How To Determine Your Skin's Undertone: Warm or Cool

This might sound a bit dramatic, but if you want to ensure that you are wearing the makeup that is right for you, the most important factor to that is determining your skin's undertone. Once you know your undertone, finding colors that work for YOU is much easier! 

So first it is important to know a little about what exactly is an "undertone" and how it is important to you. Your undertone is the color that is underneath everything. Whether it is the middle of the winter and you're white as a ghost, or whether you just got back from Mexico and you're a bronze goddess, your undertone NEVER changes. 

There are two main undertones, warm or cool. A person can also be a Neutral skin tone, which means the following "tests" you can do, they can fit into both categories (lucky)! When you're in the makeup aisle and the foundation is marked with a W or a C, it is referencing the undertone in the foundation. For example, Loreal Tru Match is one of my favorite foundations, with a huge color selection. There are colors ranging from C1-, to N6, to W7. Those letters in front of the numbers are referencing your undertone, and the number after is referencing the range from light to dark within that undertone. 

This picture shows an example of a color range of the Loreal Tru Match Foundation, although all of those lighter shades might look similar to you, they all hold a different undertone. Once you buy that bottle of foundation and take it home you might feel like it matches your skin perfectly but if you didn't chose the correct undertone it can work in all the wrong ways. 

So by now you're probably wondering how to determine your undertone right?! Well I'm going to tell you a few tricks, and how I found my undertone!

Test #1: Look At Your Veins!

Yep, you read that right! The best way to determine your undertone (in my experience) is to look at your veins! Flip over your wrist and look at the veins below your hand.

If they appear more BLUE: displaying a COOL undertone

If they appear more GREEN: displaying a WARM undertone

If you are seeing BOTH blue and green: displaying NEUTRAL undertone

Test #2: Check Your Jewelry!

The next tests are kind of tricky, because for a majority of people, it can sway both ways. The vein test is the best controlled way to check your undertone, but if that didn't give you a solid answer, then maybe these next tests will! This is a personal preference test to which jewelry you look best in, but try to focus on the way these colors make your skin look, if they wash you out or compliment your skin color. 

If you look best in SILVER jewelry: displaying a COOL undertone

If you look best in GOLD jewelry: displaying a WARM undertone

If you can pull off BOTH gold and silver jewelry: displaying a NEUTRAL undertone

Test #3: Do you Burn or Tan?

This test can be wrong sometimes but it is another good rule of thumb to just double check your undertone from the vein test. 

If you BURN after a day in the sun: displaying a COOL undertone

If you TAN after a day in the sun: displaying a WARM undertone

Still Unsure?

If you're still unsure of what your skin tone is, you can go to a beauty counter and ask the consultant to help you find your undertone. That is how I originally found my undertone at an Estee Lauder counter. The consultant asked me what my undertone was so she could match me to a foundation and I said that I thought I was cool, so she did the vein test, and I was right, I have a cool undertone! 

What is your undertone!?

Thanks for reading, 

Jaimie