Glo Minerals recently sent me their new Contour Kit (along with their Contour/Highlight brush) and it has already wiggled its way into my everyday routine and is now my new favorite, super time-saving product! I feel like there's no going back to the way I did things before finding this little gem. I think that all makeup lovers can agree that the list of products we can't live without gets a little longer as we fall in love with more and more makeup products. I fell in love with the Contour Kit because of the quality of the powders, sleek and slim packaging, and shade range. I own the medium to dark Contour Kit but glo Minerals also makes one for fair to light skintones (check out a review from Smoke and Mirrors Beauty!). I think there are shades from both palettes that any skintone can use.


These powders have a buttery, fine-milled texture and good pigmentation without being too intense, which makes it easy to blend. The powders are buildable so you can create a soft, subtle look to enhance features or you can create a more intense look with the illusion of chiseled features. This helps to make contouring and highlighting foolproof. The blendability also makes the Contour Kit a great product to use as eyeshadow and already has the perfect colors for an everyday look—yet another reason I love this product!

Highlight is a matte shade with yellow undertones. I like to use it to set my undereye concealer by applying it in a triangle from the top of my cheekbone to the side of my nose. Extending it to those areas (instead of only under the eye) will help to prevent a reverse racoon look and keep things natural and blended. I also place it on the arch of my brows to define them and make my face look more lifted and awake. If you want a super chiseled face you can also apply a little bit of this shade underneath the contour of your cheeks to create a more defined line, but make sure to blend!

Shimmer Hightlight is a golden champagne shimmer that I mainly use to highlight the top of my cheekbones for that 'lit from within' glow. I also like to use it on the inner corner of my eyes (or all over the lid) and on my cupid's bow. I like how this shade isn't too glittery but it still packs enough punch to try out the new Strobing trend.

Contour 1 is a cool toned brown that has a hint of gray to it (but not so gray that it makes you look like a skeleton). This kind of shade is what you want to use to contour your face because it mimics a natural shadow. I use it to contour under my cheekbones, which you can easily find by making a fish face or by placing your index finger in the hollow of your cheeks. This is also a good shade to use if you like to contour your nose.

Contour 2 is a warm toned brown that looks a little orangey compared to Contour 1. I use this to warm up my face and place it on my cheeks above the Contour 1 shade while keeping it below my cheekbones. This adds enough color to my face that I sometimes skip blush altogether. I also like to sweep it around my temples, hairline, and jawline.

The basics of contouring and highlighting is that you want to create shadows where you want to define your bone structure and add light to features you want to draw attention to. These areas can vary from person to person depending on face shape and facial features so just play around until you find what works for you! If you are like me and learn better from visuals you can consult the directions printed on the inside of the Contour Kit and watch this Youtube video tutorial from glo Professional.


If you thought things couldn't get better than the Contour Kit, here's some more info for you—glo Minerals also came out with a dual ended Contour/Highlight brush designed to work perfectly with the Contour Kits! The Contour end of the brush is a slim, round brush that fits perfectly in the hollows of the cheek. You can load product onto the tip of the brush for a sharp contour or you can use the roundness and softness to blend it out for a subtle contour. The Highlight end is a flat, dense brush that works well for setting undereye concealer with a matte highlight powder and creating precise lines for both contour and highlight. I learned some great tips on using this brush by watching the Youtube video that I mentioned earlier.

Both of these products can be found on http://www.gloprofessional.com/, where the Contour Kit sells for $36 and the Contour/Highlight Brush sells for $29. Both of these products are great items to add to your collection, whether you're a beginner or professional. I have been working at a spa that carries the glo Professional line for almost five years and have discovered some amazing products that I now use everyday, so it was no surprise to me when I fell in love with this one!

 

 

 I have wanted to try out the orange lip trend without spending too much money so this was the perfect chance to get the shades Free Spirit and Morocco. I'm not sure how I feel about the High Voltage Lipsticks because this shade really clung to the dry patches on my lips when I tried it on but maybe I needed to prep my lips better. This is my first Intense Butter Gloss but it swatched very nicely and the shade Toasted Marshmallow is such a unique mauvey purple shade. And I already know that I love the soft matte lip creams (check out my review here). These three items normally retail for $5.99 each but cost $3.59 during this sale.

 

 

My collection of highlighters is pretty small so I wanted to try out this peachy gold shade called Narcissistic from Nyx. It isn't very pigmented but I prefer a more subtle glow anyway. This Nyx Illuminator normally retails for $8.99 but I got it for $5.39.

 

 

Another thing that I don't have much of in my makeup collection is brow products. I have naturally thick brows and don't want to make them look too crazy but I love how this brow mascara will tint my brows to make them stand out a little more while also keeping the hairs in place. The Nyx Tinted Brow Mascara normally retails for $6.99 but cost $4.19 on sale.

 

This is a product that I already own but I wanted to get a darker shade for summer. I love how this foundation gives me a flawless coverage and finish and lasts me all day. I really wanted to get the Infallible Pro Setting Spray but the bottles they had left looked like they were already used. This foundation normally retails for $12.99. I also got an additionally 20% off since this product was the most expensive thing that I purchased today so I got this for $6.23.

 

Happy Independence Day to everyone! I hope all of you have a great weekend! XOXO -Jessie

• Flawless Foundation: This brush is great for applying liquid foundation and quickly blending out my cream contour.
• Beautiful Blush and Bronzer: It's perfect for blending out cream blush but a little too dense for powder blush unless you want to look like a clown. This brush kind of reminds me of a bigger, angled version of Real Technique's Expert Face Brush, so it may work well with liquid foundations too.
• Fierce Foundation and Powder: This brush applies liquid and powder foundation perfectly (better than the Flawless Foundation brush)! I like to use this brush to buff my foundation on. It applies product quickly without absorbing too much, giving me great coverage. No brush strokes from this one! This brush is a good dupe for Sigma's F80 Flat Kabuki, which has a denser, shorter brush head with softer bristles (pictured on right).
  
• Perfect Precision: I use this brush to blend out concealer/highlighter with a tapping motion but sometimes the bristles feel a little sharp/pokey. I also unfortunately had lots of shedding with this one. A makeup artist friend of mine loves this brush so maybe I should wash and condition it to make it softer and try using it again.
• Magic Mineral Blending: I like using this brush when the only foundation I'm wearing is powder. The dense and round brush head gives good coverage but it takes longer to apply than a big fluffy kabuki brush.

(Brush descriptions from left to right)

• Perfection Contouring: I like using this to blend out cream contour when using my Nyx Wonder Stick. It takes longer since the brush is so small but it keeps the contour defined without being too harsh. The brush head is small, angled, and round.
• Precision Contouring: The brush head on this one is small, angled, and flat. The bristles are a little too long and flexible for me. I tried it with contouring and didn't like it and can't find the best way to use it. It's a little similar to the Sigma P88 Precision Flat Angled but the P88 is a lot better with a denser, wider, and shorter head (pictured on left).
  
• Precision Concealer: I didn't think I would like this brush because the bristles are long and the brush head isn't very dense, making the bristles very flexible, but it blends concealer out very nicely.
• Precision Primer & Shadow: This one seems like a good dense crease brush but for some reason whenever I try to use it, it always makes my eyes itch and the bristles  are a little on the rough side.
• Mini Perfect Precision: It kind of annoys me that there is a typo on this brush (it says "Percison" instead of Precision). This one is way too pointy and dense for me. I haven't figured out a good way to use it. But the description straight from Bellangé says that this brush is good for discreetly brightening up under eye area.

This 10-piece kabuki brush set retails for $19.99 on Amazon but with their Love Your Look money back guarantee, you can return your Bellangé makeup brush set within 30 days for a full refund, hassle-free if you are not satisfied with their product. I think this is a great way to add variety to your brush collection, especially if you are a makeup artist. With the exception of the Perfect Precision brush, they are all very soft with no shedding. I would (and already have) recommend purchasing this set even if it's only for the bigger kabuki brushes.

I would ask you what some of your favorite brushes/brush sets are but I don't want to get tempted to add any to my collection for a while so instead leave me a comment telling me how you clean your brushes, maintain the quality, and store them. I've started noticing dust settling on some of my less loved brushes so I am going to change how I store them soon. XOXO- Jessie