The 13 Best Contour Palettes of 2024, Tested
Many People — Even Those Who Love Makeup — Associate Contouring with Cartoon-Like, over-Drawn, over-Exaggerated Features That Often Just Look Silly, Not Sexy...
Many people — even those who love makeup — associate contouring with cartoon-like, over-drawn, over-exaggerated features that often just look silly, not sexy. The trouble is, it’s not quite so easy to master the contouring technique without overdoing it, and there are a truly shocking number of neutral browns, taupes, and chestnuts out there that make selecting the right one for your skin tone as stressful as a high stakes game of poker. Now for the good news: Any worthwhile contour palette contains a range of shades within the same tonal family, presenting you with a one-and-done, versatile collection, explains celebrity makeup artist Vittorio Masecchia. “Our faces range in color, texture, and shape from season to season, but honestly also from day to day," says Masecchia. "A palette will help keep makeup looking cohesive no matter what variations you experience with your skin."
With guidance from three celebrity makeup artists, we curated a list of 24 best-selling contour kits, and our editors, each with a variety of skin types and textures, individually tested each one. We evaluated each contour palette for its color payoff, noting whether the shades were buildable or overly pigmented, how evenly the product smoothed across our skin, whether its texture and finish enhanced our natural features without looking overpowering, greasy, or drying, and lastly how easy or difficult it was to use the tools.
Best Overall
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette
Sephora
What We Love: The pearlescent formula provides a gorgeous contour and an all-over radiance.
What We Don’t Love: Its shades are initially very pigmented.
You didn’t read the description wrong: This is technically a finishing powder palette, but many people, including Kate Moss, love it as a contouring palette. Similarly enthralled, we loved how the three soft powders layered like magic on top of each other, making it easy to achieve a natural look or something more intense. And, they didn’t look patchy on top of our foundation, dry patches, or breakouts no matter how many layers we applied. We evened out redness and patchy spots with the lighter colorways and manipulated the darker shades to create depth and dimensions. Additionally, Hourglass developed the formula with photoluminescent technology which subtly blurred and camouflaged our skin imperfections and gave us a radiant, sun-kissed finish.
Formula: Powder | Number of Shades: 3 | Colorways: 3 | Key Ingredients: Diamond powder, mica | Finish: Radiant
Must Read
Best Affordable
e.l.f. Cosmetics Cream Contour Palette
Ulta
What We Love: The creamy texture buffs into the skin without much effort and looks great on its own or layered with other products.
What We Don’t Love: Perfect shade matching can be tricky.
This cream palette from Elf really simplified the entire contouring process. Even on our rough and bumpy complexions, the quartet of warm colors didn’t skip or drag the way drier formulas do (that’s what causes the dreaded “muddy” finish). We were super nervous that this rich and creamy formula would sink into the fine lines around our eyes and clog large pores, but, delightfully, it smoothed over these problem areas like fresh pavement. The dewy finish it leaves also means the creamy contours play well with other face makeup, so you can layer on your favorite bronzers, powders, and blushes to create a wide range of looks. While we had to mix the shades together to find our perfect match (even the darkest shade didn’t quite fit our skin tone) their serious blendability and natural finish earned our forgiveness.
Formula: Cream | Number of Shades: 4 | Key Ingredients: Mica, synthetic wax | Colorways: 3 | Finish: Dewy
