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How to Choose the Right Foundation for Your Skin Tone
Looking for the right shade of foundation to suit your skin? Read our expert guide on how to find the perfect match
Content editor
Sarah Lafarge
Discover your skin tone
With most beauty brands now boasting more inclusive ranges, often with upwards of 20 shades to choose from, there's now no excuse for not wearing the right shade of foundation. Foundation should be invisible, blending seamlessly into your skin, giving you smooth, even coverage that looks natural rather than mask-like.
The first step to find your ideal foundation is to discover what your skin tone is. Once you know this, you'll be on the right path to choosing the perfect shade of foundation. There are three main skin tone categories – light, medium, and deep. The easiest way to discover your skin tone is to think about how your skin reacts to the sun. If you burn easily and never tan, you most likely have a light skin tone, whereas if you tan easily without burning, then you probably have a deeper skin tone. Those with deeper skin tones should colour-match foundation to their body (the chest, for example) to find their truest shade, as this skin type has more natural variation in pigmentation.
Do I have cool or warm-toned skin?
Another factor in choosing a foundation is discovering whether you have a cool or warm skin tone – also known as your undertone. If you use a shade of foundation that matches your undertone, it will blend seamlessly into your skin, for a barely-there appearance.
If you have a light to medium skin tone, think about the colour of jewellery you look best in, and the colour of the veins on the underside of your wrist. Cool tones often look best in silver jewellery, and have veins that appear blueish-purple, whereas warm tones suit gold jewellery and have veins that look green. If you suit both gold and silver, you have a neutral undertone. If you're still unsure, test both warm and cool-toned foundations on your skin and compare the results. Warm-tone foundation will blend into a warm skin tone but will stand out as a bright orange or yellow tone on cool-skin ones. Similarly, cool-tone foundation blends perfectly into cool skin tones; but will appear as a pink or salmon colour on warm skin tones.
Those with a very deep skin tone should look to see if they have a red or gold undertone: determine yours by looking in a mirror against a plain background (such as a white wall), or by taking a selfie in natural daylight.
How to test foundation on your skin
Always test foundation on bare, make-up free skin for the most accurate results. Don't just test one shade of foundation, start with a selection, and slowly narrow them down. It's common to test on your hand or wrist, but there can be quite a discrepancy in skin tone, so it's preferable to try out different shades directly onto your face. The jawline is the best area to use as the skin there is often the most even in tone. Always check results in strong natural light so you can clearly see what works (and what doesn't). You might find that you need to ring the changes at different times of the year, your glowing summer skin might need a deeper shade of foundation than what you'd normally wear.
So, how do you know when you've found the right shade of foundation? Quite simply when it blends perfectly with your skin tone and ‘disappears' as you apply it, for a sleek, yet natural look.
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Published 6.5.2023