What Is My Skin Tone?

Working out your skin tone is not always easy, as the difference between the look of each skin tone can be quite subtle. There are three broad skin tones so you either fall into the warm, neutral or cool undertone. It’s a good idea to know your skin tone, as it helps with picking the the best skincare, make-up, hair colour and clothes. Sometimes understanding your skin tone can get forgotten, as most of us focus on skin type. In this feature we will tell you everything that you need to know about how to discover your skin tone, with tips on how to use this information. Looking fabulous and picking the right colours to suit you will be easy.

A point to mention is that skin tone differs from skin colour. Our skin colour ranges from very light to very dark skin. Skin colour can also change with the time of the year and tanning. However, our skin tone does not change and is either cool, warm or neutral. In this article we are only focusing on skin tones and the best colours for a cool, neutral or warm colour shades.

The Difference Between Skin Tones

Identifying our skin tone as warm, neutral, or cool plays a crucial role in choosing the right colours for makeup, hair, and wardrobe, enhancing our natural beauty. Warm skin tones often have undertones of yellow, peach, or gold, and such individuals tend to look best in earth tones and warm colours like red, orange, yellow, and olive green. Neutral skin tones have a mix of both warm and cool undertones and are versatile, looking good in most colours. Cool skin tones, on the other hand, are characterized by pink, red, or blue undertones, and people with these tones often find that cool colours like blue, green, and purple complement them best. Understanding this distinction enhances personal style and ensures that one's choices in fashion and beauty are more flattering.

How To Work Out Your Skin Tone Colour

Your skin undertone is different to your skin colour. The later can change with times of the year and tanning, which bronzes skin. However, your skin undertone is something that never changes, so it’s the hidden colour of your skin and will be one of these three shades.

• Cool
• Neutral
• Warm

As well as there being three main skin undertones, there are also three different methods to calculate what your skin undertone is, as described below. It’s hard to calculate just by looking at yourself, as colours can be quite deceiving. If you have ever tried to paint someone and show their skin then you will probably know this; you may be surprised about the colours needed to achieve the right skin tone.

Skin Undertone Calculation Method One

Stand by a mirror and window in natural daylight, but not sunshine as this will affect your true face colour. Then assess the real colour of your skin. Take a look at your under forearm area, as this does not tend to get much sunshine and therefore is the closest to our natural colour. Assess the veins in the wrists and see what colour they are. If they are blueish or grey, then your skin undertone is on the cool side. If the vein colour is more on the green side, then your skin undertone is warm. If you are unsure and your veins kind of look purple or in between blue and green, then you are most likely a neutral undertone.

Skin Undertone Calculation Method Two

Staying by the mirror with natural daylight, make sure there is no make-up on your skin. Then take a sheet of white printer paper and bring it next to your neck and chest area, but not your face as it can show a fair amount of redness and skew the way you see things. Then assess your skin undertone colour for cool, warm or neutral. Another better option is to put your hair up in a white towel turban and wear a white robe. Then against the white paper or clothing does your skin look pinkish or yellowish? If it looks pinker and reddish then you have blue undertones so are cool. If it looks yellowish then you are on the warm side. If you are unsure then you may be neutral.

Skin Undertone Calculation Method Three

Take a piece of silver jewellery and a piece of gold jewellery, preferably of the same size. Then hold them both in front of you by a mirror in daylight. Compare whether the silver or the gold jewellery makes your skin look the most healthy and radiant, as if you have been lit up. If the silver piece makes you look more healthier, then you are more of a cool tone. If it’s the gold piece that works best, then you are more warm skin toned. If both of them look great, then you are most likely neutral toned.

After following those 3 tests you should have a good idea of your skin undertone colour. If you get different results from those 3 tests, or you can't really tell the colour of your veins, then the chances are that you are neutral.

If you are warm toned you normally have a little bit more colour to your face, warm and neutral skin tones tend to tan easier than cool skin tones, as warmer skin tones tend to have golden tones. Your teeth can also be a sign of your skin undertone. If you have creamy white teeth then you are most likely warm toned, but if you have a blue tinge to your teeth then this would more likely be cool toned. Also, try holding up an orange warm item of clothing and a cool blue item of clothing to you in the mirror, you should be able to tell which tone works best for you. The warm orange would indicate a warm skin tone, and the cool blue a cool skin tone. If they both look great then you are probably a neutral skin tone.

Make-up, Hair and Clothing For Difference Skin Tones

It's good to know your skin undertone, so you can pick the right make-up and outfit colour choices. When the colours in your make-up and outfits suit you well it's because they flatter your skin. This is when you might get compliments and people say that you look beautiful today, or your eyes are shining. If you feel that an outfit does not suit you, or you don’t look great then it could be that the colours do not suit your skin tone. Great beauty products like Nakin's Natural Skincare range will really help to look healthy and radiant, but the right colours also give a natural glow. When you know your skin tone you can be confident that the colours you choose suit you. It's not quite as simple as that, it may just be that a colour is too bright, or not bright enough for your tone. If the colour choices are not suited to you then you can look tired and washed out. The wrong colours can even age us. You may feel that you look tired and wonder why. You might notice features that are not your best ones, such as bags under the eyes. If you feel that you look washed out then one of the reasons could that the colours you have on are not right, or the wrong shade, or too down for your skin. At Nakin we believe in looking beautiful whatever our age, and this is why we developed our award winning anti-ageing skincare products. Our face care range will help to get skin fresh and glowing. The right clothes and make-up colours can also do this.

Below is a short guide to give an idea on some of the colours that do work for each skin tone. If you are unsure though then with make-up you can stick to neutral colours like nude lipsticks, looking for shades close to your natural lip colour. Perfect hair colouring is a real science and especially today with so many advanced techniques like balayage. It’s worth investing in a colour consultation with a professional colour technician. If you need any assistance with clothes shopping then lots of brands now offer personal stylist sessions, so this would be a nice way to get some ideas on what will work.

Colour Guide For Warm Skin Tones

• Make-up would tend towards golden and honey bases. Bronze and metallics look lovely with pink blush.
• Hair colour for those with warm skin tone works nicely as honey blonde and caramels. Ash colours do not work well.
• Clothes that look great are the rich colours like coral, red, gold, ivory and yellow or green. 

Colour Guide For Neutral Skin Tones

• Make-up options include lots of flexibility. Although neutrals can wear warm and cool foundations, those with the yellow tones for warmer skins are more flattering, as they conceal more redness. Neutral skin tones can wear most colours, so just look what suits the most.
• Hair colour that works well for neutral skin tones is mid to dark brown hair with highlights or balayage. Avoid orangey and red hair colours.
• Clothes that work for neutral skin tones include the pick of the bunch. If you are neutral skin-toned then the good news is that in theory you can pretty much wear any colour and it will look great. Although you may find that some colours and tones will look better than others, and it can be just personality and personal taste. Also it’s important to ensure the colours that you pick work nicely together.

Colour Guide for Cool Skin Tones

• Make-up options include black eye liner, bluish red lipsticks, peach blushes and beige eye shadows. Stay away from yellow toned make-up colours as these can drain the colour out of the skin. Foundations should have a very slight pinkish note.
• Hair colour for cool skin tones includes champagne blonde and chestnut. Colours to avoid are honey blond.
• Clothes for cool skin tones include blue, pink and emerald colour options.

There are some colours that each skin tone should avoid all together, but sometimes it is just about getting the right shade of a colour.

If your skin undertone is determined as cool then cool blue is better than warm blue, do not wear yellow and golden colours as you will find that bronze colours make you disappear so people see the outfit instead of you. If you are warm skin toned then those bronze and golden colours will look good, and cool blues can make you look pale. However, warm blues can work.

One of the aspects in choosing the right colour hair, make-up and clothes for your skin tone is that there are so many different variations of every colour. Each colour in a palette may have a warm and cool version. Then there is our actual skin colour which varies from very light to very dark, similar to the spectrum seen on a foundation colour picker. Our actual skin colour is also an important aspect in picking the right colours. So the best thing to do when shopping for make-up and clothes, or choosing a hair colour is to always hold the product up to your face and body in front of a mirror. Then decide if the colour makes you light up, does it make you look alive with brighter eyes and teeth. If you're neutral, it's good in that you can wear a lot more colours and any colour kind of suits. The main aim when choosing a look it to make sure it is harmonious and works together. This might be having a warmed toned hair colour, make-up and fashion look where the colours balance and flatter each other.

So, to summarise, working out your skin tone is different from your skin colour shade that goes from very light to very dark. Your skin undertone is either cool, neutral or warm. It’s all about deciding which colours make you look good and give eyes shine, and which are ageing and do not work with your skin tone. The easiest way to practice is to compare make-up and clothing pieces that you already have in your closet, and when you put them up against your skin then see which ones make you look fabulous and glowing, and which ones are not such a great look.

Hopefully this article will give you an idea of the colours that work for your skin type, so once you have this information and understand how to differentiate warm tones from cool tones, it should be quite easy to establish the best colours for you. Then it can be put into practice by wearing the right colours to help us look as good as we can and compliment our natural looks.

At Nakin we believe in celebrating our beauty at every age. This is why we developed a line of natural and affordable face products. More information about out cruelty free skincare all made in the UK is available at www.nakinskincare.com There is everything you need for a skin care routine including cleansers, face creams, lip and eye treatments.