Instead of a big palette with lots of dark colors and light colors, the strobing technique uses just highlights in order to mimic the places where light normally hits a person’s face.

No longer needed are dark colors to stroke beneath the cheekbones or on the sides of the nose in order to slim the nose. With strobing, a dewy appearance is achieved with the highlighting cosmetics a person might already own, like a shimmery cream to illuminate the visage.

Whereas Kim Kardashian is largely credited as the one who brought contouring to the masses, her sister — Khloe Kardashian — is one of the celebrities rocking out the strobing look. Jennifer Lopez and supermodel Gigi Hadid are also other famous faces that have sported the strobing look, with plenty of others who post their DIY strobing tutorials on YouTube and Instagram.

On Instagram, the #strobing hashtag enjoys a whopping 140,193 posts, with lots of before-and-after shots showing folks how a “strobed” versus “non-strobed” face appears.

With strobing, there is a concentration on products of a creamy nature and powder that’s weightless and not heavy. Those highlighters are applied beneath the eyebrows, in the inner corners of the eyes and the middle of the forehead. Strobing also applies those dewy highlights to the cheekbones and other prominent parts of the face, like the little “tick” on the upper lip, the nose, the chin, and everywhere light would hit to radiate the face.

Contouring, which was more about shaping and correcting facial features, is being viewed as old hat and harsh.

Since some older skin has been known to become drier, strobing offers the perfect solution for those who want to sport a moisturized and younger look that contouring can’t necessarily provide.

Comparisons of strobing versus contouring have been made in side-by-side photos of celebrities wearing both makeup styles. While some prefer the glammed-up and harsh look of contouring, others say the natural look of strobing provides a more realistic fashion trend.

One advantage of strobing over contouring is that it avoids the look when certain celebrities have been photographed in an unflattering light that shows their failed attempts at contouring their faces and cleavage when the contouring wasn’t well-blended.

In order to recreate the strobing look, first a corrective concealer can be dotted beneath the eyes to remove imperfections. Then a primer can give one a luminous finish. Next up, a light BB cream or tinted moisturizer can be applied, followed by a highlighter that’s right for your skin tone.

Strobe Or Strobing: The Make-Up Trick That Makes You Look Younger

[Image via Shutterstock]