Skin foundations are available in various shades and each shade complements a separate skin undertone. To select the right shade for the right complexion, one needs to first determine the undertone of their skin. Generally, skin undertones are of 3 types – cool, warm and neutral.

While cool undertone refers to hints of blue or pink or a ruddy complexion, warm undertone signifies yellow, peachy or golden tone. There are various ways to determine one’s skin undertone. Once, this fact is known, it becomes easier to select the ideal foundation for your skin type.

1. Selecting foundation shade as per skin undertone
Once you are aware of your skin undertone, selecting the ideal shade of foundation becomes easy. Normally, the foundation for cool undertones have a subtle hint of pink, whereas warm undertones have an extremely light hue of yellow or golden shade. Though there can always be an exception to this concept.

2. Determining skin undertone
There are multiple ways to determine the skin undertone of a person. One can start by looking at the inner part of the arm that is hidden from the sun. As this area does not undergo skin damage or discoloration due to harmful sun rays, one can apply various shades of skin foundation to this area, to understand, which shade suits them best.

Secondly, if the skin of a person gets tanned easily, it might be categorized as warm or neutral undertones. On the other hand, if the opposite happens, then they are likely to belong to a cool undertone category. Based on this fact, one can choose the perfect foundation type for them.

It is a general concept that people with cool undertones look bright in silver or platinum jewelry. Whereas, warm undertone people look beautiful in jewelry that is gold toned. Women with a neutral undertone are luckier than the two, as they appear amazing in both types of jewelry. So, in a way, the tone of jewelry can help you know about your skin undertone, a fact that can help you select the right foundation type.

The color of the vein also can help in determining skin undertone. For instance, if the veins appear bluish or shades of purple, it can be said that the person belongs to the cool undertone group. On the other hand, if they appear greenish, they are likely to fall into the group of a warm undertone. The neutral undertones simply appear neutral.

Apart from the above mentioned various skin undertones, you can also have olive or an uneven skin tone. Olive skin is not neutral shade; rather they are a combination of a neutral complexion with a yellow undertone and additionally can have a greenish ashen hue on their complexion. Some foundation types are best suited for this particular type of complexion. Whereas, any good neutral shade of foundation can help even out your complexion.

Foundations come in various types- powder, liquid, creamy, stick, whipped, among others. It is advisable to try different shades or types of foundation in broad daylight to find out the best shade of foundation that works better for different complexion and undertones of the skin.