How to Determine Your Skin Tone and What Colours Suit You

Home » Lifestyle » How to Determine Your Skin Tone and What Colours Suit You

Last Updated on May 10, 2023 by Team Styl.

Do you know what your skin tone is? No, we are not talking about your skin complexion, which would be light, medium or dark. Your skin tone is different from the surface colour. It is consistent throughout your life, unlike skin complexion which changes according to seasons. Your skin tone is something you are born with. Possibly, you might not even know how to precisely describe it. The truth is, many people do not know a lot about skin tones. They don’t understand the significant role it plays in our everyday style either. This is not something we learn often in our childhood. But that is okay. Giving you information about everything related to fashion and styling is why we are here. In this article, we will tell you how to determine your skin tone. Additionally, we will also tell you which colours suit your skin. 

 

So, What is Skin Tone?

Before getting on to how to determine your skin tone, you should know what exactly the term means. Over the years, you have probably heard of the terms warm, cool and neutral. These words are common in the vocabulary of people invested in fashion and makeup. In the simplest manner, skin tone refers to the hue that comes through from underneath the skin’s surface. It is also known as a skin undertone. 

Quite often, people confuse undertones with complexion. In line with this, they assume that fair skin means a person has a cool undertone. Whilst they also believe that dark complexion means warm undertones. This is simply not true. Your complexion has no relation to your skin’s undertone. Each complexion, including fair, light, medium and dark, can have any tone, cool, warm or neutral. It is simply about what you are born with. Now, let us move on to the different types of skin tones. 

 

Types of Skin Tones

Now you know the meaning of skin undertones and how it differs from complexion. As we move further, let us understand the different categories of skin tones. We are sure that you have already heard of them fleetingly. But here is a detailed version of them. 

 

1. Warm Tone:

A warm tone means that your skin has more peach, apricot or golden hues under the surface. 

 

2. Cool Tone:

A cool tone means that your overall complexion has more blue, pink and red undertones. 

 

3. Neutral Tone:

This can go either way. You have a neutral tone if you do not have cool or warm undertones. Contradictorily, you can have a neutral tone if you have both golden and pink under the surface of your skin in different areas. 

 

How to Determine Your Skin Tone?

You now know what skin tone is and its different types. The question now is how you can determine your skin tone. There are multiple ways in which you can find your skin type Here, we have mentioned five of them. It is possible for each to give you a slightly different result, especially if you have no experience in skin undertones. But our recommendation? We suggest doing all of these and then finding out an average to get the best idea of your skin tone. 

 

1. Determine Your Skin Tone with the Wrist Test

For this, you have to look at the colours of the veins on your wrist. This test is done on your wrist because that is the part with the thinnest skin. The colour of your veins is a good indicator of your undertone. 

Cool

If the colour of your veins is purple or blue, then you have a cool undertone. 

 

Warm

If the veins appear green or olive, then your undertone is warm

 

Neutral

If you can’t ascertain the colour then you most likely have a neutral undertone. 

 

2. The White Paper Test

This one is even simpler than the wrist test. For this, all you need to sunlight and a sheet of plain white paper. All you need to do is hold the white paper against your bare face or on the inside of your arm in direct sunlight. 

Cool:

If your skin appears red or pink against the paper, you have cool undertones

 

Warm:

If you appear yellow against the white, then you have warm undertones

 

Neutral:

If your skin looks grey or green, then you potentially have a neutral undertone. 

 

3. The Jewellery Test

The jewellery test is one of the easiest ways to determine your undertone. All you need to silver and gold jewellery. Avoid metals like rose gold as their colour can deviate from the results. 

Warm:

If gold flatters your skin more, then you have a warm skin tone

 

Cool:

If silver flatters your skin, then you have a cool undertone 

 

Neutral:

If both the metals look good on you, then you have a neutral skin undertone. 

 

4. The Clothing Test: 

This is a very subjective test. The idea behind this is that you subconsciously pick colours that compliment your skin tone, thereby revealing the undertone. To do this test, all you have to do is notice the colours of your favourite clothes or the colours that dominate your wardrobe. 

Cool:

If you have mainly cool colours like blue, purple, etc. you have cool-toned skin

 

Warm:

If you have mainly warm colours like yellow, peach, etc. then you have warm-toned skin

 

Neutral:

If there is a balance of cool and warm hues, then you probably have neutral-toned skin

 

5. The Sun Test

The way your skin reacts to exposure to the sun can help determine your skin tone. 

Cool:

If your skin turns red or gets easily burnt, you have cool skin

 

Warm:

If your skin tans easily in the sun instead of burning, then you have warm skin.

 

Which Colours Suit Your Skin Undertone?

Once you have determined your skin tone, you probably want to know which colours suit your skin. Below, we have a concise list of colours that suit each skin tone. 

Warm

All warm colours suit a warm undertone. The best options include peach, yellow, warm reds, orange, green and brown. Other options include beige, orchid, coral, olive and caramel. 

 

Cool

Cool hues are the best for a cool undertone. The best ones are emerald, lavender, pink, ice blue, rose reds and bright blues. 

 

Neutral

You are the lucky ones. People with neutral undertones can pull off practically any colour of the rainbow. 

 

Universal Colours

These hues are ones that suit people with every undertone. These include pale pink, bright red, teal and dark purple. 

 

We hope that this article helped you understand how you can determine your skin tone and which colours will suit you best. For any queries, contact us at Styl Inc and one of our expert stylists will get in touch with you. 

For more personal styling tips and tricks, stay tuned to the Styl Inc blogs. 

Stay safe and healthy. 

 

Keepin it Styl’ish

 

Signing off, 

Shravani Priya