Makeup Artist credit: Alex Box for Issey.

"Wait! What?! Did I read that correctly?"

This might be your reaction right now. Yes, you read the title of my blog correctly and there's nothing wrong with your eyesight. If by the end of this year someone asks me to review what were the best things that happened in 2015, I would gladly tell them about how the contouring trend was replaced with the 'strobing' trend.

What is that you ask?

Well let me first clarify, and simultaneously ease your worries, that this new trend called 'strobing' is nothing new at all; it is just the good old highlighting that most of us have already been doing, but I assume that the beauty industry is hooked on giving it a fancy name because of which it has been highlighted recently (no pun intended).

Let me review contouring and state that it is done to give a chiseled look to the face and it received a phenomenal amount of attention because people saw some prominent Hollywood beauties carrying that look like it was nobody else's business, and while i'm not sure about the origins of when the Instagram artists started to do that but one also got to see the contouring trend being ubiquitous on there too. Needless to say, all the contouring looks did give a glamorous appeal to the face and eventually makeup artists and girls in Pakistan also got hooked to it. So, contouring has been in the limelight for quite a while and for good reasons, but now the international beauty community is apparently saying that it should take a side.



Turns out, contouring is not for everyone because most girls who are not trained or naturally good at applying makeup, find it difficult to do and quite frankly, they despise contouring. This is where the new, more natural and fairly easy cousin of contouring called strobing is coming in and catching all the attention; the only thing is, that it has been there forever but just got a revamped name.

Like I stated above, strobing is basically highlighting and it is an easy way to bring out attention to the high points of your face. The simple steps are that you put a highlighter on the high points of your face which are your cheek bones, bridge of the nose, forehead, temples and some on the chin to give you an illuminated look. It really is the final step I do in my work as a face painter to give a natural looking radiant touch to a look.

But behold! Strobing or highlighting can only look natural if you know how to control using too much highlighters, so I would say that a basic understanding of makeup is necessary to be able to pull of this look the best way i.e. to give natural looking radiance.

Also, it might look a little less maintenance but there are important things to keep in mind:

• it helps if you already have a near perfect skin but I've done this on people with a problem skin but after using tons of medium coverage foundation. 
• some highlighters while being really good at their jobs are a lot less pigmented and they might not work on a heavy duty foundation as opposed to a lighter coverage foundation. 
• highlighting is half the part of contouring, but the one this strobing trend talks about is highlighting that is done naturally and to put a spotlight on the areas of the face that naturally catch light and is perfect for a dewy look.
• also, I have nothing against contouring but I think one doesn't always need to blindly follow trends to fit in. 

My quick quide to picking the right red lipstick shade according to your skin tone.

It's beloved in Hollywood and Fashion; and for pretty much any occasion, a red lipstick instantly adds glamour and a pop of color to a girl's face. Without red the color family is bland and without a gorgeous red lipstick, a girl's makeup stash is totally incomplete!

We might be in the habit of buying and stocking on cosmetics, but amidst all that collection, we are unaware that all of our makeup has a shelf life. In fact, chances are that the mascara you applied today had expired a couple of months ago. 

I posted a guide on my Facebook page that showed the usual makeup products that every person owns and what their average shelf life is. I am posting the same guide here too: 


Of course these are not the only products that have a shelf life. Other beauty products such as moisturizers and even nail polishes have expiration dates. All these products usually don't have an expiration date specified on their packaging like food products do, but they in fact go bad just like an expired milk would, and there are signs through which you can know when its time to toss away a certain makeup product. 

First is to go through my 'Makeup Expiration Guide' posted above as well as on my page as it shows the shelf life of each makeup product. For instance, if you have had your liquid foundation since 3 years, you know now that it's time to let go of it.

Second, unlike food companies, it's not a standard procedure for cosmetic companies to specify an expiration date on their products. However, some do mention these dates by printing the date, month and year on a product's packaging while some have a symbol of a jar with an open lid and it will have the expiration date written inside it. It's possible that you might have paid attention to this symbol before:

It's a cute little symbol isn't it? Now let's decipher it:

It will show the Batch No, Manufacture Date and the Expiration Date.

Third, if the expiration date has not been printed, then there are obvious signs through you which you can figure out when it is time to stop using and throw away a makeup product. Get your trash can ready:

MAC has created a lot of varieties in its foundations that (1) give a particular coverage and finish you desire and (2) to match the different skin shades and skin undertones people have. Now before buying any foundations, be it from MAC or any other brand, it is imperative for you to know your skin type, skin undertone, skin shade and the kind of coverage and finish you want. Don’t know what all of this means? Worry not and just read on.

Hi, my name is Tooba Shah. Since many years I kept dreaming about being a makeup artist because I absolutely love the art and skill makeup artists have on their finger tips! Thus, after graduating from university, I went to London to get professionally trained in makeup artistry, returned to my country after successfully completing my course and have been happily freelancing since then. It is my expertise in all kinds of makeup artistry as well as being asked daily for makeup advice that has lead me to start writing about it on an open platform for all you beautiful women out there to indulge in! So you know, it'll be a mistake to not read my blog, hehehe. I hope you enjoy reading my blog and feel free to contact me for any queries.