Advertisement

The six checks

Select to advance

Your undertone

Colours that flatter you

Metals and makeup

Jewellery:

Makeup:

Approach and avoid

Do:

Avoid:

Your closest lean

Your answers also score as — the neighbouring temperature, not the opposite. If a colour from your main palette ever feels off, try the muted version from this side before you give up on it.

Go deeper

Turn your undertone into a full colour season

Undertone is step one. The colour season analyzer adds your contrast and depth to place you in the 12-season system and hands you a complete palette — the photo tool, if you want it.

Open the Color Season Analyzer

Warm, cool and neutral, explained

Undertone is not how light your skin is, and it is not the colour you tan to. It is the underlying hue your skin sits on, and it decides which colours make you look clear rather than grey.

Warm undertone

Golden, yellow or peachy beneath the surface. Greenish veins and gold jewellery that looks like it belongs on you. Cream, camel, olive, rust and warm reds flatter you. Sun-tanning is not proof of warm — melanin-rich skin tans regardless.

Cool undertone

Pink, red or blue beneath the surface. Bluish or purple veins, and silver that looks better than gold. True white, grey-blue, berry, emerald and cool reds flatter you. Burning in the sun is a fair-skin pattern, not a cool-undertone pattern — ignore it if it does not describe you.

Neutral undertone

A balance of warm and cool, so no single signal wins. Veins look blue-green, both gold and silver work, and muted versions of most colours suit you. Saturation matters more to you than temperature.

Two leans sit between those three: Neutral-Warm Undertone (start muted, add gold and cream) and Neutral-Cool Undertone (start muted, add silver and berry). The quiz names a lean only when your answers sit next to the primary, never when they sit on the opposite side.

Advertisement

Why these six checks, and not just your veins

The vein test is the most quoted undertone test and the least reliable on its own. How blue or green your veins look depends on the light you are standing in, the depth of your skin, and how much melanin sits over the vessels. In a warm room light, cool skin can look warm; outdoors at midday, the reverse happens.

So the test uses signals that fail in different directions. Your veins are one. How gold and silver look against your bare skin is another, and it is hard to misread because a wrong metal makes the skin itself look dull rather than the jewellery looking wrong. Sun reaction is a weak third: folklore for fair skin, and almost useless on melanin-rich skin, which tans regardless of warm or cool. Treat it as a tie-break, never as the verdict.

The last three checks catch the people the first three split. Holding a true white and a cream next to your face usually shows which one belongs; for warm skin the cream reads clean and the white reads stark, and for cool skin it is the other way around. Once the six answers agree, the palette that comes out is the one to shop. When you want the complete system, the color season analyzer adds contrast and place you in a season, and the body type calculator handles the cuts. If the next question is taste rather than temperature, take the aesthetic quiz; if it is frames, use glasses for your face shape.

How to read a mixed result without second-guessing it

Olive skin is a surface colour, not a vein colour. If your complexion reads olive, that does not make your veins "olive" and it does not make you warm by default. Judge the vessels on the inner wrist in daylight, then trust jewellery and cream-versus-white more than the vein colour if the two disagree.

A primary of Warm with a lean of Neutral-Warm means you sit on the warm side of centre. It does not mean you should "borrow from Cool." The lean card only appears when the second-highest score is a neighbour on the same side of the temperature line. Opposite results are dropped so the page never tells a warm result to shop the cool palette.

Shop near the face first. A colour that fights your undertone is usually fine from the waist down; it is the scarf, shirt or lipstick that makes the skin look grey. Keep metals consistent next to the face even if you mix them on the hands.

Common questions

What is the difference between undertone and skin tone?
Skin tone is how light or deep your skin is — fair, medium, olive, deep. Undertone is the underlying hue that does not change with tanning or light: warm (golden), cool (pink or blue) or neutral (a mix). You can be deep-skinned and cool, or fair-skinned and warm, which is why undertone is what decides your colours.
Can I be warm and cool at the same time?
Yes. A true neutral has visible warm and cool traits in roughly equal measure, and a neutral-warm or neutral-cool leans slightly one way. If the vein, jewellery and cream-versus-white answers point in different directions, treat yourself as neutral. The lean card only shows a neighbouring temperature, never the opposite side.
How reliable is the vein test?
The vein test is a useful first signal but not a verdict on its own. Look at the inside of your wrist in daylight, not indoor light: greenish veins suggest warm, bluish or purple veins suggest cool, and a mix of blue and green suggests neutral. Lighting and melanin both change how veins look, so the quiz weights jewellery and cream-versus-white more heavily. Sun reaction is a weak extra signal, not a verdict, especially on melanin-rich skin.
Does undertone change if I tan?
No. Tanning changes how light or deep your skin is, not its undertone. A warm undertone stays warm whether you are pale in winter or tanned in summer, which is why colours that flattered you before a holiday still flatter you afterwards. If a colour stops working, the shift is usually depth or contrast, not undertone. Hair dye follows the same split — undertone first, then contrast — in the hair dye for skin tone guide.
What colours suit a neutral undertone?
Neutral undertones have the widest range. Soft, muted versions of most colours work: dusty rose, sage, grey-blue, taupe, soft navy and warm greys. The trick is saturation — keep colours slightly muted rather than vivid, and both gold and silver jewellery will sit well on you, which is the clearest sign you are neutral.
Can I wear colours outside my undertone?
Yes. Undertone analysis is a guide, not a rule. If a colour outside your palette makes you feel confident, wear it. For the most flattering result, keep colours that fight your undertone away from your face and wear them lower down, then bring a colour from your own palette up top near your complexion.