How to Determine Skin Tone

Finding a hair color that looks good on you or makeup that compliments your skin can be tricky. Being able to determine your skin tone will help you to make informed decisions about color selections for hair, makeup and clothing. There are several simple observations you can make to help you figure out what your tone is.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Pure white towel
• Mirror
• 1 Piece of silver jewelry
• 1 Piece of gold jewelry

1. Flip over your arm and look at the veins. Veins that appear greenish indicate yellow undertones which means that your skin tone is warm. Veins that appear to be more blue indicate blue undertones which means your skin tone is cool. Determine if your tone is warm or cool.

2. Pull your hair back into a pony tail or use a head band to keep all of the hair off of your face. Wash your face and then place a white towel around your neck and shoulders. The pure white cloth will reflect skin undertones. If your face looks yellow next to the white towel you have a warm skin tone and if it looks more blue then you have a cool skin tone.

3. Observe the effect that gold and silver jewelry have on the way your skin looks. This is a helpful way to determine your skin tone. If you look better in silver jewelry you have a cool skin tone, and if you look better in gold then you have a warm skin tone.

4. Look at the natural color of your hair and eyes. People with cool tones usually have blue, green, or grey eyes with blond, black, or brown hair. Those with warm skin tones often have brown, black, or hazel eyes with black, brown, blond, red, or strawberry blond hair.

Tips & Warnings

• When trying to determine your skin tone and you find that you just can't seem to determine a specific tone, you look good in just about any color and can wear both silver and gold jewelry, then you may just be one of the lucky ones who has a neutral skin tone. This means basically any color of clothing, jewelry or hair will look good on you.
• If you find that your skin tone is warm you will look best in earth tones such as browns, yellows, oranges and cream. Cool skin tone individuals look best in jewel tones such as blue, red, and purple.

[ehower2008]

on 5/7/2008 I find this article very helpful . Thanks!