Wonder why some colors light up your face while others totally wash you out? There is more to skin color than just complexion. Crack the color code by identifying your skin (under) tone and you’ll never go wrong with hues.
                 
Peaches ‘n’ cream, milk ‘n’ roses, chocolate, olive, bronze, wheatish, coffee, chalky…there probably aren’t as many ice-cream flavors as there are complexions. However, every skin color, be it pale, fair, dusky or dark, has an ‘undertone’ to it which can be broadly described as “warm” or “cool”.

Figure out your undertone


Warm skin tones range from yellowish to even golden-bronze while cool skin tones are pinkish, pale or even bluish at times. So, how do you figure out yours? Simply flip your palm over and take a good hard look at the veins on the underside of your arm. If the vessels look green, chances are that your skin tone is warm but if they appear bluish, you are most likely a cool. Placing a white paper or cloth against your face in natural light is another way of assessing your undertones – if the paper appears yellowish in comparison, you are a cool and if it appears bluish, you are a warm. Simple, isn’t it? Another way is cool tones burn easily in the sun where as warm tones tan easily. There is also a Neutral which falls in between and mostly all colors go well on this tone.

Now that you have your finger on the right spot, it becomes relatively easier to zero in on colour palettes in apparel and make-up that are likely to compliment your skin.

While choosing make-up, people should opt for the same undertones as their skin. For example pastels and frosty shades complement cool skin tones while richer hues look great on warm skin. The same rule applies to gold and silver highlights. If you are cool skinned, you will find that silver jewelry and silver glitter looks better against your skin. On the other hand, gold jewelry adds a glow to warm skin tones.

If that still leaves you in a fix, here is a quick colour guide to help you :

Color Palette for Warm Skin

Blush
Pick apricots and peachy pinks if you are fair, bronzes and medium browns if you are medium and rich coppers and auburns if you are dark.

Lipstick
Nudes and rusty pinks go well with fair skin while darker skins look fab in maroons, burgundy, deep reds and lustrous browns.

Eye shadow
Experiment with different shades of bronze, gold, cream, taupe, emerald green, turquoise, fuchsia and coral.

Color Palette for Cool Skin

Blush
Pink, tawny, lavender and beige work well for fair complexions, rose and corals suit medium skins while dark skins shine out in shades of plum and deep pinks.

Lipstick
Frosty pinks and lavenders are for you if you are fair. For darker skin, take a pick from magenta, purples, frosty browns and muted shades of red.

Eye shadow
White, silver, pale blue, purple, sea green and lavender look good on cool skin tones.

All colors look good on Neutral skin tones.

Here is a chart of colors for warm and cool tones.

Warm Tones

Cool Tones

Get the base right


No matter how carefully you choose your colours, nothing will look right if the shade of your foundation is all wrong. Most women make the ghastly mistake of picking a foundation lighter than their skin’s natural colour in an attempt to look fairer.You must always try out the foundation on your cheekbones or neck before making a buy. Experiment across brands and choose one that completely blends into your skin. If you are unable to find a perfect match, opt for a color darker than your actual skin tone as a lighter shade will only make you look unnatural and pasty.

Once you have a basic understanding, you can then differentiate between for example, a “warm pink” and a “cool pink”. A warm pink is a peachy pink. A cool pink would be a purplish pink. A warm green would be a yellowish green. A cool green would be more blue.

A warm toned foundation powder is more yellow based. A cool toned one is more pink.

Warm celebs: Malaika Arora Khan, Bipasha Basu
Cool clebs: Karisma Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai

Are you a warm or a cool toned??

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