How to Find the Best Foundation Color for You
- Sep 13, 2019
- 2 min read
Written by Stylist Barby
Foundation is a cosmetic base that covers all your blemishes and provides an even, clean surface area for applying the rest of your makeup. It is very important that you use the right shade of foundation to avoid a very obvious and unnatural look. Foundation can be very hard to match—so how do you know which one will be right for you? Here are a few things to consider when selecting your shade, including skin type, skin tone, and complexion!
1 | Determine Your Tone
Before choosing the right foundation, you need to determine a couple of things about your skin, including your undertone. While the surface of your skin can change color due to acne or exposure to the elements, your undertone will always stay the same. Knowing your undertone will help you choose the right foundation color for you. People typically fall into one of these three undertones:
Cool: Your skin is more blue, red, or pink
Warm: Your skin is more golden, yellow, or peachy
Neutral: Your skin is a combination of cool and warm colors
There are a couple of tests you can use to determine if you are cool, warm, or neutral. This involves assessing your hair and eye color, what colors you look best in, how you react to the sun, and the color of your veins.
Naturally black, brown, and blonde hair combined with green, grey, or blue eyes is an indication of cool undertones. Brown or hazel eyes combined with naturally black, auburn, or strawberry blonde hair indicates warm undertones.
Blue veins on the inner wrist indicate that you're a cool tone, while green veins indicates warm. Bluish-green indicates neutral. People who have pink undertones are cool and tend to burn easily in the sun, unlike people with warm undertones who tan easily.
2 | Consider Your Skin Type
Knowing if your skin is oily or dry won’t help you pick your shade, but it's still important information when it comes to choosing the foundation that works best for you. It is always a good idea to buy a foundation that has SPF, as this will provide a small measure of protection against sunlight. To disguise an uneven complexion, choose a foundation that is medium to full coverage. If you want a more natural foundation, go for a partial or sheer coverage.
3 | Do a Color Test
The best foundation disappears into the skin. Foundation isn’t meant to be seen; rather, it should create a clean canvas for your makeup look. You can use your jawline as a testing zone to determine which foundation matches best.
For cool undertones, choose a foundation with a pink, red, or blue base. You can also consider shades like cocoa, rose, sable, and porcelain.
For warm undertones, pick a foundation with a gold or yellow base and consider shades like caramel, beige, and tan.
For neutral undertones, consider shades like buff, nude, ivory, or praline.
One thing I’d add: if you’re between shades, mixing two foundations is way more natural than forcing one to work (especially season to season). Also the “what colors you look best in” clue is underrated — once I noticed gold jewelry looked better on me, my matches got easier. It’s funny, I saw StyleLookLab mention styling based on what actually flatters you, and foundation shade feels like the same principle for your base.
The vein test helped me, but what finally sealed it was comparing two close shades on my jaw and taking a quick pic near a window — camera is brutal in the best way. If you’re acne-prone, matching the neck instead of the inflamed spots makes a huge difference. Random aside: I was playing with imgg and it reminded me how lighting/white balance can change everything, which is basically the foundation matching struggle in a nutshell.
I like that you call out undertone vs surface tone — I used to match to the redness in my cheeks and it never looked right once blended out. Also, oxidation is real; I’ve learned to let a swatch sit before deciding it’s “the one.” Side note, I was browsing hrefgo the other day and it made me think how many tools try to “auto-match” things, but makeup still needs that human check in daylight.
The part about undertone staying consistent is so true — my surface redness changes week to week, but the “too pink vs too yellow” problem is always the same. I wish more people talked about checking along the neck/chest too, because my face is a totally different story after sun. Slight tangent: I was using a bac calculator recently and it reminded me how much little measurement steps matter for accuracy, same vibe as testing foundation in natural light before buying.
The undertone tests are spot on, but lighting still gets me — bathroom light makes every shade look “fine” until I step outside. On a random break I ended up zoning out with this free block puzzle game free block puzzle game and then came back and realized my foundation was still oxidizing darker after 20 minutes. Waiting a bit before committing to a match has saved me so many bad purchases.