Like Kevin Federline circa 2005, highlighting and contouring are having a moment. You literally cannot escape them. They’re the Alcatraz of the makeup world right now.
The new Sculptionary Cheek Contouring palettes by Clinique have that highlighting/contouring trend in mind. Three shades, three jobs, one coordinated mission — to sculpt and shape yo’ cherub cheeks! They’re $32 each and available now in six oil-free shades at Clinique counters and online.
Use one of the mid-tone shades as blush for your cheeks, the deeper shades for contouring, and the lighter shade for highlighting. Or, mix them however you’d like to create a custom blush color for the apples of your cheeks.
I think these are really fun to mix, especially if you use them as blushes and highlighters…
I love me a customized cheek color! 🙂
Here I’m wearing the Defining Nectars palette. I mixed the mid-toned and darkest shades together by tapping my brush back and forth between the powders. Then I swirled the powder on the open lid to mix them together (you can also do this on the back of your hand or in your palm) and applied the combined color to my cheeks as a blush. Then I cleaned off my brush, loaded it with the lightest shade and swept that on my cheekbones to highlight.
If you’re going to be mixing these, I think it’s important to use a small face brush because the individual pans are pretty petite (the entire palette fits in the palm of my hand). I like the Contour Brush by Real Techniques; it’s small enough to pick up the colors separately.
As for contouring, I probably won’t be using these palettes to do a true contour as all of the darkest shades have shimmer, which really doesn’t do a lot in terms of chiseling my cheeks. Plus, I’m kind of afraid of things looking a little too ’80s with the colorful contour.
Totally go there if it’s your thing, though. You do you! That’s one of the things I love about makeup. 🙂 There’s an endless number of ways to interpret a look.
The 3 shade combos are really pretty, but yeah I don’t see them working for actual contouring. They remind me of Revlon Sculpting Cheek palettes from a few years ago that I really liked.
Boy, I love the way you set these up, but I couldn’t imagine ever actually wearing them. Nectars looks so cute and natural though, especially with you wearing it.
Defining Nectars is totally calling my name! ‘Wear me, Melissa! Drink from my sweet nectarzzz!’
The cheek color combo looks really beautiful on you! When I saw the photos of these I also thought, no way would I use that for contouring. As a blush and highlight, though, I think they’re very nice! I also laughed out loud when the first sentence I read brought back the memz of Kevin Federline. Completely forgot about that guy, haha.
I think these would be great blushes, but I am with you on the sculpting thing- how do you sculpt with orange or pink shades?
Such pretty colors, but I agree with you that the darkest shades would be a little bit too 80s for contouring.
You look so radiant, Karen!
I like the look of all three but I’m not sure why they named them that way cause these look like blushes. Defining Nectar looks like the perfect summer shade.
I would have mistaken them for blushes if you hadn’t told me they were for contouring.
These are like the 90s blush palettes that had three versions of the same shade: Light for highlighting the cheekbone, medium for cheek color, and dark for contouring under the cheekbone.
I actually purchased one when they first came out and I returned it last week. For $32, these are nothing special. I would rather have a nars blush 🙂
I really like the cheek pops from clinique so I think I’ll pass on these. Clinique has been releasing so many new products it’s hard to keep up.