 This is how a contouring tutorial would have looked back in 1930. In 2012, Kim K posted this now iconic photo that would forever change the way everyday makeup users approached foundation. While often credited for making contour a household term, she by no means invented the technique. It's time to sprinkle a little substance into our beauty routines by learning the roots of your favorite trends, who history's earliest trendsetters were, and how to rock the looks they inspired. Sheep mass! Before it's over, you'll be asking, can I borrow that? And now for the highlights of contouring history in under 90 seconds. The art of accentuating the angles and shadows of your face has been a trick of the trade since Shakespeare. Throughout the 1500s, actors got on stage with soot and grease on their face so the audience could see their emotions for plays like Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet. Thankfully, the chimney sweep look died with the birth of artificial lighting, but it wasn't until stage actors started migrating to film in the early 1900s that contouring, as we know it, began to take shape. And it's all thanks to a Jewish immigrant from Poland named Max Factor. He knew better than anyone how light hits all face shapes differently and even measured his client's dimensions with his beauty calibrator to determine what areas to lighten or darken. Talk about precision. But there's another stage we have to mention when we talk about modern contouring. Drag queens have been slaying makeup since... well, since the existence of drag queens. And some of the techniques we use today come straight out of their bag of tricks. Who better to dive in to the lowlights and highlights of contouring than with former clown and current queen, Miss Bill? Hey, bitches! Let's do some... We're gonna contour today and highlight. And it's gonna be perfect. I feel like your makeup is definitely different than how I do highlighting and contouring. I want you to help me help everyone watching on how to approach. We're gonna teach all of you how to get a mug like this. And like this. Well, this is the before. Like this. And maybe just keep watching. So, when you do your highlighting under your eyes and on different parts of your face, how many shades lighter do you go? For drag makeup, we really want to crank up the drama. Okay. So, I go two to three shades opposite of my regular foundation for this one. So, it looks like you have a pretty good... I do about one to two shades. You do two to three. Yes. So, that's a big difference, I think. But I feel like this is just a little bit more wearable for me. But if I want to pump up the volume, I think I would try it. I always put some right in the little center of my forehead on the little ball of my chin as well. Nice. Ball of the chin? Yeah, right there. Perfect. And I will also put some right there, right above my upper lip, because I want to have those... So, I'll put a little bit of the contour right here on my chin, because I really want to... I'm sorry, on my jaw, because I really want to cut that off. But then I'll put it over here on my Adam's apple too, because I've got this big masculine Adam's apple. And I really just want that to fall away and disappear. Okay. So, I'll put some of the darker contour makeup on there to make it disappear. So, this kind of seems a little bit daunting. I know, sitting at home, you might think this is just too much, but it's not actually. It's just playing with color. We're doing a little bit of a dark color to kind of hug the things that we want to accentuate, and then we're bringing out the things that we want to highlight with a lighter color. So now, I'm going to take this blender here, and I'm just going to blend away. I imagine you're probably going to want to have a nice, soft look when you're blending your makeup, but I like to have a really nice contrast. So, what do you think of my blending so far? I think that your blending is looking really nice. It looks like you have missed a couple of spots, though, so you might want to check yourself in the mirror again, girl. Not a burn. No, not a burn. It was a read. You got to get on with it. What is a read? A read is when it's kind of like a low jab, but it's like we get along, we love each other, so you're not actually offended. So, how do I read you? Well, you... That hair color is very minty. That was not a good read. I'll work on it. That hurt just a little bit. That's when you know it's a good read. Well, that one was really good. I'm like crying. Minty hair? It's a little minty. Okay. Now I am just using a brush to kind of buff out all of my different lines that I've created, and I'm trying to just marry it all together. I don't want anything to look too harsh. However, if that's your vibe, then do it. Amen. Okay, we're going to do rules over here. You do you. Okay, so we're so close. I just need to set my under eyes, and I know that you probably set a lot, right? I set multiple times. I set after I block my beard. I set after I do my foundation, and then I set after I do my highlight and my contour, too. So I'm doing a lot of setting. I'm going to set under my eye. So it looks like you have some of the same processes as I do, but I've got this really strange technique that I like. I pour powder into a sock, and then I just tie a little knot at the end, and I've got this whole sock full of powder, and I can just beat my face with it. You're lying! No, I swear! Bring me the sock. Here she is, the trusty sock full of powder. Smells incredible. There's no rules in makeup, and I can set mine however I want. Well, I want it back. Oh, you're going to do it? Go right ahead. Oh, please, the drama. You would make a perfect drag queen. So typically I set my makeup for about five to ten minutes, five minutes if I'm running out of time, and around ten minutes if I've got some time to spare, and I've got all the time in the world, I want to know more about you. You know, I've had quite a journey, and it started off with gymnastics, believe it or not, but gymnastics led to clowning, doing slaps, trips, and falls, and then I went on two national tours with the circus, and as circuses have been closing in America, I've had to rebrand who I am as a clown, had a hard time at first, because I needed a drag mother. I don't know if you know what that is, but aspiring drag queens usually get linked up with an experienced drag queen. I taught myself everything at home, and I recommend that other people, you know, have that journey, and explore on their own, and teach things themselves, too, because the sense of ownership that you get over yourself when you've taught yourself how to do everything is, like, way better than when you have to give the credit to somebody else. Okay, so YouTube was your drag mother? Yes, YouTube was my drag mom! I really love that, that's amazing. Thank you. So now let's blend, right? Let's blend, we gotta blend because you'll just be looking whack, and you go out unblended. I really notice that you're brushing with the lines of your face, too, and you're not really, like, fighting the makeup, but you're helping just distribute it even more evenly on your face. So this is the anti-read? This is the anti-read? This is, like, the compliment? Compliment, the compliment. Okay, I am officially done. Thank you so much, Ms. Bill, for teaching me about drag makeup and helping me step up my contouring game. We want to know what are your contouring troubles, so leave us a comment down below, letting us know the toughest part of your contouring makeup routine. We'll see you very soon.