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Importance of Skin Undertone

Written by:Desiree Stordahl
Medically Reviewed by:Corey L. Hartman MD Board-Certified Dermatologist
Updated on:14/6/2022

In this article:
What is skin's undertone?
How to determine your skin's undertone
Shopping for foundation for your undertone

When it comes to makeup, understanding the real colour of your skin is primarily about discovering your skin’s undertone. That’s the key to buying the right foundation and concealer shades, allowing you to create a flawless makeup look. It’s something top makeup artists can do in their sleep, but we can’t all have a glam squad at the ready (wouldn’t that be nice?). But figuring out your skin tone and corresponding undertone can be easier than you think.

What is skin’s undertone?

When shopping for foundation, you’ve probably heard the terms "cool," "warm," or "neutral" to describe how a shade will look on skin. Those terms refer to your skin’s undertone and are used to determine which foundation shade will match it the best.

Cool, warm, or neutral undertones are the colours that come through your skin from underneath the surface to affect its overall hue. It’s not about how light or dark your skin is; people of all skin colours, from very light to deep, can have cool, warm, or neutral undertones. Here’s what each of these terms means:

Cool: Hints of bluish, pink, or a ruddy complexion.
Warm: Skin skews yellow, sallow, peachy, or golden.
Neutral: Has no obvious overtones of pink, yellow, or sallow skin, but rather the skin’s natural colour is more evident.

Among these undertone designations, there is a large amount of variance, and your skin may even have a combination of different tones, as is often seen in medium-deep to deep complexions. The Pantone SkinTone Guide (a tool used by artists, transplant surgeons, prosthetic manufacturers, and other professionals for skin colour matching) features over 100 swatches intended to capture the range of human skin tones + undertones (1). But some argue that even that isn’t fully representative of the diverse spectrum of skin colours and undertones worldwide (2).

Where do we get our skin’s undertones from? According to the journal of Clinical Nursing Research, “Four pigments contribute to skin colour: melanin, carotene, oxygenated hemoglobin, and reduced hemoglobin. Of these, the particle size, shape, and location of melanin contribute most significantly to overall colour; the more near the surface melanin is clustered, the darker skin will appear. Carotene gives the skin a yellow hue, while oxygenated and reduced hemoglobin are red and purplish-blue, respectively. In addition to melanin, all light absorbing molecules and particles in the skin, or chromophores, play a part in perceived skin colour” (3).

How to determine your skin’s undertone

There are several ways to determine your skin’s undertone. Start by looking at the inside part of your arm, where the underlying colour tends to show through more noticeably. This area is naturally hidden from the sun and, therefore, is not sun damaged or discoloured, which is why skin in this area works best to reveal how warm, cool, or neutral the undertone is.

However, that method won’t work for everyone and can be harder to distinguish on richly melanated skin. Another option is to compare your skin against a stark white background to see if the undertones come through more noticeably. This can be especially helpful for those with deeper skin tones.

Still not sure? Answering the following questions can help:

Do your veins appear bluish or deeper purple? If the answer to either question is yes, you’re likely in the cool-toned spectrum.

Do your veins appear green? If your veins appear greenish, you most likely skew toward the warm-toned.

Do you notice both green and blue veins? If you notice more than one colour in your veins then you may be more neutral-toned. Additionally, you may have difficulty discerning an undertone—it will just all look neutral.

Do you look better in silver or gold? Personal preferences aside, cool undertones tend to be flattered by silver/platinum; those with warm undertones look better in gold-toned jewelry. Neutral skin tones look equally great in both (lucky you!).

Does your skin look somewhat ashen or gray? You might have the wild card of the bunch—olive skin—which is a combination of the neutral plus the greenish hue that’s unique to olive skin. Olive skin tone is very specific, but is not neutral, as some tend to call it.

If your skin is on the lighter end of the spectrum, does it tan easily and rarely sunburn? If so, you're more likely to lean toward a warm or neutral undertone. If not, there’s a good chance you fall into the cool-toned category. (But we’re all using sunscreen, right?)

What if you have an uneven skin tone, meaning it’s more than one colour? Although a great foundation helps neutralise this, the secret sauce is routine use of a skin care product that contains ingredients shown to make all skin tones look more even (and smooths skin texture, too). Two research-proven ingredients to promote a more even skin tone are vitamin C and niacinamide.

Dr. Corey L. Hartman points out that, “Optimising the health of your skin will preserve its natural essence and keep environmental factors from causing shifts. This will make it easier to find foundation that matches your skin all the time and won’t give you away under the bright lights of photographs. This can cause mismatches between face, neck and chest that are accentuated in photographs.”

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Shopping for foundation for your undertone

Now that you’ve determined your skin’s undertone, we must caution you: Using a foundation categorised as your respective "cool" or "warm" skin tone may not always be the most flattering choice. For instance, some foundations labeled cool-toned can end up making skin look overly pink, and those labeled warm can skew toward overly yellow or orange. The goal is to select neutral foundation shades that have only the slightest hint of your skin’s undertone. You don't want your foundation to be too pink, too yellow, or too ashen.

If you have cool undertones, the foundation should look slightly, and we mean slightly, pinkish or bluish-pink in the bottle. If your undertone is warm, then the foundation shade should have a subtle yellow or golden tone, and we mean very, very subtle.

Of course, there are always exceptions. If you have medium to deep skin colour with a reddish undertone, there is a likelihood that you will look better with a foundation that has a hint of brownish red (but not golden or peach).

Purely neutral-toned foundations may seem like a slam-dunk for olive skin, but not so quick. As Saj Mack, professional makeup artist for film and TV, points out, “Light-to-medium olive skin tones may need to experiment with foundations that have a slightly peachy tone, making sure it doesn't go too peach or gold resulting in a sallow complexion.”

Don’t overthink it—the final deciding factor is to try the foundation on your face and check the results in daylight to see how it looks. It is especially important to look at your jawline after applying. If you see a noticeable line of demarcation between your neck and your face, keep trying until you find a shade that matches as closely as possible.

Saj Mack adds, "When choosing a foundation shade, I tell my clients to first match their skin tone and then choose the three corresponding undertones to that shade. For example, if your shade is "deep, " select deep with a cool, warm, and neutral undertone. Swatch those three on your jawline or on your chest area and the shade that blends in the most will be your perfect foundation."

What if you can’t find your exact foundation shade match? It’s not necessarily your fault. While the cosmetic industry has made great strides in recent years to improve and expand shade ranges, there is still more work to be done, especially when it comes to more shade variances for melanin-rich skin (4). Retailers such as Sephora and Nordstrom offer samples to try at home, and brands such as M.A.C. are well known for their in-store colour-matching by trained associates. Other brands to consider for their extensive shade ranges include Fenty, Make Up For Ever, NYX Cosmetics, Pat McGrath Labs, and Urban Decay.

References for this information:
1. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open, February 2020, pages 1-4
2. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 2006, pages 427-437
3. Clinical Nursing Research, November 2012, pages 495-516
4. Advances in Journalism and Communication, 2019, pages 35-54

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