Smashbox Step-By-Step Contour Kit

I purchased the Smashbox Step-By-Step Contour Kit for $45 at Sephora and the Smashbox Website. I think the price is a little high for what you get but there is value if you use it as much as I do! It comes with three shades: Contour, Bronze, and Highlight. It seems like a standard contour palette but I find that I use this almost every time I want to contour or bronze up my face. 

It seems to be a trend in 2015 for companies to release products that focus on contouring including Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit ($40), Becca Shadow & Light Bronze/Contour Perfector ($40), Kat Von D Shade + Light Contour Palette ($46), Cover FX Contour Kit ($48), Marc Jacobs Beauty #Instamarc Light Filtering Contour Palette ($49), Too Faced Cocoa Contour Kit ($40), Nars NARSissist Blush, Contour, and Lip Palette ($59), Tarte Park Ave Princess Contour Palette ($34), Laura Mercier Flawless Contouring Palette ($50), Make Up For Ever Sculpting Kit ($48), and Becca Lowlight/Highlight Perfecting Palette ($42). 

As you can see, almost every company has released a contour palette/kit. Mentioned above, Smashbox also has cream contour sticks that were recently released called ‘Step-By-Step Contour Stick Trio’, which I do have my little eye on.

I think that the three shades in this palette work perfectly for me. If you have a light complexion, these might be too dark for you or you can simply use a light hand. Medium complexions might find this very useful but if your complexion is very dark then these shades might not make too much of an impression on your skin. My skin tone is light to medium (leaning more towards light at the moment because it’s winter) and these shades can be too dark for me but with enough blending they look perfect.

You can see that the packaging is very slim and houses the product in a space saving way. They also include a small sticker on the mirror (you can remove the sticker if desired) which can be a useful guide for people just learning to contour. The contour shade is cool toned, the bronze is warm, and the highlight is matte. I absolutely LOVE the highlight shade. It is perfect for those days when you want to lighten certain parts of your face but not put shimmer. 

This also comes with an angled brush that I see as very multifunctional. It is a pretty small brush but I think if you are in a pinch it could do all three of the tasks in this kit. It seems a little too big to use for highlighter but since this is a matte highlight it's hard to overdo it. The bristles are relatively soft but not the nicest cut I've seen.

I seem to have misplaced my brush but I found this photo via Google.

Sometimes I even use this shade as a base for my glittery highlights. It amplifies the look of any highlight I put on top of it, which I love. I also use the highlight to set my under eye concealer and I have heard that it is a dupe for the Laura Geller Baked Highlight in French Vanilla. All three shades are super easy to blend and stay in place until I take my makeup off at the end of the night.

My overall thoughts: if you have a light/medium complexion and are just learning to contour this is a must have basic!