Are you warm or cool? When it comes to finding the perfect lipstick, foundation and hair colour for your skin tone, it’s important to determine your undertone. Yes, they are completely different. The surface (skin) tone is what you see when you look in the mirror; fair, light medium, dark. Your undertone is the subtle, more muted tone that lies underneath the skin. This will affect which colours suit you. After all, the main objective is to enhance your features. Try these few hacks to help determine your skin undertone!
Note: There are three general undertones
* Cool: think yellow, peachy, and golden.
* Warm: think red, pink, and bluish
* Neutral: think olive or a mix of those above.
Start fresh
Remove your make-up and wash your face completely.
Get lit
Make sure you have proper lighting. Try to choose a room with a large window, or one that offers a lot of natural lighting.
Do a colour test
Hold a blue or green shirt up to your face. Next, hold a yellow or red shirt up next to your face. If your skin looks better against the blue shirt, you probably have a cool skin tone. If it looks better against the red shirt, you probably have a warm skin tone. Cool-toned people usually have hints of pink, blue and olive undertones or a ruddy complexion, while warm-toned skin has yellow, gold, or peachy undertones and a more sallow complexion.
Get vein
Look at the veins in your wrists. People with cool skin tones tend to have blue or purple coloured veins, while people with warm skin tones will have greenish looking veins.
Tan much?
How does your skin react to the sun? If you tan easily you have a warm skin tone. If your skin burns but you don’t tan very well, you have a cool skin tone.
Do the jewellery test
Use jewellery to help you determine your skin tone. Gold accessories work well with warm skin tones and silver works best for cooler skin tones.
It’s in the eyes
Blue and green specks in your eyes can also indicate a cool skin tone, while golden specks in your eyes indicate warmer skin tones.
If can’t decide and you feel you fall in the middle of the spectrum – you’re neutral and you’re lucky because all colours look great on you and you can rock any look you want!
17 comments
Humaira Motala
Ive found this really helpful for choosing out jewelery . Thank You !
Christina Somduth
Really helpful when choosing a foundation
Teresa De Villiers
Extremely informative information on skin tones !!!
Chantay Dudgeon
Interesting article.
Tembisa Maqungu
I definitely have a warm undertone, my veins are evidently greenish and gold jewellery suits me better.
SonellvN
This has been a very helpful article. I fall in the neutral category. Thank you!
Lee-Andra Maans
MY SKIN TONE IS DEFINITELY COMPLIMENTED WHEN I WEAR GOLD JEWELLERY AND YES I BURN EASILY……..IT’S ACTUALLY SAD.
Linda Tutu
I’m still not sure, though I like silver jewellery better, it could a preference not that it looks better than gold. I guess I have to practise?
Diana Van Den Berg
I’m definitely a cool tone, due to the fact my veins are blue purple.
Cheryl
Thank you for this informative article. I never realized that I have a cool skin tone. I tend to wear foundation only on very special occasions because I don’t like to look plastered. Thank you again.