When we first encountered strobing, our first thought was "isn't this just highlighting?" Turns out, we weren't completely wrong, but there are some nuances to the trend that need to be taken into consideration.

For those of you who haven't seen this yet, strobing is a new iteration of the super-popular contouring and highlighting trend. Traditional contouring relies on emphasizing hollows and shadows in the face for a more sculpted look and balancing it out with highlights, but strobing does away with the shading altogether. By applying copious amounts of highlighter to key areas of the face (the tops of the cheekbones, the tip of the nose, the center of the forehead, and the cupid’s bow to name a few), you fake the appearance of being lit from within. The heaviness and harshness of contouring is replaced with a more dewy and youthful look. Essentially, strobing takes highlighting to the extreme.

The reason for strobing's meteoric rise in popularity is difficult to pin down, but part of it may be the desire to go against the grain of the ubiquitous contouring trend. Since contouring has dominated our Instagram and Pinterest feeds for so long, it's refreshing to see something new. Another reason why the strobing trend is spreading so quickly could be the fact that it's much more forgiving than contouring, especially for beginners. Shading hollows with darker colors may be intimidating, but it's much harder to tell if you mess up while highlighting. Finally, for those with a more prominent natural bone structure, contouring can overwhelm the face to the point where chiseled cheekbones and noses are all that can be seen. Strobing, on the other hand, allows other facial features (like radiant skin, for instance) to become the focal point.

If you'd like to try strobing for yourself, we've got you covered. In the video below, NikkieTutorials tackles this emerging trend and demonstrates how it's done. Let us know if you'll be rocking this trend for the summer, and don't forget to follow @firstblushmag on Insta!