This viral TikTok filter will help you fake a facelift with makeup

Social media filters do all kinds of strange and crazy things to our faces.

We can lick our phone screens with digital dog tongues or age ourselves by 50 years. There are even ‘pillow face’ filters that can make it look like we got a little too trigger happy with a syringe-full of filler. 

In fact, we’re so overwhelmed by the sheer influence of filters on social media, that when celebrities post no-filter selfies we can’t help but stare in wonder at their skin texture. 

So when we get wind of a filter that’s useful instead of mind-boggling, we get really excited. Because even though we love experimenting with different versions of ourselves on social media, being able to utilise technology with IRL benefits just hits different y’know?

And that’s where TikTok’s latest viral filter comes in. 

Discovered by everyone’s favourite beauty content creator on the social media platform – Mikayla Nogueira – the ‘Cheek Contour’ filter gives you a lined face guide of where to apply your makeup. 

The result? Well, according to Nogueira and Nikkietutorials (who also played around with the contouring face filter), your makeup looks so lifted it gives you a faux facelift. 

Intrigued? Nogueira treated her viewers to a two-part special on how it works and here’s what we learned…

Part 1: Contour

Initially Nogueira was so skeptical that she only dedicated one half of her face to the cheek contour filter. “Apparently this is where you’re supposed to contour your face based on the filter; it is so high, so high.”

“When I want definition, I typically contour right here,” explained Nogueira as she ran her finger under her cheekbone. “But this wants me to contour all the way up here [at the top of her cheekbone] – all right I’ll try it.”

“I’m going to contour where it wants me to on this side,” said Nogueira as she tapped her right cheek. “And then on this side I’m going to contour how I normally do, so you can see there’s a big difference here.”

Then the TikToker started to blend her makeup. “This is essentially sitting on top of my cheekbone versus like, in the hollow of it,” Nogueira narrated as she buffed out the contour. “Okay, I definitely see something happening here.”

“Not gonna lie, I like this side better,” she admitted, referring to the filter-guided side.

In the comments section, one of Nogueira’s followers asked her: “If you use this filter to contour your face, where do you put your blush?” 

So, naturally, she tried her hand at applying blush using the cheek contour filter.

“So yesterday you guys were in love with how this looked on me – thank you,” said Nogueira in the video. “It is much higher on my face than anything I am used to, but you guys said it made it look like I had a facelift.”

“It creates a shadow that kind of elongates my face,” she reasoned. “[But] the question is – where do you put the blush, now that you have the contour so high?”

Part 2: Blush

Prior to getting her blush on, the content creator had a bit of a moment to work herself up to the idea of temple-grazing blush placement.

“It really does look really good. Like it’s insane,” she admitted as she buffed in her contour in preparation. “I’m happy that this filter exists.”

“As weird as it may seem, I’m going to put the blush way high,” she explained to her viewers. “This is going to keep that lifted effect.” 

“If I put it down here (she said as she pointed to the apples of her cheeks) it can bring my face back down.”

“I do love my cheekbones but this is going to give me a lifted effect,” she explained further. 

“I’m making sure I’m really keeping the blush in this concentrated area,” said Nogueira, indicating the section of skin between her cheekbones and temples. 

“You can even take it above the brow,” she advised viewers before finishing up the rest of her makeup off camera.

Her final thoughts? “It’s youthful, it’s lifted – try it out.”

The cheek contour filter isn’t the only mind-bending piece of makeup magic on TikTok at the moment. The TikTok white concealer trend is straight up blowing our tiny minds.

Main image credit: @mikaylanogueira