I have seen the Australis AC On Tour Face Contouring and Highlighting makeup kit around in John Little stores and Watson’s atrium events in malls every once in a few months. I know this product isn’t new in the market but I’m not really the sort who jump into products as soon as they roll out. Anyway as a makeup junkie I picked it up in a whim one day when I decided to give it a shot.

Face Contouring Makeup Palette by Australis AC On Tour

 

Packaging

I’m not crazy about the packaging because at times the thin casing makes it a little hard to open without you feeling like you’d break it. The biggest problem I have with the packaging is that it doesn’t come with a friggin’ mirror! Why would you want to waste that huge space at the back of the lid huh? huh? huh?  I’d gladly pay a little more for a mirror. But then perhaps they too think that the casing was a little too flimsy to house one.

Price

The Australis AC On Tour Contouring & Highlighting palette retails at SGD$24.90 at, you know where if you read me above. John Little has occasional 20% storewide on Australis and a few other brands consigned with them, so do check them out. The Watson’s events on the other hand are run by a local distribution company called Laycy, who also distributes Beauty UK, Nyx Cosmetics, BH Cosmetics and more.

The Australis Kit is of Contouring Powders

Product Texture

This is a palette of contouring powders; and I’ve always preferred powders to creams and sticks when it comes to contour makeup. I find them easier to blend out and to salvage the look in case I mess it up (which I always do). The powders are not exactly talc-like soft which makes sense since they got to have some structure to hold on to your skin and not to be completely blended and flattened out.

Color Pay-Off

These powders are not that heavily pigmented at all. Funnily enough though, that is how I like my contoured face makeup to be. Asians have generally gentler bone structures. It is ok to bring out the prominence of our features slightly and to try make certain parts like jawbones hidden if possible so the face looks slimmer, but you and I know it’s impossible to do optical surgery by just a few sweeps of powders.

I’ve done a simple demo of this Australis contouring kit in this video. I forgot to do some swatches for you but this video is rather self-explanatory for that.

I’d been very conservative with it but if you look at the end result…I think I may have still over-sculpted myself.

There’re some contour dummy 101 instructions behind the casing for your reference should you need any. But then again, I’m never into sculpting my forehead. Not when the space there is already quite limited anyway. Do what is best for your face and don’t follow blindly please.

Don’t over-contour in the likes of American makeup because we ain’t them; unless you aim to look like an evil Chinese opera singer with killer chops. I personally think I look more evil after contouring albeit a smaller face. My left photo looks so much kinder don’t you think. And to think I had gone easy on the contouring powders.

Verdict:

Honestly I don’t own enough contouring powder makeup for fair comparisons. But I must say I find this face contour palette pretty much well-loved because I get to use most of the shades. The 2 warmer browns on the left and right bottom are used interchangeably depending on your preferred sculpting intensities. The further the part of your skin away from the front, the darker the shade you should be using. The middle bottom cooler taupe is great for this, but go easy on this shade as too much can cause your face to appear a little ashy.

I find powdered contouring makeup especially user-friendly over powdered foundation. Needless to say, powder-on-powder, they blend easier. I also used this on liquid foundations. The result can be double the intensity so do go lighter on your strokes.

The highlighting shade at the top right is, amongst all highlighters I’ve used that I’m least fearful of because it gives really gentle luminosity. Some speckled highlighting powders have so much silicate in them they make your cheeks look frosty and artificial but this one is safe enough for me to actually apply it with a blush brush (whereas I usually dab with finger) and still not quite looking like the icicle woman.