Description:
This product is a dual-end contour stick by Black Up Cosmetics, which is a Paris based brand, whose products are intended mainly for black women. It has a lighter end for highlighting and a darker end for contouring, and comes in five different shades. They recommend that the lighter shade should be one tone lighter than your skin tone, and the darker shade two tones darker. The product is cream based.
Review:
This is such an amazing product. I use it exactly as intended, and it works really well. My shade for this is No 4, which matches me perfectly. The only thing I would say is that it does apply quite a lot of product at a time, and it can come off a bit oily sometimes, so I would recommend using a finish powder with this. I use Mineralize Skin Finish Powder by MAC in Deep. I did some research and found that most light skinned girls use this in Shade No 2, so I am pretty sure that No 1 would be suitable for normal Caucasian skin. I think some of their foundations can be used by caucasians anyway, but most of their shades are more suited for black women.
Worth the Money?
I think I bought this for about 8,600 naira at the Black Up stand in the perfume store at Palms in Lagos, Nigeria, and it is 41 dollars in the US, and 29 pounds from Debenhams in the UK. Black Up is a high-end brand, so I am not surprised at the price. I think it is definitely worth it for the high quality.
How I Use it:
I use the lighter end of the stick to highlight the middle of my nose, my forehead and underneath my eyes. I also have another product which I use to highlight underneath my eyes if I am not contouring, and you can read a review of it here.
I use the darker end to contour round my hairline, the sides of my nose, and under my cheekbones to make them more prominent.To find out exactly where to do this, you can suck in your cheeks and apply the product to the hollows of them. I then use Benefit's Miracle Complexion Sponge to blend it out in short dabbing motions, and I use a medium sized blending brush to blend out the product on my nose. I then finish it off with MAC's Mineralize Skin Finish Powder.
Please leave a comment giving your opinion on this review, and feel free to ask any questions.
