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JUL 25 2016

Finally Found It: the Perfect Contour Powder

As a lifelong beauty lover and writer, I’ve mastered most makeup techniques over the years. But the one that always intimidated me was contouring. Which is ironic because it’s one of the most flattering techniques you can use. It enhances and defines your facial features to create the illusion of higher cheekbones, a slimmer nose, a sharper jawline and an all-around sexier and more photogenic appearance.

One of the reasons I enlisted the help of green makeup artist Christine Jairamsingh was to overcome my fear of contouring (read about my green beauty makeover with Christine here). I asked Christine to use the most natural contouring product she could find and teach me easy contouring that I could replicate myself.

So what product did she pull out? Alima Pure Contour Powder in Sombra. As soon as I saw this loose mineral powder I knew it would be foolproof. It’s a finely-milled, matte powder in the perfect dark tan/brown shade: not too warm, not too ashy, and with a subtle golden undertone. It would flatter all fair to medium skin tones. Here's the powder up close:

How To Use It
Blend Sombra with a contour brush:

  • just under the cheekbones
  • at the temples
  • along the jawline
  • lightly down the bridge of the nose (and up the tip if you want to make your nose appear shorter)

…and that’s it.

It was so easy I couldn’t believe I had been avoiding contouring for so long. Christine’s technique of blending, blending, and blending some more, gave me defined features without looking obviously sculpted. This is me after my makeover with Christine:


I went out and bought Sombra the next day, as well as Alima Pure’s bronzer in Mauna Loa that Christine used on me during my makeover. There’s so much to love about this line: the colors are incredibly natural and blend seamlessly, the ingredients are high-quality and pure, and the price point in very reasonable.

Why I Love the Ingredients

  • Free of parabens, sulfates, synthetic dyes, phthalates, dimethicone, petroleum, talc, bismuth oxychloride, and nanoparticles. 
  • Never tested on animals.
  • It’s high-performance makeup made with pure mineral pigments, nourishing plant oils, and soothing botanicals.
  • Alima Pure also makes smartly designed makeup brushes from 100% cruelty-free Taklon synthetic bristles. The bristles are black at the base and off-white at the tip, to allow for precision product loading. For applying contour powder I recommend the AP Blush Brush or AP Flat Top Brush.

Equally smart is the packaging: Sombra and all of Alima Pure’s loose powders are housed in a container with a 180 degree twisting lid. This helps you control how much product you shake out as well as lock the container closed when you’re done. And it prevents the dreaded spills and mess that happen when loose powder comes traveling with you.

Kudos to Alima Pure for putting so much thought into every aspect of its products.

0.16 oz/ 4.5 g (USD $24.00) To purchase visit alimapure.com, and in Canada thedetoxmarket.ca