Determining your skin’s undertone can be very helpful when picking your wardrobe, foundation, jewelry or even Instagram filters. It is different than your Fitzpatrick scale which helps determine your overtone and skin type. The undertone impacts the overall hue of your skin. When getting a permanent eyebrow service or lip blushing, undertone is everything.
Your undertone never changes, even when you get a tan. It is a permanent part of you. So once you know it, you always know it! And, it is possible to have the same undertone as someone with completely different skin color than you. How do you know your undertone? One trick is to look at your veins.
COOL UNDERTONES
People with cool undertones have bluer veins and have hints of pink and blue in their face and sometimes even red. Although red is a warm color, this undertone is considered cool because it is caused by your blood, which is actually more blue than red. Blue is a cool color so this is why people with these colors in their undertone are considered “cool” (at least in undertone speak). Emarald greens, purples and blues are usually their preferred colors and they gravitate towards more silver jewelry.
WARM UNDERTONES
Warm falls under the umbrella of golden, yellow or peach shades that lie beneath the skin. These people will have veins that look green. People with warm undertones will look better in fall colors, like mustard yellow and olive green and they usually gravitate towards gold jewelry.
NEAUTRAL UNDERTONES
People with neutral undertones generally have a mixture of both warm and cool giving them a neutral effect. If your veins have both blue and green or it’s hard to determine which color they are, that means you are neutral. If you are a lucky neutral, you look good in everything.
If you’re the type that mostly burns in the sun, you probably have cool undertones. If you burn but then tan, probably neutral. If you always tan than you are on the warm side. So why is this important? Well, when considering a permanent make-up service, it will be semi-permanent to permanent on your face. It could end up being very frustrating if you feel like something is just off when you look in the mirror every day. That something could be as simple as choosing the wrong pigment for your undertone. Most experienced artists understand color theory, even if they can’t necessarily explain it to you. But, wouldn’t you feel more confident if they COULD explain it to you so that you could be sure the right choice will be made?
For instance: If Maggie has Fitzpatrick Skin 2 with cool undertones and I choose a lip color that is yellow based, she may like it at first but once it heals and her cooler undertones comes through, she my feel that it looks too neutral or bland. Even if she chose that color on the swatches, it is still up to me as an artist to help talk her through how her undertones will affect the healed result. The more you, as the client, can understand this part of the conversation, the better off you will be in your permanent make-up consultations.
