Your Guide to Skin Undertones: Warm & Cool (2024)

FAQs

Your Guide to Skin Undertones: Warm & Cool? ›

Find some bright natural lighting, and look at the veins in your wrist. Green veins usually point to warm undertones. Blue to purple veins lean towards cool undertones. Veins that blend into your skin or contain no visible color can mean you've got neutral undertones.

Take a look at the veins on the inside of your wrist. Do they appear more blue or green? If your veins appear more blue, you're cool-toned but if you see more green, you're warm-toned. If you see a fair amount of both both green and blue, you have a neutral undertone.

Atlanta-based makeup artist Brielle Brenner says this quick at-home test is perhaps the easiest way to find your skin undertone: “Check the veins in your wrist, and if they appear more blue or purple, you most likely have a cool undertone; if they look green, you most likely have a warmer skin tone,” she tells SELF.

"You have cool undertones if you can see blue veins in your skin. If your veins appear green on the skin (olive), you're warm. Neutral is a mixture of both warm and cool undertones," he explains.

Average skin colors are seen as most attractive. Typically, tan is the average skin color, making it very attractive to most people. However, the most attractive skin color varies on preference, culture, and sex. A healthy skin complexion and rosy “glow” is always considered attractive.

Skin with Warm Undertones

Warm toned skin has a yellow undertone. Women with warm toned skin often prefer to wear deep autumnal colours like oranges, browns, navy blues, and warm greens. They also suit spring colours like creams, corals, soft yellows and deep ruby red.

Best hair colour ideas for warm skin tones

If you have these warm undertones then shades like gold, copper, chestnut, mocha, dark auburn, dark chocolate, honey, mahogany and cinnamon are going to pop. Warm skin tones can also look amazing when paired with hair that's liquorice, blue-black or true black in colour.

Warm skin tones can look stunning with gold and champagne-toned highlighters. Apply your highlighter to the high points of your face, such as your cheekbones, the bridge of your nose, and your Cupid's bow. This will enhance your warm undertones and give you a luminous finish.

The 80/20 Rule. When mixing warm and cool colors in a room, strike a beautiful balance using 80% of warm or cool colors and 20 % of the other. My favorite way to do this is to add a mix of warm and cool pillows to my sofas or chairs. Another way to mix undertones is through accent chairs and accessories.

What colors to avoid if you have cool undertones? ›

Earth tones like amber and caramel work well with this skin tone, as do jewel tones like ruby and emerald. Metallics such as platinum can also be a great choice. Avoid pastels and neon hues that will clash with your cool-toned skin.

Cool Greens

For bright greens, think chartreuse, kelly, or emerald. For muted greens, think jade and hunter. For deep greens, think spruce and pine. If it has any kind of yellow or brown tints, it's probably not a cool green.

Check out your veins

If you can see your veins, you may be able to use their color to identify your undertone. For example, if your veins look greenish, then you may have warm undertones. People with blue or purplish-looking veins usually have cooler undertones.

White Cloth Test: Put a white cloth next to your bare face and observe what cast your skin takes on. Skin with warm undertones will appear yellowish, while skin with cool undertones will seem blueish or pinkish.

A warm undertone is more peachy, golden, or yellow therefore warmer undertones look better in warmer shades such as orange-based reds, corals, and golds.

Look at your wrist veins under natural light.

If your veins appear to be green, you probably have warm undertones. If they're blue or purple, you probably have cool undertones. If they are a mix of both, you may have neutral undertones.

If you have lighter hair, you likely have cooler undertones, whereas darker hair is often accompanied by warmer undertones. It's these undertones that determine which type of hair color looks best on you.

The first step to find out your colour palette is understanding your skin undertones. Cool undertones have hints of pink, blue, or purple, while warm undertones lean towards peach, yellow, or golden hues. If you're unsure, consider examining the veins on your wrist.

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