Find Your True Skin Tone

Struggling to match your foundation?  Try my guide to matching your true skin tone which will help you to find your perfect colour match.

Find Your True Skin Tone

To Find your true skin tone is one of the most important things you can do to achieve a flawless complexion. If you don’t know your skin tone, don’t worry: here are some easy ways to find out!

What’s Your Type?
Your skin tone can easily be assessed just by observing it after you’ve been in the sun. At one end of the spectrum, if your skin tends to burn very easily without tanning, you have pale or ivory skin; on the other end of the spectrum, mahogany and darker skin types will tan quickly without burning. In the middle, light brown or olive skin burns sometimes but achieves a gradual tan.

Of course, remember that no matter what part of the spectrum you’re on, you should always wear sunscreen when heading outside! Just because you might not burn easily, it doesn’t mean the penetrating rays aren’t harmful.

Are you Hot or Cold?
Your skin’s undertone influences so much about your image: your foundation choices, colours that work well with your skin, and metals that you should wear when the need for jewellery shopping strikes.

There are three undertones: cool (pinky), warm (yellowy) and neutral. If your undertone is cool, the veins on your wrist look blue, your skin has the tendency to turn pink after you are in the sun and it also burns easily. Choosing a foundation for a cool undertone is about picking a product that has a slightly blue, red or pink tinge so it will work with your skin. When wearing jewellery, you probably look your best with silver or platinum pieces.

On the other hand, a warm undertone has veins on the wrist that look green and skin will turn brown in the sun. Wearing gold jewellery looks great on warm undertones. If this applies to you, you want a foundation that has a yellowish or golden tinge to it to flatter your complexion.

Stuck in the Middle
If your skin isn’t warm or cold, you could have a neutral tone. You might have veins that appear both blue and green, and you probably suit both gold and silver jewellery. A neutral shade of foundation often works best.

When applying foundation, the last thing you want is to end up with stripes or makeup that doesn’t match your skin tone. Even if you know what your skin tone is, you should always test foundation properly. You can do this with the use of a clean finger or cotton bud. Dab it into a foundation tester and then apply it to the middle of your jawline. If the colour seems to vanish into your skin, you’ve found the perfect colour match.  If you can clearly see a stripe (be it lighter or darker than you skin colouring) then this is the wrong colour for you.

Test the Tone
If you’re still unsure about your skin tone:

• Stand in front of the mirror.
• Swipe your hair away from your face and tie it up so that it isn’t going to get in the way.
• Take a beige and a white item of clothing and hold them in front of your face one at a time.
• Which colour looks better against your skin? If you tend to look better against the white, then you have a warm undertone. If beige is your colour, then you have cooler undertones.

Make a Splash with the Right Colour
Now that you know more about your skin tone, what colours work with it? If you don’t take your skin tone in consideration when choosing the colours you want to wear, this can cause them to clash against your skin.
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So, here’s a quick guide in choosing the most flattering shades for you:

• Warm-toned skin tends to look good in colours that you would call warm, such as yellow, orange, as well as earthy tones like greens and browns.
• Cool tones pop with colours such as green, blue, purple, and even pink.​

Sometimes it helps to have a makeup cheat sheet, enabling you to know what colours work with any and every skin tone (especially helpful on rushed mornings!). Top picks that flatter all skin tones include deep purple on your eyes, peach blush that brings youthful health to your complexion, gold on your eyes, and a sheer pink gloss that should be a staple in every woman’s makeup bag.
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Now you’re sorted when it comes to mastering your skin tone so you can look your best while flaunting gorgeous skin.