TikTok's contrast makeup theory promises a next-level glow-up

Let's talk about contrast makeup. If you're anything like me, you'll have already seen the trend blowing up the FYP with a method of applying makeup that takes in your features to work out the most stunning and effortless look for you. Sounds good, right?

What is contrast makeup?

In a nutshell, the concept looks at the contrast between your hair, eyes and skin tone to determine the best approach to doing your makeup. It centres around the idea of keeping everything low contrast and unified so that your whole makeup look works cohesively, versus one feature standing out. Depending on your natural colouring, there are tweaks you can make to keep things looking effortless. The trend was spearheaded by French makeup artist, Alieenor, who has created a series of TikTok videos on finding your contrast and even created a filter to help you work out what your contrast is. You select your skin tone level, then check it against low, medium or high contrast examples to work out your match.

Low contrast makeup

If you're low contrast, it means your features – your skin tone, hair colour and eye colour – are similar in tone, whether they're all deep, all medium or all fair. “When you have low contrast, you have more harmony on your face. Everything is less harsh, everything seems soft and very ‘the same’ because it's in the same grey-scale [if you were to look at the image in black and white],” explains Alieenor.

As for how to apply this to getting ready, it means you get to do that no-makeup-makeup look. You have very unified features already. If you do a really intense eye or lip look, that would become the focus of your makeup, which means you don't see your face as a whole, so it helps if you keep you makeup soft and in-keeping.

Medium contrast makeup

If you're medium contrast, it means your skin colour varies a fair amount from your hair and eye colour. For example, if you're hair is a shade or two darker than your skin tone or vice versa, “you're kind of in the middle,” says Alieenor. "Sometimes you have to tweak a little bit of your makeup to harmonise everything and have something that is a little bit less harsh, to appear more ethereal and natural,” she explains.

For medium contrast, it helps if you bring your cheeks and your lips into the look with a medium-toned blush and lip colour to unify your whole look. “If you don't put something on the lips and face, it can seem a little bit harsh, like you don't see the whole person, you see parts of the face. When you put a [mid-tone] lipstick on, it looks really nice, because [everything is] harmonised.”

She recommends: “Some blush action, some intensity on the lips (but not too much), some kind of a smoky eye. A little bit of intensity everywhere to make it look more unified and less harsh.” This helps to lower the contrast between your hair and skin, which is what makes the makeup look effortless and natural. “But as you can see, you don't have to do a full face with a lot of makeup. It can be quite subtle,” says Alieenor.

High contrast makeup

If you're high contrast, this means there's a big difference between the colour of your hair and eyes, and your skin tone. “Here, it's much more harsh. The contrast draws attention to certain parts. If you have high contrast, you are going to see the dark first, or the light first, depending on if there is more dark or light. When everything is is kind of the same grey, you see everything as very soft and very flowy and ethereal,” says Alieenor.

This could means having pale skin with dark hair, or deep skin with light hair (for instance, Beyonce's current platinum blonde creates a higher contrast than her usual honey colour, while Kaia Gerber's new darker brunette hair ups the contrast from her previous mid brunette shade).

To bring all the features together, it comes down to creating intensity with your makeup. High contrast girlies can afford to do a bolder smokey eye and lip. To bring together light hair with a deep skin tone, it can be a good idea to bring in frosted shades and lip glosses (Bey's been wearing icy blues and champagnes on her lids). For deep hair with a paler skin tone, it's a good idea to balance darker colours on the lips, cheeks and eyes. Alieenor mentions the Italian beauty look and French-girl beauty, which both feature softly defined eyes and colour on the lips – even if it's a diffused, just-bitten lip colour – as well as a tonal blush, as an effortless way to wear high contrast makeup.

For more from GLAMOUR's Senior Beauty Editor, Elle Turner, follow her on Instagram @elleturneruk

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