Hair Contouring: Shape your face with your mane

A trip to the hairdressers used to be straightforward. A cut, wash, blow dry, maybe some colour. Step into a hair salon these days and you’ll be hard-pressed to just pick one style or treatment. And now, adding to the range of styles you can get from your hair stylist is hair contouring.

Inspired by the likes of Kim Kardashian & co, hair contouring is used to create an optical illusion around your face to define the cheekbones, jawline and nose. With highlights and lowlights in the right places, hair contouring will bring out the best of your features based on your face shape.

Here we have Steven Laudat, France Aveda Educator to give us a few tips to get started on this latest hair trend.

For oval faces

(Jessica Alba, Blake Lively, Kylie Minogue…)

Considered the perfect face, this shape can carry off almost any colour. So easy peasy you guys.

For round faces

(Drew Barrymore, Kirsten Dunst, Kelly Osbourne…)

The goal here is to refine the face. Let’s just clear up the roots and create a contrast to give an impression of  ‘lengthening’ the face. Dark tones work well in the interior (i.e., the ears) but you can still wear lights colours around the face for softness.

For long faces

(Sarah Jessica Parker, Liv Tyler, Gisele Bundchen…)

Conversely, the aim here is to ‘shorten’ the face. Choose a stronger colour that’s more pronounced at the roots and have the ends lightened.

For square faces

(Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Natalie Portman…)

To soften your features, alternate between brighter colours at the temples and keep it darker at the jaw level. As for the roots, keep them natural.

For heart shaped faces

(Kate Moss, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson…)

In order to rebalance the face, you can put small touches of light around the face and keep the roots darker.

Morgane Klein Forest & Karen George

Photo Credits:

Drew Barrymore: Pinterest via Lorena VR

Jessica Alba: Pinterest via Manelle B 

Reese Witherspoon: Pinterest via Alexandra M