Discover Your Undertone

Oct 6, 2011

Tashie C.

Knowing your skin's undertone is the first step in choosing the right shades and colors for your eyes, lips and hair.

Discover Your Undertone...
Makeup experts break undertones into three distinct categories: cool, warm and neutral.

•A pale, rosy, ebony, or dark-red cast to skin usually indicates that you have a cool tone.
•Warm, yellow, golden, and honey tones usually lend themselves to a warm undertone.
•If you have a blend of both, or are more olive toned, then you have a neutral undertone to your skin.
Still having trouble deciding what your tone is? Then take a look at your eye color. If you have blue or green eyes, then there's a good chance you have a cool tone to your skin. Do you have warm brown eyes, or hazel? Then it's more likely you have a warm tone.

Another good indicator of tone is how easily one tans. If you tan easily, chances are you have a warm tone. If you are at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, unable to tan at all, then you more than likely have a cool tone. 

Oct 8, 2011

Sabrinna S.

Hi, following this makes me a little confused. I have brown eyes and I tan easily which will then mean i have a warm undertone and I do match with MAC NC42 which i believe has a warm undertone. However, with Make up Forever's HD foundation i am in shade 153 and they describe it as medium skin with olive undertones. I always have a hard time finding a foundation that matches me and those are the only two foundation that I found to match. But I want to try other foundations too but they either seem to turn pink or orange on me. Any help in trying out other foundations and finding my "true" undertone? Thank you so much :)

Oct 9, 2011

Huda A.

I know that cool tones have blue veins and warm tones have more greenish vains. Just look at the inside of your wrists. It should really show there :D

Oct 12, 2011

Ashley U.

@sabrinna i think the nc42 has cool undertones, if im not mistaken the nc stands for neutral cool. sorry i might have just confused you more...

Oct 12, 2011

Sabrinna S.

@ashley oh.. yeah lol that is confusing....hmmm if my veins are bluish green (not blue veins and green veins, theyre just bluish green). then would that affect my undertone? wow my skin tone is very very confusing...

Oct 12, 2011

Heather H.

You undertones in your arm may be different as well to add confusion. My face has both undertones to it, but I prefer to match my face to my neck/chest, which have yellow undertones.

I also have difficulty with finding a foundation olive enough for my skin tone. NC40/42 is usually right on for me and 153 is just a tad too orange. Even Bobby Brown Honey is a little too orange.

Right @Ashely, MAC works a little opposite of how your mind works, C stands for cool (yellow) and W stands for warm (pink). 

Oct 12, 2011

Maribel D.

This is a great topic. So many girls have a hard time finding their skin undertone. My undertone is yellow. Great brands with yellow undertone foundations that I have tried are Revlon, Neutrogena and MAC. Thanks for this post

Oct 12, 2011

Shelly T.

<<I know that cool tones have blue veins and warm tones have more greenish vains.>>

I have blue veins (and a few purple ones) but my undertone is decidedly more neutral-yellow. While, according to MAC's system, that would be considered cool, every other company would consider me neutral or warm. (FYI: MAC goes by the colour wheel, on which pink is a warm colour, and yellow is more cool.)

MeanwhiIe, I agree with Heather. You can have more than one undertone.

Oct 12, 2011

Sabrinna S.

@heather, oh now thats explains it. though to me 153 is the perfect match (in winter) while NC42 becomes the perfect match in summer. Is there any way to make a foundation look less orange?

@shelly, that explains why its neutral cool! thank you :D

and thank you for all the help everyone :) also to the Topic poster (?) for the great topic! :)

Oct 13, 2011

Lisa U.

I'm pretty pale with rosy cheeks but my veins are green, help?! 

Oct 13, 2011

Jane A.

The reason that MAC is totally different and throws everyone for a curve is because they want to put something on your face that will "neutralize" your real undertone. (i.e. If you're warm, they want to neutralize it with a "cool" color). This is why most women who have warm undertone will have foundation starting off with NC (Neutral Cool), and why women with cool undertone will have foundation starting off with NW (Neutral Warm).

Oct 13, 2011

Tashie C.

OMG! I had just writen a really long post, commenting back to everyones replies, and now its NOT here?!? >: { Uggh! Well here I go again...

I just wanted to thank everyone for following my topic, this topic did come about when I notice a lot of beauties didn't have thier undertone categeory maybe simply because they didn't know thier undertones. So I wanned to bring it up also because Im in my intership to become an esthetician with this I also want to pursue into becoming an actual MUA. and this will really give me the advantage of learning more about the skin than just covering it up with makeup. Anywho, I am currently in the middle of my esthetics text book, which I read more about skin type, and skin tones, then into colorwheel and makeup, and besides my text book I do a lot of research on my own.

I know finding your undertone is always confusing and there are like numerous and various ways. And Yes, you can have more than one undertone. I always like to keep things simple.

This is how I go abount finding my undertone:
I use NC42 Studio Fix Powder in MAC and NW30 in the Studio Sculp Concearler.
My undertone is yellowish-pink almost peachy, which they say its a blend of warm and cool making it neutral. and you can tell by my default picture I have a red-cast to my skin which makes me cool. More of a Neutral Cool. But I have brown eyes and natural dark brown/black hair and that would make me a warm tone. Yet, I dont tan easily and I barely burn, which evens me out to be Neutral also. When I look at the insides of my forearms and wrists(under natural sunlight) my veins are blueish purple. and they say if your blue, your cool and if your green then you may be warm and when you have a mix of purple then your neutral, so that makes me to be Neutral Cool. Another way to figure out, is if you match in Silver or Gold Jewlery. so If you match in Silver then your Cool, if you match in Gold then you may be a warm tone and of course if you match in both then you have a Neutral tone because you match in anything....

Oct 13, 2011

Tashie C.

@Jen @Shelly: "Ahhhh is that how MAC does it?!?" I caught on to the whole "NC" Neutral Cool and "NW" Neutral Warm, but before I didn't know about the whole colour wheel method, and now that Im learning about it, its a vice vesra and it makes sense :)

Oct 15, 2011

Kathleen C.

I have warm hazel eyes but am very pale, so not too sure where I stand, haha.

Oct 16, 2011

Zoe C.

This was so helpful to me, I never understood undertones xD @Tashie I'm following you :)