Tools
Undertone
finder
Warm, cool, neutral or olive — measured from your own skin, in your browser.
Free, in your browser
A photograph in daylight, no filter, bare skin on the cheeks if you can.
The photo is read inside this page and is never uploaded. Nothing is sent to us, and nothing is stored.
What undertone is, and what it is not
Undertone is the colour underneath your skin, and it does not change. Your skin tone — how light or dark you are — does change, with the season and the sun. That is why a foundation can be the right depth and still look wrong: the depth matches and the undertone does not.
This takes two patches of cheek, throws away the pixels that are shadow, shine or hair, and measures where the remaining colour sits on the yellow-to-blue axis that colour science uses. No vein-checking, no holding paper to your face, no guessing.
For a truer reading
- — Daylight, near a window. Indoor bulbs push every skin warm.
- — No filter, no beauty mode, no warming preset.
- — Bare cheeks if you can. Foundation is somebody else’s undertone.
- — Nothing brightly coloured right under your chin, which bounces onto the skin.
The four undertones
Warm
Your skin leans golden, peach or yellow underneath. Gold jewellery tends to sit better than silver, and foundations labelled golden, warm, honey or caramel will match closer than anything labelled rose or porcelain.
Cool
Your skin leans pink, red or blue underneath. Silver tends to flatter more than gold, and foundations labelled cool, rose, porcelain or beige-rosé will match closer than golden or honey ones.
Neutral
Neither gold nor pink dominates. That is the easiest undertone to shop for and the hardest to notice: shades labelled neutral or beige usually work, and both metals suit you, so choose by what you like.
Olive
A green cast sits over a warm base — common and almost never catered for, which is why so many foundations turn orange on olive skin. Look for shades named olive or neutral-olive, and be wary of anything described as peachy.
Not sure about your face shape either? The face shape detector measures it from the same photograph.