SKINTONE AND UNDERTONE 101

Gone are the days when make up artists would use one shade of foundation to every face they've laid their hands on. With advanced research nowadays, it's a sin for us to be committing the same mistake in the past with regards to proper choice and application of make up.

In order to have the perfect foundation and correct blending of colors in make up, there are two things that we need to consider; skintone and undertone. Skintone is the one that can be readily seen by the naked eye and changes color on certain circumstances (i.e. sunburn, bleaching, tanning) while the undertone remains unchanged all throughout. Undertone is the "shadow" of the skin and can only be determined on certain methods which I will be sharing in a little while.

TYPES OF SKINTONE:

• Pink (Light)- If you are very fair, burn before you tan and your skin has pink undertone.
• Yellow (Light or Medium)- Beige or yellow undertone. Caucasian, Asian and Light Mixed Race would usually fall on this category.
• Olive (Medium)- Meditteranean, Latino, a- Fair skinned African American, or dark mixed- race
• Brown (Dark)- dark skin color. African- American, deep complexioned- Indian are under this category.

UNDERTONE

• Warm- yellow or red skintone. (i.e. ivory, peach, golden brown, beige, coppery, or deep golden brown). These people usually have hazel, brown or amber eye colors. 
• Cool- Skintone that are rosy-pink, rosy-beige, dark olive, dark brown or ebony. These people usually have black, blue and green eye colors.

DETERMINING UNDERTONE

All you need is to look at the vein under you wrist ; if your veins are mostly green, you have WARM undertone; if your veins are mostly blue, you have COOL undertone. 

Another trick is to hold a piece of white paper under your hand. Look carefully at your skin. If you see a yellowish cast, you have warm undertones, and if you see a bluish you have cool tones. 

RECOMMENDED COLORS 

These are the best colors to wear may it be on your eye shadow or your clothing.

• Warm Undertone- "earth tones” like yellows, oranges, browns, yellowish greens and orange based reds
• Cool Undertone- “jewel tones” like blues, greens, pinks and purples

Blush and lip colors:

• Warm Undertone- tangy peach, bronzers, light apricots, tomato reds, earthen or terracota reds and coppers
• Cool Undertone- raspberry reds, plums, rosy pinks, pastel pinks and honeys

So, this is it for our Skin tone and Undertone 101. I hope I have helped you in anyway erasing the confusion that you might have about these topics. Should there be any clarifications, just comment below.

Catch ya later!

-gelzzz