Find Out About Your Skin Tone With These Easy Tricks

By: Guest Writer, Erin Haight

A beautiful redhead is at the cosmetic counter at a department store and is searching tirelessly for the foundation that will perfectly match her complexion. A woman dressed in a lab coat approaches and asks, “What is your skin tone? Are you a warm tone or a cool tone?”

The redhead thinks, “Huh? What did she mean? Did she just insult me or say I look ill?”

Ravishing reds, never fear.

Here are a few tips you can use to determine if you have warm or cool undertones in your complexion and what to do about it:

Warm Tones: This means you have peaches, reds, and purples mixed into your skin color.

Cool Tones: This means that you have a blue-green tint to go with that fleshy skin color.

EASY TRICKS TO FIND OUT WHAT TONE YOU ARE:

1. Turn your arm upwards so that you can see the underside of your forearm. Find your darkest most obvious vein, see it? Now is it blue-green or bluish-purple? If it is blue-green, you are a “cool” tone. If it is bluish-purple you are a “warm” tone. Easy, right?! 

2. The color of your eyes can also make a big difference in figuring out what you are. If you have brown or hazel eyes, you are most likely a warm tone. If you have blue or grey-ish eyes you are probably a cool tone.

Note: Most redheads have cool-toned skin, but there are always exceptions.

LEARN HOW COSMETIC COMPANIES DEFINE YOU:

Remember that most foundations are labeled NW or NC and a corresponding number, like NW25 or NC 20. That means Neutral Warm or Neutral Cool. The number is the level of color, the smaller the number the lighter the shade.

READ: Save or Splurge? The Top Foundation Picks for Redheads 

TRICKS FOR SUMMER & WINTER:

1. In the summer, keep it sheer with tinted moisturizer in a slightly warmer shade to emphasize the color of your gorgeous freckles (jealous!!). This shade should be somewhere between the color of your freckles and the underlying skin tone.

2. In the winter months, emphasize the underlying skin tone color and use thicker moisturizer and foundation. You can cancel out redness with a yellow-based foundation and concealer.

Now, when you find yourself at your next makeup counter, the conversation will go a lot more smoothly and you’ll find the ‘redhead friendly’ product you so desire.

Keep beautifully red and Rock it like a Redhead!