The 3 Easiest Ways to Slim Your Nose

Beauty Thought Leader: Elise Marquam-Jahns

I love what I heard one person say recently. She said “noses are like annoying relatives—everyone has them!”

But many of us aren’t thrilled with the nose we see when we look in the mirror. Our nose is such a prominent feature that if we’re unhappy with ours, it can really affect how we feel about our looks.  

Ways To Slim The Nose:

But one of the fun–and wonderful–things about makeup is that we can use the smoke and mirrors of makeup to emphasize the features we love and to de-emphasize the features that aren’t our favorites. And since I’ve heard from many of you that your noses aren’t at the top of your list of favorite features, today we’re going to focus on three of the easiest ways we can transform our nose to make it look slimmer.

In the video I’ll demonstrate one technique to slim the nose using powder– which will work best for oily skin—although powder can certainly be used on all skin types. And the two other ways to slim the nose that I’ll demonstrate involve using cream products.

“Using lighter and darker makeup products creates the illusion of highlight..”

All three of the easiest nose slimming techniques I’ll be talking about and demonstrating today involve contouring. Contouring boils down to using makeup, lighter or darker than our skin tone, to change or enhance the dimensions of our face.

It can be used to make our cheekbones look higher and more prominent, our lips look fuller, our forehead look shorter, our face look slimmer and our nose look smaller. Using lighter and darker makeup products creates the illusion of highlight and shadows which is what allows us to emphasize or deemphasize certain features.  

Make Nose Contouring Easier:

Now I know just the mention of the word “contouring” can be a bit intimidating for some of us. It sounds like it could be complicated, perhaps harsh-looking, and time consuming. Not something we’d be comfortable incorporating into our makeup routine. But the techniques we’ll be using today create a natural soft sculpted look.   

The four things we need to make nose contouring easier are the right products, the right product formulas, the right colors, and the right tools. And of course blending well is the key to these looks—as it is to most of our other makeup looks as well.  

I’ll apply the dark contour in two parallel lines straight down the bridge of the nose from the eyebrows to just above the tip of the nose. And how close together those two parallel lines are will determine how slim our nose looks. The closer the two parallel lines are to each other, the slimmer our nose will look. Now the natural tendency is for us to make those two parallel lines wider as we go toward the nostrils. But we want to keep the two lines parallel to each other going all the way down the nose.    

Using Powder To Slim Our Nose:

Let’s first talk about using powder to slim our nose. Since I’m wearing Wet and Wild’s Photo Focus Matte Foundation in the video–which is a liquid foundation–my first step is going to be to powder my nose. I’m applying powder first because  a powder contour goes on easiest and adheres the best to other powder products. I’ll apply my Maybelline Lasting Fix Banana Translucent loose setting powder all over my nose area.  

The dark contour powder product I’ll use today is a long-time cult classic bronzing powder which many of you may have. It’s Benefit’s Hoola bronzer and I have a mini size in the original shade. This bronzer also comes in shades called “Light,” “Light Caramel,” and “Toasted” which is the darkest shade. Although this product is a little warmer in tone than I use, it has a wonderful soft and blendable formula which is why I chose it. If you have a neutral or warm skin undertone this will probably be a better shade for you than it is for me.  

Where I Apply The Powder Is Very Important:

The tool I’m going to use is a very old Clinique brush which is unfortunately no longer available. But any brush that is fairly thin with fairly soft bristles will do. And it doesn’t have to be angled. I’m going to dip just the tip of the brush (not the sides) into the powder a couple of times and then tap off the excess onto the back of my hand.

And where I apply the powder is very important. I’ll start next to my brows and create two parallel lines going straight down my nose. I can also make my nose look a bit shorter if I put a small bit of bronzer under the tip and slightly onto the tip. And if I want to slim down my nostrils, I can apply the bronzer along the very outside edge of the nostril and go toward the tip of the nose. 

The next step is diffusing the two parallel lines a bit and then feathering the bronzer a short way down the sides of the bridge of the nose. 

“For the second technique I’ll use a newer stick contour product.”

Next I’ll take a lighter color and highlight just the very middle of the bridge of my nose which will also help it look slimmer. I’ll do this with my Laura Geller Baked Highligher French Vanilla color. Now some people like to add a bit of highlighter on the middle of the nose and right on the tip, but it’s just my personal preference not to. And the final step is to apply powder to make the contouring look more natural. 

The Second Slim Nose Technique:

For the second technique, I’ll use a newer stick contour product. It’s Rare Beauty’s Effortless Bronzer Stick in the shade “Happy Sol” which is a light brown color with cool undertones. I’ve chosen this particular product because of the amazingly easy to apply formula. It’s almost effortless because it glides on so easily. And because I’m applying a cream stick contour formula over a liquid foundation, I don’t need to powder first before applying the cream contour.  

As before I’m going to draw two parallel lines straight down along the bridge of my nose and I will also slim the tip of my nose as I did in the first demonstration. For this next step you can either use a brush or your fingers, but I like to just gently diffuse the color with my fingers and also take the color down the sides of my nose. Then I’m going to take the foundation brush I used to apply my foundation and gently pat it along the sides of my nose. And the last step is to add a light cream contour along the very middle of the nose. 

This last technique is the one I regularly use because I find it to be the quickest and easiest for me. I’ll once again be using a cream contour, but this time it’s my favorite cream contour because of the color and the formula. It’s Huda Beauty’s Tantour Contour in the shade “Light.” This contour also comes in four other shades which all have cool undertones. There’s a “Fair” shade for fair to light skin tones; a “Medium” shade for medium to tan skin tones and a “Rich” shade for deep to rich skin tones.  

“You can also apply the light contour right next to the sides of the bridge of the nose.”

My Very Favorite Tool For Contouring:

The tool I’ll be using is my very favorite tool for contouring. It’s also from Huda Beauty and it’s a brush specifically designed for contouring because there’s a small tip at one end—which works wonderfully to contour the nose– and a larger blending brush at the other end to blend out forehead, cheekbone and jaw contouring. I’ll dip just the tip of the small end of the brush into the Huda Beauty Tantour Cream contour a couple of times and then tap it off a couple of times on the back of my hand so I have a little less on my brush. Then I’ll apply it in two parallel lines down the bridge of my nose and create the open V shape at the tip of my nose.

 And then since my foundation brush still has some foundation on it, I’m going to use that brush to blend out the contour along the sides of my nose.

And the next step is to apply a light contour cream down the center of the bridge of my nose. And if you want, you can also apply the light contour right next to the sides of the bridge of the nose.  

So these are the three methods I’ve found to be the easiest to slim the nose. I hope you’ll share any tips you have for creating a slimmer looking nose or what your favorite products are for contouring.

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