YOUR SECRET WEAPON - KNOWING YOUR SKIN UNDERTONE

Hi Everyone,

I'm back with another post ! This is an interesting one. I'm going to post about the issue of skin undertone. Knowing your skin undertone can make a huge difference in your makeup application specially when it comes to choosing foundations. In order to have a perfectly matching foundation, you should match both the skin tone (i.e.:  beige, ivory, caramel, mocha, etc.) and the skin's undertone (i.e.:  pink/red, yellow, yellow-green (also called olive)).  For example, if you need to use an ivory colored foundation on a client and your client's undertone is pink, but you use an ivory colored foundation with a yellow undertone the result will be flat and unnatural looking.

All MAC foundations have been coded NC for Neutral Cool and NW for Neutral Warm with their numbers , the lighter the shade the lower the number and the higher the number the darker the shade.

At times too, you hear about yellow and blue skin undertones. They may sound confusing but trust me after this post  you'll be a master of your skin.

So what do we mean when we say skin undertone , cool , warm , yellow and blue undertones??????

Simply, Skin Undertones  are the subtle tints of colours to the skin. In order words, the colours that you see in your natural skin. Skin undertones are categorized as either cool or warm and maybe neutral.

The actual color of the skin itself is called skin tone and the less obvious is the undertone.

It can be difficult to tell if a person has a yellow or blue just be looking at the skin. However, the vein test -( this is done by looking at the veins on your inner wrist) can help reveal the nature of a person's skin undertone.

The Vein Test

Veins that appear to have a slightly greenish tint  indicates the presence of yellow or golden undertone. Blue veins  , one can have a yellow or golden tint to the skin hence you belong to the warm undertone family and people with blue tint are generally considered to have cool undertones.

Another test you can use to find your undertone is the white cloth or jewelry test.

The White Cloth Test

Remove all makeup from your face until you're completely free from all them. That includes all lip makeup. Place a white cloth around your shoulders. The cloth will reflect the tone of your skin. If your skin looks more blueish then you have a cool undertone. However, if yellow then it implies your undertone is warm.

You may to to do this under natural lights.

The Jewelry Test

Is the simplest of them all, all you need is a silver jewelry and a gold jewelry. Wearing each one at a time, if you observe that the gold jewelry looks better on you then it implies that your skin undertone is warm and if the silver then you have cool undertone.

Determining your skin undertone is not rocket science. You've probably done it. So put this knowledge to use and let's share ideas. I always love to know your ideas by commenting below.

Stay_Beautiful_Cheers!