Have you ever wandered up and down the cosmetic aisle looking for your next product, but got stuck asking yourself, “How do I determine my skin tone?” If so, you’re not alone.

Determining your skin tone can be a daunting task and buying the right shades to beautify your complexion is sometimes overwhelming.

The wrong foundation, concealer, bronzer or blush can create an unflattering palette that doesn’t do your beauty justice. Your makeup needs to blend seamlessly with your natural skin tone at the jawline to avoid looking unnatural or ‘caked’, and determining your skin tone is paramount for accomplishing this task.

To help you achieve a flawless finish, we’ve put together this comprehensive guide on how you can (correctly!) discover your skin tone—and prevent those dreaded makeup disasters. Keep reading to learn how you can finally get the answer to “what is my skin tone?”

“When I matched clients, I always separated two questions: which shade depth suits someone, and which undertone family matches theirs. Most shade mistakes happen when people get the depth right and the undertone wrong. That’s usually why a foundation looks slightly gray, orange or pink even when it seems right in the bottle.” — Alex Lang, Director of Global Education

What is Skin Tone?

The “tone” of your skin is the genetically endowed amount of melanin in your epidermis (the outermost layer of skin). Melanin is a pigment made by cells called melanocytes. Everyone has a similar number of melanocytes; differences in tone come from the type of melanin (brown-black eumelanin or red-yellow pheomelanin), how much is made, and how it is distributed in the skin.

When the skin is exposed to damaging ultraviolet light from the sun, melanocytes kick into overdrive as a natural defense mechanism, producing an abundant amount of melanin spread across the epidermis to absorb the sun’s harmful rays. A tan is a sign your skin has been damaged by UV. It is not a safe way to protect it.

For that reason, determining your skin tone will vary depending on how much time you spend in unprotected sun exposure, but the skin tone you were born with is based on your genetic makeup. It’s hard to group skin tones into categories, since each of us has uniquely varying hues, but generally speaking, there are three different categories you can use to determine your skin tone:

• Light: Fair to light skin tends to burn easily and tan little. If you find that this is your skin tone, be extra diligent with your UV protection and wear broad-spectrum sunscreen daily to prevent burning and photoaging.
• Medium: Medium to tan skin may tan more readily. Tanning easily doesn’t mean you’re immune to sun-related aging.
• Dark: Deep skin rarely burns, but it can still be damaged by UV. As with those who have medium skin, you are not exempt from sun damage if you have this skin tone. In fact, you're more prone to hyperpigmentation and you’re still susceptible to skin cancer, so hold onto that sunscreen!

Note: Be sure to apply–and reapply–sunscreen daily. Even if you don't burn, everyone is susceptible to skin cancer and sun damage.

Again, these three skin tone names are speaking in broad, general terms which can be broken down to much smaller specifications. For example, you can differentiate between light and fair, while “dark” could mean espresso, brown or ebony. Within each depth, your undertone is what fine-tunes your shade match.

What are Skin Undertones?

If you have ever shopped for cosmetics with color coverage, you’ve probably heard the terms “cool”, “warm”, and “neutral” describing different shades of skin tone. These terms refer to the skin’s “undertone,” or the subtle, muted color beneath your skin’s surface. Think of it as a shadow that’s always there; while your determined skin tone may change, the undertone remains the same. Learning how to answer “what is my undertone color?” is important. Being able to find the right cosmetic relies largely on matching your unique undertone. Let’s break down the different undertones:

• Cool: red and pink with bluish hints
• Warm: yellow, peachy and golden hues
• Neutral: a balanced mix of warm and cool
• Olive: a green or gray-green cast (more on this below)

See the skin tone chart below for reference.

The surface color of your skin tone, or the first thing you see when you look in the mirror, may appear ruddy, but your undertone could be golden or yellow.

Therefore, when determining your skin tone for foundation, liquid foundation, concealer or any other type of cosmetic, pay equal importance to your undertone.

What is Skin Complexion?

Before teaching you how to determine your skin tone for those who are still unsure, it’s worth noting that skin tone and complexion are not one and the same; tone refers to the color of your skin while your complexion encompasses your overall appearance. Think of rosy, red cheeks or dark under-eye circles; “complexion” includes these colors in addition to your natural skin tone. It also refers to texture, such as dry versus oily. Learn more about identifying your skin type here.

Pick products suited to your complexion as well as tone, i.e. those looking to reduce shine and redness should seek mattifying products, or those with uneven tone should find color correctors, and so forth.

How to Determine Your Skin Tone

Before going up and down that cosmetic aisle to find the perfect product, check out this handful of ways to determine skin tone and nail your perfect match:

Look at your face in natural light

If you notice a gray tone when you’re wearing makeup, your foundation doesn’t complement your undertones.

Here’s how to check your skin tone in natural light: 

1. Thoroughly wash your face clear of any makeup or grime.
2. Wait at least 15 minutes and find some natural lighting, since different lighting affects the appearance of your skin (we all know fluorescent light does no one any favors).
3. Grab a small mirror and head out into the sunlight or a well-lit window to determine your most natural tone.
4. Observe your jawline (it’s usually less affected by color changes than the rest of your face) to find your surface color; remember, the jaw is where you need to blend, so this is the shade you need to match!

The silver/gold test

If silver complements your skin better than gold, you likely have cool undertones. If you have warm skin tones, gold likely looks better—helpful information when it comes to shopping for jewelry!

Look at your veins

In natural light, check the appearance of your veins beneath your skin.

• If your veins appear blue or purple, that may suggest a cool undertone. This is a quick, informal check, so use it alongside the other tests rather than on its own.
• If your veins look green or olive, that may suggest a warm undertone.
• If you can’t tell whether or not your veins are green or blue, you probably have a neutral undertone. Those of you with an olive complexion will probably fall into this category.

How does your skin react to sun exposure?

“I’d encourage everyone to stop using ‘I don’t burn’ as a reason to skip sunscreen. How your skin reacts to the sun tells you about UV sensitivity, not about protection needs. Deeper skin tones are more prone to lingering dark spots, so daily SPF helps keep tone even as well as healthy.” — Alex Lang, Director of Global Education

When you’re out in the sun, does your skin tan easily? Do you rarely sunburn? Examining the way your skin reacts to the sun’s rays can hint at your skin’s depth. How your skin responds to sun is useful for choosing sun protection, not for finding your undertone. Everyone, at every depth, needs daily broad-spectrum SPF. When taking the steps to determine your skin tone, you want to be sure that your skin is completely clean and free of all of your makeup or debris that can interfere with your observations.

If you have any remnant mineral foundation, leftover eye makeup, or you use bronzing primer and you didn’t quite wipe it all off, that can influence how your skin tone appears and interfere with you finding the right products for your complexion. Finding your skin tone requires you to work with a blank canvas.

Once your skin is free and clear of all outside influences, you can get down to finding your skin tone, and start to create a plan for updating makeup, personalized skin care, and even fashion choices to work for you instead of against you.

Skin Tone Types

What do skin tone "depths" really mean?

Skin tone depth simply describes how light or dark your skin appears. Many beauty brands use depth levels such as fair, light, medium, tan, deep, and dark. These loosely follow the Fitzpatrick Scale (Types I through VI), which classifies skin by how it reacts to UV exposure.

Within each depth level, multiple undertone options exist. A "medium-warm" foundation suits medium skin with golden undertones, while "medium-cool" suits the same depth with pink undertones. Knowing your depth and undertone together gives you the most accurate shade match.

What about olive undertones?

There is actually a fourth undertone worth mentioning: olive. Olive undertones have a green or gray-green hue beneath the surface and are most common in medium and tan skin tones. Olive undertones are neither purely warm nor cool. If this sounds like you, foundations labeled "neutral-to-warm" with a slight golden cast tend to work well.

Why Is It Useful to Know My Skin Tone?

Understanding your skin tone and undertones is useful in everyday life, from selecting makeup to outfit choices and creating your overall aesthetic. Knowing your specific skin tone color helps you choose the right foundation, concealer, and other cosmetics to create a seamless and natural look. When it comes to choosing lipstick and blush colors, ones that harmonize with the undertones of your skin will enhance your look.

Along with guiding your makeup choices, knowledge of your skin tone color will help you select clothing that accentuates your natural features and radiance. Wearing colors that clash with your complexion can give you the appearance of dull skin. Similarly, you should consider your skin tone when changing hair color. Creating harmony between your hair and skin results in a more flattering and cohesive look. Basically, if you want to look and feel your best, knowing your skin tone and the undertones of your skin is essential.

Buying the Right Makeup

Now that you know how to determine your skin tone, it’s time to start finding the right cosmetics to beautify your complexion. If you can determine the skin tone that goes with the corresponding color, perfect makeup application will be a breeze.

• Cool undertones: If you determine your skin undertone is cool, consider: blue-based eye shadows, accentuated lips in red, pink or purple hues, and enhancing your pink pigment with pale, rosy blush.
• Warm undertones: Those with warm undertones should try: earthy eye shadows to complement a natural yellow glow, highlight cheeks with a coral blush or illuminating pearl powder, and find lip shades of a darker red.
• Neutral undertones: If you’ve determined your skin tone is neutral, you can usually wear both warm and cool shades; look for foundations labeled 'neutral'. You can also choose colors that complement your eyes and hair.

Enhance your natural beauty with the Mineral Corrector Palette with SPF 20 which has SPF protection and color corrects red, blue, and yellow tones on the skin.

Note: When shopping for foundation, particularly if you need foundation for sensitive skin, always start with a small test patch (at the jaw) to determine if your skin tone matches the given product. Keep in mind that your tone will vary by season, and that many people choose to go one shade lighter or darker than their surface color based on preference.

What’s the Best Foundation for Me?

To select the ideal foundation for your skin tone, you should have a basic understanding of:

• Skin undertones
• Texture preferences
• Coverage needs

Before purchasing a foundation, consider your skin type, whether it’s oily, dry, or combination. You should also figure out whether your undertone is warm, cool, or neutral to find your perfect match.

Here are some recommendations for foundations based on skin type and your concerns:

• Even Up Clinical Pigment Perfector SPF 50: For those with age spots or discoloration to correct with clinically-proven ingredients and protect with all-mineral SPF 50.
• Tint du Soleil Whipped Mineral Foundation SPF 30: For those with mature or drier skin, this foundation is packed with a nourishing multi-vitamin complex and collagen-building peptides to improve skin's elasticity and ability to retain moisture while protecting with all-mineral SPF 30
• Sunforgettable Total Protection Face Shield Flex SPF 50: Suitable for all skin types, including sensitive and acneic, this lightweight mineral sunscreen with tinted color coverage is packed with advanced antioxidants and niacinamide to brighten and treat skin while protecting with all-mineral SPF 50.
• Natural Finish Mineral Foundation SPF 20: This is better for oily skin types to lightly absorb excess sebum and protect with all-mineral SPF 20.

When choosing a foundation for your skin tone, look at the shade options and select the one that best matches you. It’s worth noting that some foundations are designed to be suitable for all skin tones, so it can actually be quite simple to find something that works for you with minimal effort.

How to Match Your Foundation Shade

Start with clean, bare skin and natural daylight. Then:

1. Pick three shades that look close: your best guess, one a touch lighter and one a touch deeper.
2. Swatch a short stripe of each along your jawline, from your cheek down toward your neck.
3. Step into daylight or stand by a window and see which stripe seems to disappear into your skin.
4. Wait a few minutes for the swatches to dry down, since many foundations deepen slightly as they set, then check again.
5. The shade that still blends at your jaw once it has dried is your match.

Seasonal shade shifts and mixing shades

Your surface tone can change a little through the year, often looking a shade deeper in summer and lighter in winter. Your undertone stays the same, so you usually need a different depth, not a different undertone family.

Keeping two shades on hand makes this easy. Mix a little of each on the back of your hand, adjust the ratio as your skin changes, and apply as usual. Mixing also helps if you fall between two shades in a range.

How to match a tinted SPF

Tinted sunscreens usually come in fewer shades and give sheerer coverage than foundation, so they’re more forgiving. Match by depth first, then undertone, and swatch at your jaw the same way. Sunforgettable Total Protection Face Shield Flex SPF 50 comes in six shades, while Even Up Clinical Pigment Perfector SPF 50 comes in one universal shade. For a step-by-step guide, see our post on how to choose your tinted sunscreen shade.

Colorescience Mineral Cosmetics for All Skin Tones

Colorescience offers a wide variety of mineral cosmetics for all different skin tones. That means whether you have a cool, warm, or neutral skin tone, we have mineral cosmetics that are suitable for you. Plus, our all-mineral cosmetics and sunscreens use only mineral sunscreen actives and are suitable for sensitive skin, making our products the perfect choice for people of all skin types.

Whether you are in the market for a Mineral Corrector Palette SPF 20, lip gloss, bronzer, or all-mineral SPF 50 blush, bronze, or eye color, we have the mineral cosmetics you need. Additionally, if you’ve noticed that over time you have developed different skin conditions that may be resulting in an uneven skin tone, you may be interested in our skin treatments. They're designed to help improve the look of discoloration and uneven tone.

Our clinically tested products help to diminish the appearance of discoloration while blurring brown spots, and delivering long-term healthy skin benefits. With Colorescience mineral cosmetics and skin treatments, you can be proactive and address the look of uneven tone with products designed for it.

What is My Skin Tone? FAQs

How do I know what skin undertone I have?

There are a few different ways to figure out what skin undertone you have. And most of them are simple—including those we’ve listed above to help you along your skin tone/undertone journey.

When you are asking yourself, “what is my undertone?” you want to keep an open mind and use the helpful tips we have already given you to find what your undertone is. You may already have an idea, or you may be able to figure it out based on easy clues, but you still want to be sure to take the proper steps to figure out where your skin stands on the undertone spectrum. Does it have cool undertones, neutral, or warm?

When you figure out the answer, it makes shopping for cosmetics, clothes, and accessories much easier, because you know what will best complement you.

What’s the difference between skin tone and undertone?

Skin tone is the surface color of your skin, from fair to deep, and it can shift with sun exposure. Undertone is the subtle cast beneath the surface: cool, warm, neutral or olive. Two people can share the same depth but need different foundation shades because their undertones differ.

How do I tell if I'm warm or cool toned?

Check inner wrist veins in natural light: blue or purple indicates cool undertones, green means warm. Can't tell? You're likely neutral. Try the jewelry test—silver flatters cool tones, gold complements warm. Olive skin often reads as neutral but has its own green-gray cast; neutral-to-warm shades usually work best.

How do I know my skin undertones by my veins?

Your veins are a tell-tale sign of a lot of things that are mainly health-related, but for today’s purpose, they can help you to figure out your skin undertone with a simple glance. Take a look at the veins in your hand/wrist area. You may notice quite a few of them right off the bat. In doing so, you want to observe the color you see, because they can help you to determine your skin undertone—pretty cool, right!

If you notice that your veins are of a blue or purple hue, that usually points to cool undertones. Maybe your veins are green or olive? That usually suggests a warm undertone. And finally, what about if your veins are blue-green? Well then, that points to you having neutral undertones which are the perfect mix of both warm and cool undertones.

If you are having a hard time seeing the color of your veins, you may want to step outside into the daylight. This ensures that you are getting the best view possible, thanks to the natural lighting. If you’re still having a hard time, ask a friend or a loved one to give their input and see how it compares to your conclusion. Sometimes four eyes are better than two.

How to know your skin tone for foundation?

Wash your face, wait 15 minutes, then examine your jawline in natural light for accurate tone. Test foundation at your jaw where blending occurs. The vein test can help too: blue veins suggest cool, green suggests warm. Sunforgettable Total Protection Face Shield Flex SPF 50 comes in six shades, so it’s an easy place to start.

What undertone am I if my skin is yellowish?

Yellowish skin indicates warm undertones with yellow, peachy, and golden hues. A peachy appearance combines yellow undertones with red surface tones, also categorized as warm. These undertones pair beautifully with earthy cosmetics, coral blushes, and gold jewelry for harmonious looks.

What is peach undertone?

A peach undertone is best identified as someone with a yellow undertone and red surface tones, which give the skin a well-balanced, peach-colored appearance. If your skin has peach undertones, then you have warm undertones.

When you know your skin tone and skin undertone, you are one step closer to being more self-aware and better able to find solutions that best suit you.

What if my skin tone is uneven?

An uneven skin tone refers to differences in color, texture, or pigmentation. Several factors contribute to an uneven skin tone, including:

• Sun damage
• Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation
• Hormonal changes caused by pregnancy or birth control pills
• Aging

An uneven skin tone can influence decisions you make about makeup and skincare products. For example, if you’re hoping to improve the appearance of dark circles, puffiness, and fine lines, you may want to consider adding a targeted eye cream to your routine, such as Total Eye® 3-In-1 Renewal Therapy SPF 35.

Foundations or concealers with higher coverage can also help camouflage discoloration. You might also incorporate targeted products into skincare routines to help fade dark spots and even out skin tone over time.

Professional treatments like chemical peels, laser therapy, or microdermabrasion can also help address stubborn or deeper pigmentation concerns. Talk to a board-certified dermatologist first, since some peels and lasers carry a higher risk of dark marks in deeper skin tones. Ultimately, understanding the underlying causes of an uneven skin tone will help you tailor your skincare and makeup routines to address specific concerns.

Can skin tone change?

Yes, skin tone can change over time due to various factors, including:

• Prolonged exposure to the sun leads to the skin becoming darker.
• Aging can cause the skin to appear duller, with an uneven distribution of pigmentation, leading to changes in skin tone.
• Hormonal fluctuations experienced during pregnancy, menopause, or while taking certain medications can result in conditions like melasma (sometimes called the ‘mask of pregnancy’), causing darker patches on the skin.
• Certain skin conditions like acne, eczema, or psoriasis can lead to changes in skin tone.
• Some skincare products containing active ingredients like retinoids or exfoliating acids can make skin more sun-sensitive, and irritation from overuse can leave dark marks, especially in deeper skin tones. Daily SPF matters even more when you use them.
• Specific health conditions or nutritional deficiencies can impact skin health and contribute to changes in skin tone.

All of these factors can contribute to changes in skin tone; however, in cases where changes are caused by temporary factors like hormonal shifts, the skin tone may revert to its previous state. If you notice a new dark patch, or a spot that changes in size, shape or color, have it checked by a dermatologist.

Can my undertone change?

Your undertone generally stays the same, even when your surface tone darkens in summer or lightens in winter. Redness, a tan or dark spots can make it harder to read, so check it on clean skin in natural light.

What colors should I wear based on my skin tone?

Choosing colors that complement your skin tone can help draw out your natural beauty and radiance. Experiment with different colors to determine what works best for you. Here’s a brief guide on what colors to wear based on skin undertones:

• Warm undertones: Those with warm undertones shine in earthy, rich colors like warm reds, oranges, yellows, olive greens, rich browns, and golden hues. Pastel colors with warm undertones, such as peach or coral, also pair well with your skin tone.
• Cool undertones: Individuals with cool undertones often look best in colors with blue or purple undertones, including cool blues, purples, pinks, jewel tones, and icy shades like cool grays and icy blues.
• Neutral undertones: People with neutral undertones have more flexibility in wearing a wide range of colors. They can often try out both warm and cool tones, including shades of soft blues, blush pinks, olive greens, or charcoal.