How to Find Your Skin Undertone

As we celebrate the launch of our newest product, Sheer Skin Tint, we welcome our first-ever skincare-meets-makeup hybrid. Sheer Skin Tint comes in 10 flexible shades that span across a range of skin tones and undertones, and we want to make sure you can find the best possible match for your skin. While these 10 shades are extremely flexible (you may vary between two or three shades), it’s still important to figure out your skin’s undertone to help narrow down your search.

While skin tone is easier to determine (most people know if they’re fair, medium, deep, or somewhere in between), determining your undertone can be a bit trickier. Here are a few tips for finding your undertone so you can pick the best Sheer Skin Tint shade for you.

What are skin undertones?

The first step to determining what undertone you have is to first understand what exactly undertones are. Your skin tone is the shade of your skin — this ranges from fair to deep, and is usually featured as the first part of a complexion makeup product’s description (i.e. “Light-Medium”).

However, within each skin tone is an array of undertones. There are three main pillars — cool, warm, and neutral — and figuring out which category your skin falls into will help you pick the best match for your complexion products. If you’re cool-toned but wear a warm foundation (even in the right skin tone), you may look too orange or yellow. On the other hand, if you’re warm-toned but wear a cool foundation, your skin may appear washed out or gray.

How do you determine your skin’s undertone?

There are a few different methods for determining your skin’s undertone. Here are a few of our favorites.

• Try Out Different Clothing Colors: Figuring out what color palettes are the most flattering on you can help determine your skin’s undertone. Earthy shades like yellow, orange, red, brown, and tan are more flattering on warmer skin tones, while jewel tones like blue, purple, and green tend to lean more cool. If you don’t find that either palette sticks out on your skin, it’s likely that your skin is neutral. You can also test different shades of white on your skin. If you find that a pure-white shirt looks better on you than an off-white shirt, you’re probably warm-toned. If pure-white washes out your skin, your skin is probably cool-toned. And of course, if both look okay on you, you probably lean more neutral.

• Inventory Your Jewelry Collection: If you find that you usually gravitate towards silver jewelry because it looks better on you, your skin is probably cool-toned. However, warm-toned skin usually favors gold jewelry. For people who like to mix metals, your skin is likely neutral.

• Take A Look At Your Veins: Take a peek at your wrists or elbow creases. Do your veins look blue or purple? Your skin is probably cool-toned. If your veins appear more green, it’s likely that your skin is warmer. If your veins don’t lean in one direction or the other, you’re probably neutral.

What are color undertones?

While this is a bit more nuanced than you may need in your complexion product search, it’s also helpful to understand what colors are present in your skin’s undertone. You’ll often see complexion products described as “golden,” “olive,” or “peachy,” which helps if your skin has a particularly prevalent color present. There aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for determining what shades are present in your skin other than trying out different products that contain those hues, but here are a couple guidelines:

Many neutral and cool skin tones have more pink and peachy colors present.
Many warmer skin tones feature yellow, golden, and olive shades.

The absolute first step is determining which of the three main undertone pillars your skin falls under, then testing the shades within that pillar to find your perfect match.

Now that you have a few different methods for determining your skin’s undertone, it will be much easier to find the right Sheer Skin Tint shade for you. Take a look at our array of Sheer Skin Tint shades.