How to Determine Your Skin's Undertone

Understanding your skin's undertone is not just a key ingredient in choosing the right makeup shades, but it's also essential in selecting the most flattering clothing and accessories. There are primarily three types of undertones: cool, warm, and neutral. Here’s a simple guide to help you identify yours.

Step 1: Observe Your Vein Color

One of the easiest ways to determine your undertone is by looking at the veins on the inside of your wrist. Here’s what the different vein colors can indicate:

• Blue or Purple Veins: If your veins appear more blue or purple, you most likely have cool undertones.
• Green Veins: If your veins look greenish, you probably have warm undertones.
• Blue-Green Veins: If it’s difficult to determine whether your veins are blue or green, you may have neutral undertones.

Step 2: Consider How Your Skin Reacts to the Sun

Another method to identify your skin undertone is by observing how your skin usually reacts to sunlight:

• Burns Easily: If your skin tends to burn quickly under sun exposure, it’s likely that you have cool undertones.
• Tans Easily: If you generally tan easily and rarely burn, your skin’s undertone is probably warm.
• Both Burns and Tans: If your skin can sometimes burn and sometimes tan, you might have a neutral undertone.

Step 3: The White vs. Off-White Test

Another practical test involves holding up different colors of fabric up to your face and observing which looks more flattering. Here's how to do it:

• Hold a piece of pure white fabric and an off-white fabric under your chin.
• Notice which color makes your skin look brighter and more radiant. If the true white does, you likely have cool undertones. If the off-white is more flattering, then you have warm undertones. If both colors suit you equally, you may have neutral undertones.

Step 4: Consider Your Natural Hair and Eye Color

Your natural hair and eye colors can also help determine your undertone:

• Cool Undertones: People with cool undertones often have eyes that are blue, gray, or green and have hair that contains hints of blue, silver, black, or deep browns.
• Warm Undertones: Warm undertones usually feature brown, amber, or hazel eyes with strawberry blonde, red, brown, or black hair that has gold, red, orange, or yellow tones.
• Neutral Undertones: Those with neutral undertones might find their skin, eye, and hair colors are a mix of both warm and cool tones.

Step 5: Gold or Silver Test

This is a quick and fun test to see what jewelry highlights your skin undertone:

• Hold gold and silver jewelry against your skin and see which brightens up your skin tone more.
• If gold makes your skin look radiant and healthy, you have warm undertones. If silver does, you have cool undertones. If both look great, you are likely to have neutral undertones.

Conclusion

Understanding your skin’s undertone is a crucial step towards enhancing your overall appearance. Whether it's selecting clothing, jewelry, or makeup, knowing your undertone will guide you in making choices that complement your natural beauty. Try these tests and confidently embrace your undertone!