Importance of Knowing Your Skin's Undertone

Photo Credit: RunningWithHeels

Most of you who are regular readers of All About Skin Lightening know that skin lightening up in shades has its limitations. I always recommend people who are new to this to have a realistic goal for their skin. Most of the planning and mindset issues I covered in an article I wrote awhile back called Motivation & Skin Lightening.

Well, to help you plan out even more specific goals is to understand your skin's undetone. The undertones of our skin play a huge role in how our overall coloring appears (hair, eyes, overall skintone). You simply cannot expect to lighten from a warm, deep tan complexion to a cool ivory one. It's not going to happen.

Our skin tone is not one dimensional. There are several hues that make up the overall look. The undertones are directly linked to the kind of melanin our skin produces (eumelanin, pheomelanin). It remains the same, no matter how much you inhibit the melanin production of your skin tone.

There are 3 different kinds of undertones a person can have - warm, cool or neutral. From my understanding, neutral is neither completley cool or warm but borrows from both (the median of the two). I'll discuss warm and cool undertones in this post since they are very distinctive.

Warm undertones are very common in ethnic skin. These undertones range from yellow, olive or a deep red. Cool undertones are usually a rosy pink, rosy beige or bluish hues.

Finding out your undertone is fairly easy. Most of us can tell whether we are cool toned or warm toned by just looking at ourselves in strong, or good lighting. If you notice bluish undertones or a light pink running throughout your skin or in certain areas, you are cool skinned. If you notice more yellow or olive in your skin's coloring, you are warm skinned.

There are several methods to find out your true undertone. The most common way is to look at your wrists (with palms facing towards you). If your veins are distinctively blue in color then you are cool skinned. If they are more green, then you are most likely warm toned.

Another way is just by observing how your skin tone appears with different color clothing. Now I'm not going to go into the entire color spectrum, or do a breakdown of what colors work best with what undertone. But I will say colors/shades like peach or white really emphasis and show which undertone you have.

Knowing your skin's undertone can greatly help create a proper plan and goal, that won't set you up for disappointment since you know exactly how your skin can look in the long run. The skin tone can alter through various degrees but the undertone usually remains the same.