How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices

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Mirror, mirror on the wall, what’s my skin undertone after all?

It happens to the best of us — Ever got yourselves a beautiful dress and worn it for the first time just to realize that it looks pathetic on you? Or does the exact same dress suit your mom, sister, or friend in a much prettier manner even though they have the same skin color? How could it look good in-store and not at home? If you, too, r

egret buying pieces that you know you’ll never gonna wear again, you are not alone! Well, this is high time for you to know the ‘WHY’ behind what happened to you!

I’m very sure if you are reading this for the first time, it’s gonna change your life. LITERALLY, CHANGE YOUR LIFE and the way you shop for clothes. Because after this, your wardrobe will be filled with colors that suit you the most.

What Are Undertones?

We all have complexions and skin tones. I’m medium-skin color. You might be fair or darker. But what we don’t know is that we all have a skin undertone as well. In simple terms, your undertone is the underlying hue of your skin. It’s what shows through when your skin is exposed to the sun or when you have a tan.

There are many skin tones, but there are broadly three skin undertones – warm, cool and neutral. You can have a combination of undertones (like warm and cool), but one will typically be more dominant than the other.

While skin tones refer to the range of darkness to the lightness of your skin color, the undertone is the overall hue that comes through from beneath your skin’s surface.

How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices

Here you see that there are so many skin tones ranging from fair to dark. But if you notice carefully, some skin colors have a yellow tint to them and some have pink. Some don’t have any tint to them. The ones with a yellow tint are warm undertones and those with pink is cool undertones. The ones who don’t show anything are usually neutral undertones.

If it’s still not clear, lemme help you identify them.

Pink dots= cool undertone
Yellow dots= warm undertone
White dots= neutral undertone

How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices

Now that you have a little idea about undertones in your skin, let’s see how you can find out your own skin undertone. Later we’ll see how you can benefit from finding undertones.

HOW TO FIND YOUR UNDERTONES?

There are a few tried and accurate tests that will help you get through it.

Before getting onto ways, make sure you are in natural bright light and should have no makeup on your face. And don’t consider dark circles or red acne or blemishes in these experiments as they will try and change your opinion about the actual color.

1.) THE WHITE TEST

undertones and wardrobe

Grab a pure white piece of clothing, a bathrobe, or even just a piece of white paper. In bright, natural light, check if your skin looks pink or rosy, it will mean that you’re cool-toned. If your face looks more yellow, you probably have a warm undertone.

If you feel you look better in off-white or creamy tints rather than stark white, that’s another clear sign that you may be warm-toned, and if you love pure ivory white on you, you are clearly cool-toned. If you can wear both colors without feeling like you look washed out, you are lucky enough to have a neutral undertone.

2.) THE JEWELLERY TEST

How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices

There are generally two colors of jewelry, silver and gold. And one of you is better suited for you, trust me.

If you feel you pop out more in gold, you clearly have a warm undertone, and if it’s the silver prices that brighten up your complexion, your undertones are likely to be cool. If you don’t discriminate between gold or silver and both of them equally look good, then you might have neutral undertones—or maybe you just love all the jewelry.

The right jewelry will brighten up your face, and the wrong one will make it look dull. Don’t consider rose gold here, it’s just about gold and silver.

3.) THE VEIN TEST

How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices

The best and the most common way to determine your undertone is to look at your veins under bright light. If they seem to be greenish-olive, you’re warm-toned. Your undertone is cool if they have more blue or purple hues, you would be cool-toned. And if you can’t really tell whether they’re green or blue, then you likely have neutral undertones.

4.) THE WARDROBE TEST

how to create a dream wardrobe for your skin tone

It’s the most fun way to check your undertones. Go to your wardrobe and take out a few clothes in all colors you possibly have. Try them out, and if the colors to the right of this color wheel suit you the most, you are warm-toned, and if the left is your home, you definitely are cool-toned.

Again, if everything looks good, you are one lucky piece of beauty! You do not have to consider white, blacks, and greys in this test.

how to create a dream wardrobe for your skin tone
Save this image, it’s gonna help you in life.

5.) THE EAR TEST

How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices

Ask your friend to look at the area behind your ear, if it is yellowish, you have a warm undertone, and if it is pinkish, you have a cooler undertone.

6.) the sun effect test

Another way to determine your undertone is by evaluating how sunlight affects your skin. If your skin turns golden brown in the sun (think Jessica Alba), then you have warm undertones; if it turns pinkish or red (a la Reese Witherspoon), then you probably have cool undertones; and if sunlight doesn’t really seem to change the color of your skin much, then chances are you have neutral undertones.

People with cool undertones also tend to burn easily in the sun. On the other hand, people with warm undertones will tan easily in the sun. People with neutral undertones can either burn or tan in the sun, depending on their level of sun exposure.

Keep in mind that you can also have a mixture of two different types of undertones (like cool and neutral). Once you’ve determined your undertone, selecting the right colors to build your wardrobe will be a breeze!

Why do you need to know your undertone?

Obviously, you ain’t gonna do things without any reason. So, here are some reasons that will make it mandatory for you to get out of bed and check your undertone.

1. If you wear colors opposite to your undertone, chances are you’re going to look ashy, dull, and maybe a Lil dark; now who wants that?

2. You need your correct undertone to find the perfect shade match for your foundation. If you’ve ever walked into a makeup store and felt utterly overwhelmed by all of the different foundation shades and finally managed to find your perfect match only to realize that it washes you out in natural lighting, you need to get your undertones right.

3. You’re makeup on the wrong colored outfit will make you look dull, dark, ashy, and not very great.

4. You cannot click nice pictures because you’re skin and the color you are wearing are probably gonna clash in pictures, and that’s not a very appealing thing. Also, if you wanna nail to look great in pictures, refer to this stunning guide here.

5. You are investing in a wardrobe that does not make you look the best and you will end up hating and eventually always have nothing to wear.

6. You have no idea how much it helps in online shopping when you know exactly what’s gonna look best and what will just fade you out.

Are these reasons not enough to stop making fashion blunders and know what goes best for you from the beginning?

But does that mean you cannot wear warm-toned colors if you are cool-toned or vice-versa?

Why not? There’s nothing in fashion that limits you from wearing what you want to. You just got to know how to style them properly!

The key here is to find a tint of blue or any cool-toned color in the warm-toned pieces. Here are some examples I found on Pinterest.

How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices
How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices
How to Find Your Skin Undertones & Change Your Fashion Choices

Now you get the logic! It may seem difficult in the beginning, but I know it will change your life forever.

Other than skin undertones, complexion theory is another thing that you need to know about when deciding colors for yourselves. You can have a soft complexion or a clear one. I talk about complexion theory in detail here. After finding out undertones and complexions, you will be set to rock the colors made for you!

last words on skin undertones

Now that you know a bit more about skin undertones and how to determine yours put this knowledge to good use! The next time you’re foundation shopping, be sure to test shades in natural light until you find one that perfectly complements your undertone. Trust us—your complexion will thank you for it.

Just in case you want to know 😉 I’m a cool-toned, medium skin woman. And I would genuinely love it if you tell me what undertone you have.

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how to determine skin undertones and what colors look the best on me

5 Comments

  1. This is so informational. Idk how i spent years without knowing it?? I’m sure my life is so much easy now onwards.

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