3 Genius Ways To Find The Best Colors For Your Skin Tone

The Best Colors for your Skin Tone will make you SHINE; you will look FRESH and your EYES will POP naturally.

Wearing the best colors for your skin tone will help you look more professional and put-together and is a key element in putting together a suitable business wardrobe.

In this post I will explain the factors that determine the best colors for your skin tone and show you several ways to find out.

Show Me Your “Hue” And I Will Show You The Best Colors For Your Skin Tone

The colors that suit your skin tone will be determined (among 2 other factors) by your skin undertone, the so called “hue”. Your “hue” (undertone) is either cool or warm.

There 3 tests you can do at home to find your personal skin undertone.

Important tip: All 3 tests should be done against the skin on the inside of your arm or against your neck. Doing the tests against your face would possibly not deliver the best results, as your face is usually slightly redder than other parts of your skin that are less exposed.

1. The white paper test: The easiest way of determining your skin undertone is the so called “white paper test”. To do this, hold your hand – palm facing up- against a piece of white paper.

• If your skin appears yellowish, you have a warm undertone.
• If your skin appears pink, you have a cool undertone.

2. The jewelry test: Another great way of determining your skin undertone is by holding a piece of gold and a piece of sliver

jewelry up against your neck and check which metal makes your skin look fresher. This is the metal that is better suited for your type. Silver for cool undertone skin types and gold for warm undertone skin types.

3. The veins test: The last test involves looking at the veins on the inside of your arm. If the veins appear blueish, your have cool skin undertone, if your veins appear greenish, you have warm undertone.

If you are still not sure, what undertone your are, you might be a “neutral”, which is great news, as neutral undertones can pretty much wear any color.

Seasonal Color Analysis Is Key To Finding The Best Colors For Your Skin Tone

In finding out the best colors for your skin tone, the concept of “seasonal color analysis” is key. Seasonal color analysis describes a method of determining the colors of to clothes and makeup that harmonize with your skin undertone, eye color, and hair color.

Seasonal color analysis distinguishes between 4 distinct color types, named after the 4 seasons. The 4 seasons of color analysis each are a combination of your “hue” (undertone) of your skin – either cool or warm – and your “value” (lightness) of your skin – either light or dark (deep).

Seasonal color analysis will help you a great deal to find the best colors for your skin tone.

To determine your seasonal color type you need to find:

1. your “hue” (undertone) of your skin – either cool or warm
2. your “value” (lightness) of your skin – either light or dark (deep)

In principle, there are 3 different ways to find your personal color type:

• The DIY method
• An online color quiz
• A professional online color analysis

The DIY Method Of Color Analysis Has Its Limitations

Firstly, determine your skin undertone with the 3 tests explained above.

Then find your “value” by taking a look at your hair and eye color. If you naturally have light hair eye color – the most extreme case being blond hair and blue eyes – your have “light value”. If you naturally have very dark hair and dark eyes, you have “deep value”. The two extremes of light value and deep value are blond hair and blue eyes on the one end of the scale and black hair and black eyes on the other end of the scale. But of course there are many variations between those 2 extremes.

Combine your undertone (either warm or cool) with the value of your hair and eyes and voila, you have determined your own personal color type!

• Spring: Warm hue / light value
• Summer: cool hue / light value
• Autumn: warm hue / deep value
• Winter: cool hue / deep value

A More Advanced System Of Color Analysis – Just Add “Chroma”

The 4 seasons only give a basic concept of 4 distinct color types. With all the variations of skin undertone, hair and eye colors in the world, not everybody fits into these 4 types. What if you for example have black hair (deep value) and bright blue eyes (light value).

In order to allow for more of these variances, a more detailed set of color types was developed. By including a third variable (chroma – either bright or soft) in addition to the existing variables hue and value, a total of 12 color types were defined:

• SPRING: warm spring, light spring and clear spring
• SUMMER season: cool summer, light summer and soft summer
• AUTUMN season: warm autumn, deep autumn, soft autumn
• WINTER season: cool winter, clear winter, deep winter

Taking the additional variable into account will help you determine your very specific, bespoke color type and hopefully the graph will help you in identifying the color type that is for you.  I recommend focusing on the basic color types (one of 4 seasons) at first, as the “chroma variations” of the color type are related to these main types when it comes to suitable colors of your clothing.

Take A Color Quiz – Find Your Color Type within Minutes

To back your own analysis up, I recommend performing a quick color quiz online. I have found this quiz on colormebeautiful.com very useful. It helps you to find your personal “season” literally within a few minutes.

How does the quiz work? There are 3 pieces of information about your eye and hair color to enter and it will give you your test results immediately. I also love the fact that colormebeautiful recommends the right colors of make up straight away and you can order make-up and swatch fans straight from the site.

Here is the information you will receive as a result of the test (your result / season will differ according to your personal information):

 

 

OK, so far so good. The DIY method & simple quiz can work for some people, but will not help everyone in determining their personal color type. With all the variations of skin undertone, hair and eye colors in the world, not everybody fits into these 4 types. It has its limitations. What if you for example have black hair (deep value) and bright blue eyes (light value)? I have also found it quite difficult to see for myself whether my skin is reddish (warm undertone) or yellowish (cool undertone) and have struggled to find my color type on my own. But don´t despair – there is help out there.

The second quiz I have tested is a really thorough quiz on yourcolorstyle.com. This quiz seems to be based on the 12 color system, taking chroma into account.

For this quiz you first have to choose, whether you are “bright” or “soft”. Jen, who runs the website, gives you lots of hints how to determine that (hair and eye colors) and I was able to determine it for myself with her help. Next step is to decide whether you are warm or cool (again supported by lots of examples) and then the final step whether you have warm or cool skin undertone. According to yourcolorstyle.com, I am “soft, cool & medium”.

I have to say, I have definitely found it quite difficult to find my own color type with the DIY analysis. The 2 quizzes I have tested were very good and gave me good recommendations, but the results of each quiz differ somewhat.

So, if you want to be 100% sure to find the right colors for your skin tone and want to stop wasting money on the wrong clothes, the best way to go is still to seek the help of a professional color consultant. I personally had an (offline) color analysis done years ago and it has stuck to me ever since. I try to choose to clothe and make up colors according to my color type and it has helped me tremendously in creating a wardrobe, where the separates will always match, as the all form the same color family.

Find The Best Colors For Your Skin Tone – Personal Color Analysis

I find the DiY method and also the quizzes a bit hit-and-miss. As you see above with my example, the recommendations from 2 different quizzes differ. If you want to be sure what the best colors for your skin tone are and want to stop wasting money on the wrong clothes, I highly recommend having a personal color analysis done. A sure way to find the best colors for your skin type is to have a personal color analysis done. Luckily, these are now available online.

Again, my go-to site for online color analysis is yourcolorstyle.com. I have found are really great online color analysis being done by Jen on yourcolorstyle.com. As with the quiz, Jen goes beyond seasonal color analysis and will determine your individual color type by a very thorough and professional analysis.

Here is how it works:

• Start your personal color analysis here
• Scroll down to the “order my color analysis” button, click on it and it will take you straight to the order checkout

Here is what you get:

• Detailed color analysis by Jen and her team
• Your personal color e-book detailing your color analysis – see a sample of the e book here
• Your color fan to match your color type
• Your Color Analysis Cards
• Personal customer support and attention

Here is how it works:

The color analysis starts by emailing some photos to Jen and her team, which they will then analyze in a team of professional color consultants.

You then receive your e book, which is absolutely amazing and contains:

• Your Core Colors (blushing, eye-poppin’ and best neutral) – these are your go-to colors.
• A detailed explanation of your color analysis, so that you can see what we see.
• Your intensity profile to help you understand which colors of your color palette will look best on you.
• Your complete digital color palette plus neutrals, so that you can have your colors with you wherever you go.
• You draped in 6 recommended best colors with colorized lips, so that you can SEE how amazing you’re going to look in your colors
• Your customized color wheel so that you can see how all of your colors relate to each other.
• A $37 coupon code to allow you to order your complimentary color fan. Shopping with your color fan is so much fun!

And then you will receive your color fan, which will be your shopping companion to shop for the right colors in the future- no more wasting money :).

How much do you need to invest?

The professional color analysis by yourcolorstyle.com comes at a price tag of $397. This includes everything listed above. Think of it this way though: you are probably going to have a color analysis done once in your lifetime. There are so many benefits though: you can be SURE that you are buying the right colors, the once that suit you best and make you look your best. You will stop wasting money on the wrong purchases and it will make online shopping so much easier. Wearing the right colors will help make you feel more confident and can ultimately play a role in your success. It is a one-time investment that will benefit your well-being and career for a lifetime.

Wear The Best Colors For Your Skin Tone – Stop Wasting Money

You have now learned about the 3 factors that determine the best colors for your skin tone (hue, value and chroma) and have seen 3 ways to find the best colors for your skin tone (DIY, color quiz and professional color analysis. The first 2 can work for some people, which are very clear seasonal color types. Based on your result, you can purchase the matching color swatches or color fans.

Most of us are a variation, however, and a professional color analysis will definitely give you more certainty.

Invest in a professional color analysis done once, save time and money for life.

Here are my top 3 benefits of knowing the best colors for your skin tone:

1. it will help you shop especially online and save you from lots of disappointments and wrong purchases. When you look at models online, they are usually done up by professional stylists, who know exactly how to dress the model according to her color type. So try to find types that are similar to you and choose the colors they are wearing in the catalog.
2. It will help you put together a stylish wardrobe, for work and play, that will always look great of you .
3. Knowing your color type also makes de-cluttering a lot easier, since you know which colors suit you and which don´t and you can quite safely get rid of the items that don´t suit you

And above all: it will help you safe time and money in the long run!

Have fun with your very own personal analysis and if you ever need a hand or have any questions, feel free to leave them below and I will be more than happy to help you out.