Let's Talk About: Skin Tone

I've decided to start a little series called 'Let's Talk About' where basically I ramble on about a particular beauty topic and hopefully impart a little bit of info. Slightly more informal than a proper review.

Skin tone can be a bit of a confusing subject in the beauty world. Makeup artists will talk about 'warm' or 'cool' undertones when colour-matching you to a foundation. Some use the comparison of the colouring in your veins as a guideline; green veins for warmer skin, blue veins for cool skin, but as someone who has a mixture of these this isn't always very helpful. 

Pink undertones in your skin tend to mean cooler skin tone, and yellow undertones lead towards warmer skin tone. It's also possible to have a mixture (probably not advised to wear multiple foundations on different areas), or be completely neutral.

Foundations are made to complement this, MAC (for example) colour match you to either NW or NC depending on your skin tone. I actually prefer to go the opposite way, since I have quite a cool skin tone, I like to use yellow-ish or neutral foundations to counteract the pink tones in my skin.

I've also discovered that certain brands tend to lean toward cool tones or warm tones within their range; for example Clinique have much pinker foundations, and Smashbox have more yellow undertones.

It can be difficult to find an exact match to your skin tone, but when you do, and it has your ideal consistency too: congratulations you've found your holy grail foundation! For me that happens to be Nars Sheer Glow in Mont Blanc. Good luck finding yours!