Knowing what colors look best on your skin tone can instantly elevate your wardrobe. Everyone has a personal color and it can take years before you know what colors suit you.
Well, we’re here to cut that time down to just a few minutes, so keep reading!
Everyone has a Personal Skin Tone Color
Color theory is a concept where we perceive colors differently depending on what colors we put together. From your clothing, to foundation, blush, lipstick, nails, hair color, choosing the right color can make your eyes pop better, skin tone shine brighter or make your eyebags stand out.
Such vital knowledge will last you a lifetime.
For myself, I know that I look amazing in light gray, although people may think it’s such a drab color, in fact it makes my skin tone more vibrant. On the other hand, if I wear a lovely bright red, or a dark brown, I start to look washed out and I feel uncomfortable walking out the door. It seems strange at first, however once you find out what colors suit your skin tone. Shopping for new clothes, accessories and makeup is going to be a breeze.
This is going to be one of the most in-depth analyses you will ever come across because we’re going to narrow down exactly what colors suit your skin tone.
Let’s dive right in!
Are you Soft or Bright?
This is in regards to how saturated you are. Any color you wear should complement your natural skin tone.
If you look at this color chart, and think of wearing these colors, do they suit your skin tone? You could also pull up a photo of yourself with no makeup, and try to imagine the shades of pink of your lips. Do soft pink colors suit you more? Or do bright pink colors suit you more?
This is really important because if you have a soft skin tone, then bright colors may make you look washed out and bring out red undertones. On the other hand, if you have a bright skin tone, soft colors could make you look tired, sallow and dull your skin.
Next let’s look to see if you have a warm or cool undertone:
What is an undertone?
The underlying warmth or coolness of a person.
It’s another indicator that will tell you ahead of time what colors are going to look better on you than others. When you’re trying to figure out what colors you should and shouldn’t wear, this will really help your wardrobe.
It helps you to choose clothes that will bring out the natural glow. For example warm undertones should wear warm colors, whilst cool undertones should wear cool colors.
However, there are also universal colors that look good on everyone such as the color Teal, White and Purple.
With that, the next step of finding the best colors for your skin tone is finding out what undertone it has.
What is my Skin’s Undertone? Warm vs Cool
Skin undertone is generally separated into warm, cool and neutral. These are simpler ways to define and categorize skin tones. However keep in mind that skin tone is a spectrum. Meaning, skin undertone is also a spectrum. Colors that suit you might not suit someone who seems to be the same skin tone as you.
Some common misconceptions of undertone is that fair skin tones always have a cool undertone, or that darker skin tones always have a dark undertone. This is not true, fair skinned people can have warm undertones and vice versa. Also, even if you are neutral, you may sway towards a warm or cool undertone, even slightly.
Here are a few tests you can do to find out your skin undertone.
What color are your veins? Vein Skin tone Test (h4)
Look at the underside of your wrist and try to see what color your veins are.
- Green veins means you are warm toned.
- Blue veins means you are cool toned.
- you might even have a hint of purple.
- If you see both green and blue veins or have trouble determining a color, you have a neutral undertone.
Pro Tip: Veins are usually easier to see on the palm side of your hand.
Use your jewelry to find out your skin undertone
Jewelry can really bring out your personal color.
It can either help bring out a glow or make you look more sallow and highlight your under eyes. We all should know what accessories to wear, so take a gold piece of jewelry and a silver piece of jewelry and hold them both up to your face.
- Warm undertones tend to gravitate toward gold jewelry.
- Cool undertones gravitate towards silver jewelry.
If you look closely at the image on the left, you might even be able to see that her veins look slightly blue which implies she has cool skin. That’s why the silver jewelry suits her skin undertone so well.
Hold a piece of white paper up to your face.
- If your skin looks more yellow in contrast to the paper, you are warm toned.
- If your skin looks more pink or has hints of blue, you are cool toned.
How does your skin react to the sun?
One of the easiest ways to know if you are cool or warm undertone is to see how your skin reacts to the sun. When you go out without sunscreen:
- If you burn easily, you have a cool undertone.
- If you tan instead, you have a warm undertone.
- If you burn but then it turns into a tan, you have a neutral undertone.
Skincare Tip: You should always wear sunscreen to protect your skin from aging.
By now, you should be able to identify if you have a Bright or Soft skin tone, and Warm or Cool Undertone. Taking inspiration from Korean Beauty, they use the seasons to describe color palettes from Spring, Fall, Winter and Autumn, let’s see what color palette you are.
Here are some easy to remember, basic tips to follow when picking a color:
Wear colors that are no darker than your darkest feature.
- Someone with pale skin, light hair and light eyes, will look washed out if they wear black shirt and pants. In fact black is known to only suit 1 out of 5 people in a group, this is because some people don’t have true black in their facial features.
Both ladies are wearing black but it looks different on both of them because they have different colored facial features. The saturation of darkness of your hair or your eyebrows should also impact how dark your clothes can go.
Make sure all the colors in your outfit match your skin tone.
- This will help them blend easily together. If they are all part of the one group, they will definitely complement each other, and your skin tone.
When you wear something bold, mellow it out with the rest of your outfit.
- Focus on one defining piece at a time. If your outfit is too cluttered, it distracts the mind and people can’t focus on what is making you look good. Instead, your outfit looks busy and it won’t complement each other. People might spend more time looking at your outfit than you.
When wearing a colored print, choose a color from the print to coordinate with other pieces in your wardrobe.
- For example, if you have a blouse with blue and green, wear blue pants or blue earrings. This will help your outfit look seamless and put together because the eyes will be able to flow throughout your outfit easily.
How to Pick Color Combinations that Suit your Skin tone
By now you should have a color palette that you can easily refer to when you go shopping, or are picking out items in your wardrobe. The next step is to pick a color combination from that color palette that looks pleasing to the eyes and will bring out your natural beauty. Here are some rules that are useful.
The 60-30-10 Rule (Pro Tip for Choosing Colors in an Outfit)
This is a color theory rule that interior designers have used for decades, and it’s meant to give balance to the colors you decide to use. This rule has been around for a long time because it works really well and I think it’s extremely useful to use it when balancing outfit colors. It means 60% of your outfit should be a dominant hue, 30% your secondary color, and 10% an accent color. This is assuming you have about 3 colors in your outfit.
Pro Tip: Never have more than 5 colors in your outfit. This is to help make things look cleaner for the eyes and less overwhelming for the brain.
The best color combinations come from nature
Many of us feel most relaxed when we explore nature. We have a natural obsession with sunsets, sunrises, beach scenes, forest scenes because they help our eyes relax. Pick out colors from these scenes and think about a color palette. Even the beautiful cloudy blue sky is another color palette that can work wonderfully with our clothes.
Can someone with a warm undertone wear cool colors?
Generally people who have warm undertones seem to have more give when wearing cool colors. However people with cool undertones look worse wearing warm colors. This is because most of us have some form of cool undertone even when we mainly have warm undertones. This also explains why white is a universal color, because we all have cool undertones.
Does black make you look older?
Wearing black, can highlight the darker aspects in your appearance. Specifically eyebags, wrinkles, dark spots on your face, all of which can make you look older. However, if you manage to hide these with makeup or with good rest, then black can make your darker features stand out, such as your eyebrows or eyes.
Summary for Colors that Suit your Skin Tone
Wearing the right colors can make a huge difference. Shop with your color palette to make sure everything in your wardrobe works together and you’ll have less of those “I have nothing to wear!” moments.
Next learn how to look elegant at home effortlessly to always be on your ‘A’ game no matter where you are.
