The ‘contour bob’ is the sleek cut that adds some serious structure

Personally my desert island beauty hero would be Charlotte Tilbury’s Contour Wand for the way it sketches in cheekbones. But according to a top hair stylist, the Contour bob could do a lot of the heavy lifting for me, courtesy of a tactical (and beautiful) haircut, which means you could “wake up like this” and immediately feel a little more put together.

Obviously we’re 100% here for the au naturale girls who are happy to forgo any face-shaping and let their cheekbones do their thing, but for the days you fancy the enhanced structure that contouring can bring to you features, we love having options. And if you’re a fairly devoted member of team “snatched” following up with a corresponding haircut can create some semi-permanent structure all of its own. 

“When a makeup trend and a hair trend collide, you know there is going to be a strong uptake, and using your hair to enhance your cheekbone contour has been steadily becoming a well known trick of the celebrity hairstylist,” explains top hairstylist and trend forecaster, Tom Smith, who coined the cut’s name. The idea is to “use the shape of the haircut to enhance the face shape,” he says.

As for how exactly that translates to hair, it’s as much about the styling as it is the cut. “The contour bob is worn behind one or both ears to lift and ‘snatch’ the cheekbone giving a crisper and sharper, lifted appearance to the face,” he adds.

But one chop works particularly well with this trick. “This works best with a slightly ‘A-line’ bob (pro speak for getting longer at the front),” explains Tom.