Your undertone is certainly one of the trickiest things to determine, but also one of the most important. Clothing, I have written a blog before about undertones and why it is such a complex thing. But how can you actually recognize undertones?
The best thing, of course, is to come visit me at the salon 😉 I use a colorimeter to scan your skin. This way, you know exactly what your undertone is based on data.
Basically, there are a number of characteristics, and I want to explain them. I have performed well over 1,000 analyses and skin scans to identify undertones, so I have learned a thing or two. The tricky part remains that our eyes make you look different in terms of color than you actually are. Think of that one dress that went viral, which everyone interpreted differently.
Warm undertone
If you have a warm undertone, then you have yellow in your skin. Yellow is generally the easiest to recognize because it reflects brightly in the skin. A characteristic of a yellow undertone is that you often look somewhat darker, grayer, or a bit dull around your hairline/contours, your mouth, and sometimes around your eyes. You often have a bit more color variation in your face, with areas that look darker, for example. This is because yellow in the skin appears darker.
Cool undertone
If you have a cool undertone, you have more pink in your skin. Recognizing a pink undertone is often a bit more difficult, because the pink looks different at different color depths.
Generally, a cool undertone is easiest to recognize by redness in your face. This is because your skin is less able to correct itself, as you already have a pink undertone. If you have more redness, it often means you have a cool undertone.
That is certainly not always the case. People with a warm undertone can also have redness, but in that case, it is more often skin irritation rather than normal redness.
The transformation of a cool undertone
- Light skin: pink
- Medium: peach
- Dark: blue
Neutral undertone
A neutral undertone has a good balance of warm and cool tones in the skin, which is why the skin is often very even. Your skin can correct itself well. In my salon, I often hear that this group finds themselves looking so grey, flat, or pale. A neutral undertone literally looks neutral. This is also clearly visible when you place a C, N, and W foundation side by side.
