Everyone looks fantastic in black. However, when it comes to adding a pop of colour to our wardrobes, most of us shy away. Colours can be intimidating, even the ones that are proven to look good on everyone like eggplant purple, blush pink, teal and true red.
If none of these appeal to you but you still want to add some colour to your wardrobe, you’ll have to find out the best colours for your skin tone.
Every colour on the spectrum is a match for someone. Find out which one you should embrace right here.
Skin colours
Let’s start with an easy assessment. Before we ask you to determine your undertones or your season – this is really a thing – ask yourself a straight-forward question: Which umbrella term best describes your skin?
Light
Contrast is best if you have fair or light skin. Think dark brown, burgundy, navy, bottle green, deep purples… For neutrals, rich hues like slate grey, khaki or camel are great.
Medium
Don’t fit into the light or olive categories? You might be medium. Embrace bright, deep hues and jewel tones. Pinks (especially deep, bright and raspberry), blues, reds and greens will be best for you.
Olive
If you have olive skin, you can practically pull off any colours. But contrast is still key, so think a little lighter or a little darker than your complexion. For a real pop of colour, bright pink looks fantastic. Greens, oranges and reds will also look great.
Dark
Everything goes, but some really great choices include white, bright colours and metallics to make your skin pop, or soft colours like pale blue, coral, peach and pastels.
Skin tones
Your skin tone is the colour that comes through from underneath your skin. To determine whether you’re warm, cool or neutral, you have a few options.
The white paper test: how does your skin look next to a white piece of paper? Green, light brown, golden or yellow? You have a warm skin tone. Pink, rosy or blue? You have a cool tone. If you look grey, you’re neutral.
The vein test: look at your wrists. If your veins appear blue or purple, your skin tone is cool. If your veins look greenish, you have warm skin. If you can’t decide, you’re neutral.
Warm skin tone
Oranges, red purples like magenta, golden yellow, honey gold and warm greens and blues like olive and green moss are great. Taupe, chocolate and cream white will also bring out your skin.
Cool skin tone
Blues (bright blue, royal blue, sapphire, cobalt), emerald green, deep purples and pastel hues will look great on you. Shocking pink or cerise are also options. For neutrals, think grey, navy and crisp white.
Neutral skin tone
Avoid bright, neon and extremely vibrant colours. You should be able to enjoy and look fantastic in all colours, but jade green, dusty pink, raspberry, lagoon blue and lemon will really make you stand out. For neutral colours: off-white, coffee and black should become your go-to.
Sarah Kante
