Credit: Valerie Birkel @Valilliia_bi

The maturity of the clothes in my closet are black, grey or white. Why? Because it is not easy to wear colors! My mom used to dress me in orange tones all the time when I was younger, and it looked awful. I looked unhealthy and greenish on my face. As soon as I was able to, I banned all orange pieces from my closet. Way later, someone told me about skin tones and colors that either makes the skin look brighter or dull. It turns out my skin undertone is cold, which made it nearly impossible for me to wear warm toned colors (like orange). Especially because my skin has an olive, Mediterranean color. I also learned that each color has nuances that can be warm or cold. Since I love wearing colors because it just lifts up your mood, the first thing I did was I went shopping and bought a bright orange top with cold nuances. And I look great in it!!! Why am I telling this story? Because I know, many guys and girls have the same problem. So here a few tips on how to determine your skin tone and what color tones work best for you.

How to determine your skin tone: (A small tip before you start: don’t go for what you like better, but what actually looks better on your skin)

1. What jewelry looks better on your skin, makes it more tan and healthy looking? Is it Gold? Then you most likely have a warm undertone. Is it Silver? Your undertone might be cold.
2. Another great trick to see if you have a cold or warm skin-color is to take a look at your veins. If your veins appear green, your skin tone is warm. The yellow in your skin makes your naturally blue veins appear green.
3. Your eye and hair color can also lead you to an answer. People with a cold undertone in their skin usually have bright eyes like blue, green or gray. Their hair colors are blond, brown and black with ash, silver or violet shades. People with a warm undertone, most likely have brown, amber or hazel eyes. Their hair color has a gold, red, orange or yellow shade. An example here is strawberry blond.
4. How do you tan? When you have a cold undertone in your skin, you most likely burn faster in the sun. That doesn’t mean cold skinned people can’t have a tan! For darker skinned people, the red turns into a nice tan later. Warmer skin tones are more fortunate in this department. They usually get a golden tan right away.

Understand color the palette
Primary colors: red, yellow and blue. All other colors (secondary colors) are a mix of these primary colors. The more of a cold color (blue) is used to mix a color like purple or green, the better goes with a cold skin tone. The more yellow is used in, for example, orange or green, the better the color goes with warm toned skin.

Colors to wear with cold undertone
1. Blue, green, pink, purples that have a cold color as undertone (red shades with more blue than yellow (cherry, raspberry)

Colors to wear with a warm undertone
2. Yellow, orange, red, green with more yellow and orange than blue

Different tones in the same color

Both these tones are considered red. They only have different shades. The cherry red contains more blue pigments and heads towards a pink tone almost. The tomato red has more yellow pigments in it and therefore comes out to be a warmer color.