Review – Barry M Contour Sticks

Hello my lovelies,

So like every girl, I want defined cheek bones. However,  not everyone is blessed with amazing bone structure so a lot of people turn to the concept of contouring. When it comes to contouring I am a complete novice and really, I don’t know what I’m doing. I end up thinking it looks ok-ish but that’s about it.

I have seen more and more ‘contour sticks’ being brought out by brands recently. Now to me, this seems like a brilliant idea – to draw on where you want to contour & then blend – seems simple right? This is what I thought when I brought the Barry M contour sticks, how hard can it be!?

*I apologise, in advance the darker shade looks so much darker than it actually is – swatch is further down!*

I brought  this Barry M duo from Amazon, see here I brought them on a whim as I had never seen them before and I thought – why not, I wanted to try something out like this anyway.  I thought it was a cute set, a contour and a highlight – perfect!

I was so excited to use these because in my head I had imagined them to be this game changing product. I obviously have used this quite a lot recently to truly test them out and find out what they can and can’t do.

The Contour Shade

I was a little scared when I first saw the colour, it seems way to dark for my skin tone but I always say you should try everything once and I’m so glad I did! The colour is not as dark as it looks, its creamy and glides onto the skin. I didn’t feel like this took my foundation off which is my main worry with cream products but it just sat on top. I blend this product in using my contour brush from Real Techniques which I think works a dream!

The finished look of using this on my cheek bones is a nice glow, I wouldn’t say this is a subtle contour, but I guess you would just keep on blending until you are happy. For me, this is another plus because if you feel like you have put too much on its so easy to blend out. On the other hand, the product is extremely buildable.

I did try to contour my nose – ya know like all the professionals out there do, but it failed miserably. The bullet is way to round for this to give you a precise contour in small and specific area. Although this would may be annoying to some people I don’t actually care because I am not a contouring pro and I am happy to stick to just my cheek bones!

The Highlighter Shade 

I have never really got on with cream highlighters for the same reason as I mentioned earlier. Most of the ones I have tried have completely taken my base make up off and it looks awful. I was extremely skeptical but after trying the contour shade I was then excited to try the highlighter.

For me, this is not a highlighter. Even from the pictures on the back of the box to show you where to apply this is not a highlighter in my eyes. There is no shimmer, its very heavy and for me it doesn’t compliment the contour shade.

I was disheartened because I was so impressed with the contour shade, I tried so hard to like this as a highlighter but I just couldn’t get on with it. It annoyed me further that I had finally found a cream product that I loved the formula of!

Because of the colour I decided one day to use it under my eyes as more of a concealer after I had applied all my eye make up etc just blend everything in make all the edges sharper. To my amazement it worked! I was so impressed with what it did, it even concealed my under eye bags just that little bit more which was amazing. It didn’t crease and lasted all day!

I’m so happy that I can use both of these products and I really do love them. I don’t have much make up for Barry M but in recent months they have truly upped their game! I would highly recommend this duo especially if you are a contouring novice like me! It also taught me that if you aren’t happy with using a product one way, you should try it a different way because it may work out. You learn something new every day and I am so glad I persevered!

Let me know if you have tried these before or something similar – I want to hear your thoughts!

-A x