Stíl Solas
Beauty Guide: Find Your Skin Tone & Your Perfect Makeup Colors
Your skin tone is more than light, medium, or deep. Finding the right makeup starts with understanding two different things: your skin tone and your undertone. Your skin tone is the depth of your complexion, such as fair, light, medium, tan, deep, or rich deep. Your undertone is the subtle color underneath your skin.
It generally falls into four categories:
- Warm – golden, yellow, peach, or sometimes slightly orange
- Cool – pink, red, rosy, or bluish
- Neutral – a balance of warm and cool
- Olive – a greenish, golden, or slightly gray undertone that can be particularly tricky to match
And here’s the important part: your ethnicity does not automatically determine your undertone.
Someone of East Asian, South Asian, African, European, Middle Eastern, Latin American, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, or mixed heritage can have warm, cool, neutral, or olive undertones.
Step 1
Know Your Skin Tone
Your skin tone is primarily about how light or deep your complexion appears.
Fair
Very light skin that may burn easily in the sun.
Light
Light complexion with a little more pigmentation than fair skin.
Medium
A complexion between light and tan, often described as beige, golden, or medium.
Tan
A deeper complexion that may have golden, bronze, or brown characteristics.
Deep
A rich brown complexion.
Rich Deep
The deepest range of complexions, including very rich brown and ebony shades.
Remember: skin tone can change throughout the year because of sun exposure, while your undertone generally remains consistent.
Step 2
Find Your Undertone
This is where choosing makeup gets much easier.
💛 WARM UNDERTONES
Warm undertones tend to have golden, yellow, peach, or warm beige qualities. You may notice:
- Gold jewelry looks especially flattering. Your skin can appear golden or peachy.
- Cream, ivory, camel, and warm beige tend to look natural.
- Your veins may appear more green than blue.
- Warm foundation shades tend to blend more naturally.
💗 COOL UNDERTONES
Cool undertones tend to have pink, rosy, red, or bluish qualities. You may notice:
- Silver jewelry looks especially flattering.
- Your skin can have a rosy or pink appearance.
- Cool pinks, berries, and blue-based reds look particularly good.
- Your veins may appear blue or purple.
- Cool foundation shades tend to blend more naturally.
🤍 NEUTRAL UNDERTONES
Neutral undertones sit somewhere between warm and cool. You might notice:
- Both gold and silver jewelry look good.
- Your skin doesn’t look strongly yellow/golden or pink/rosy.
- You can often wear both warm and cool makeup colors.
- Foundation matching can sometimes be easier because you aren’t strongly pulled toward one undertone.
🫒 OLIVE UNDERTONES
Olive deserves its own category because it can be confusing. Olive skin often has a green, muted, golden, or slightly gray cast. You might notice:
- Many foundations look too pink or too orange.
- Your skin may appear slightly greenish or muted beside other people.
- Gold tends to look good, but some silver can work beautifully too.
- Neutral or olive foundation shades often work better than strongly yellow or pink formulas.
The Quick Test
Still Not Sure? Try These Four Tests.
1. Check Your Veins
Look at the veins on the inside of your wrist in natural daylight.
- Blue or purple → likely cool
- Green → likely warm
- A mixture of blue and green → likely neutral
- Green with a muted/gray appearance → possibly olive
This isn’t a perfect test, so use it alongside the others.
2. Gold vs. Silver
Hold gold and silver jewelry next to your face.
- Gold looks especially flattering → warm
- Silver looks especially flattering → cool
- Both look great → neutral
- Gold works but muted metals also look particularly good → possibly olive
3. White vs. Cream
Hold a pure white shirt and an ivory/cream shirt next to your face.
- White makes your complexion look brighter → possibly cool
- Cream makes your complexion look healthier → possibly warm
- Both work → possibly neutral
4. Look at Your Natural Skin
Don’t judge your undertone under colored bathroom lights. Stand near a window in natural daylight and look at your face, neck, and chest. Your undertone should be considered from the overall appearance rather than one small area.
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