How To Determine Your Skin Undertone & Match Your Makeup

You’ve just ran out of your holy grail foundation, so you pop up to the shops and walk over to the makeup aisles only to find yourself feeling massively overwhelmed. You want to try something new but have no idea where to start. Do you stick to the norm or be a little bit more adventurous? You know you’ll be searching online anyway to get the best price around (cough cough, have you used our barcode feature available on the FD App yet) but still, it’s quite the challenge.

When it comes to finding a new concealer, the makeup science is a little bit easier. We know that a pink tone is good for covering up dark circles and the yellower the colour the better it is to cover up red blemishes. However, it’s the foundation that makes pull the whole base together that tends to be the trickiest, so let’s dive into the nitty gritty.

Determining Your Undertone

If you haven’t noticed already, you probably already sway to either gold or silver jewellery because you prefer how it looks against your skin. If you tend to like gold jewellery you’re more likely to have a warm undertone or you find it’s enhances your tan (fake or not). Silver and platinum tend to flatter cooler undertones.

If you examine your wrist – yes, it sounds odd but trust us - if your veins have a green tinge you’re likely to be on the warmer side and if they’re blue or purplish-looking, you’ll be on the cooler side.

Whether you play around with different hair colours or not, this could also help indicate what you skin undertone is. Platinum and ashy blondes tend to complement the cooler side and colours enriched with mahogany and gold really suit the warmer side.

How To Match Your Makeup

Foundations that look slightly more yellow and rich in the bottle are likely to suit your skin best. Warmth compliments warmth, it’s only natural.

The perfect shade for you will have a slight pink tone to it and will look the most natural. You should definitely avoid yellowish foundations unless you’re looking for a shade to match your fake tan. If you have luscious darker skin, lookout for the rich redder tones.

If you’re lucky enough to have gorgeous, olive skin, you’re best off looking for shades that aren’t too yellow as you can pretty much let your natural skin colour do the work for you.

Of course, not everyone is one or the other. People with neutral undertones tend to look better in foundations with a peachy shade that’s just in between. It’s probably best to test out three shades in a row as they often alternate between cool, neutral and warm.

Are you feeling like this has definitely helped get your head around all the different shades a little bit more? It only makes sense to head on over to our shopping site to go after your perfect foundation match, right?