Skin Undertone Test

Your undertone is the quiet color that sits under the surface of your skin and does not change with a tan, a blush or the seasons. It is the warm or cool cast that decides whether gold or silver suits you, whether ivory or pure white looks fresher, and which lipsticks make your teeth look brighter.

There are three undertones. Warm skin has a golden, peachy or yellow base. Cool skin has a rosy, pink or bluish base. Neutral skin is a balanced mix of the two. This is different from your surface color, the shade you would match to a foundation. Two women can both be fair and yet one is warm and one is cool. In color science the undertone lives in the warm to cool axis (the a and b values in the Lab color space), not in how light or dark you are.

Do these in daylight, near a window, with bare skin and no recent self tan. No single test is the final word, so use all three and go with the majority.

1. The vein test: look at the veins on the inside of your wrist. Green leaning veins point to warm, blue or purple veins point to cool. If you genuinely cannot tell, that itself suggests neutral.
2. The jewelry test: lay gold and silver against your face. If gold makes your skin glow, you are warm. If silver looks cleaner and brighter, you are cool. If both look fine, you are likely neutral.
3. The white test: hold up a pure bright white and then a soft cream. If cream flatters and pure white looks harsh, you lean warm. If pure white looks crisp and cream looks dull, you lean cool.

A few habits send people to the wrong answer.

• Confusing surface depth with undertone. Fair or deep skin says nothing about warm or cool on its own.
• Checking veins under yellow bulbs or LED strips, which tint the result.
• Going off a fresh tan or self tanner, which adds warmth that is not really yours.
• Reading only one test. The vein test alone is unreliable, which is why we combine three.
• Assuming everyone is warm or cool. A real share of women are neutral, and that is a useful answer, not a failed test.

Knowing your undertone is not theory, it changes what you reach for every morning. It tells you which red flatters you, a warm tomato or brick red against warm skin, a cool cherry or blue based red against cool skin. It tells you whether your best denim is a warm vintage wash or a crisp cool indigo, and whether your everyday metal should be gold, silver or rose gold. It even steers your makeup, since warm skin glows under peach and coral blush while cool skin lifts under rose and berry.

• Warm: cream, camel, olive, rust, warm reds, gold jewelry.
• Cool: grey, navy, true white, emerald, berry, silver jewelry.
• Neutral: most clear, balanced shades, both metals, soft taupe as a go to.

Undertone is the foundation that makers from Munsell to Carole Jackson and the Korean studios all read first, before depth and clarity. Korean personal color even names its two big groups warm tone and cool tone, and sells makeup labeled that way. Once you know your warm, cool or neutral base, your full color season and your best palette fall into place much faster. At FitsYou the undertone test is the quick start, and your photo lets us read that warm to cool cast straight from your real skin rather than from a guess.