This article has been updated since it published on December 6, 2022.
Understanding your skin tone and undertones will help you find the best makeup products to emphasize and highlight your favorite features. As professional makeup artists often say, finding the best lipstick for you also requires figuring out your tone and undertones, first. With that said, we reached out to professional makeup artist Mandie Brice and Katya Bychkova, beauty and style expert, for tips regarding finding the perfect lipstick color to amp up your look this winter.
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How To Find Your Tone & Undertones
Brice explains that the "best choice for a lip color" involves studying your skin tones to find a match. She says that most commonly, each of us falls under a general 'warm,' 'cool' or 'neutral' main tone. "If you're a 'warm,' choose a warm-toned lip color. If you're 'cool' or 'neutral,' pick one of those respectively," she advises.
"You can find your undertone easily by looking at the veins on the inside of your forearm," she notes. If they are blueish, she says that you have a "cooler undertone," and if they are "greenish, you can go for a warmer color." Another useful tip that she provides is if "silver jewelry looks better on you, you’re more suited to cooler tones," but if gold is better, "you have a warm undertone."
There’s also the possibility that you’re neutral, she points out, which is if "gold and silver are equally flattering." Sometimes, Brice says, lip colors will have a 'W,' 'C,' or 'N' in their color name. Ultimately, "identifying undertones is something that gets better with practice," Brice reassures.
For each common tone and undertone combination, Bychkova suggests coinciding lipstick shades to try this winter. If you have fair or light skin with warm undertones, Bychkova says to try lipstick shades in "warm pinks, coral, peach, or nude beiges with a warm, orange-y undertone." For those with fair or light skin with cool undertones, pink nudes, soft mauve, and roses with a bluish undertone would "work perfectly for you," she notes.
Anyone with medium skin with warm undertones can rock "deeper peach and coral shades" as Bychkova says they "would work perfectly for you." Medium skin with cool undertones can wear "deeper shades of rose and mauve," as she says these "look best," and suggests "experimenting with cool undertone berry hues."
A lipstick in a deep berry hue may wash out lighter skin tones, but if you have deeper skin tones it can look dramatic and elegant. This versatile shade can easily take the place of your usual red lipstick when you're dressing formal. It adds a hint of sensuality that works perfectly in wintertime.
For tan skin with warm undertones, Bychkova recommends "considering nude shades with touches of peach, warm brown, or caramel." As for the brights, "try cardinal and candy apple red." If you have tan skin with cool undertones, Bychkova adds that "pinkish and berry" with blue undertones "work best for people with that skin tone." Claret is a perfect shade of red to consider, she continues.
For lipstick lovers with dark skin with warm undertones, she says to "Go for deep, dark, warm browns" and for dark skin with cool undertones, Bychkova concludes to "think ruby red and deep, cool plums."
Winter is the ideal time to experiment with rich, deeper shades on your lips. The trick to making these colors work is to choose undertones that complement your skin's tones and undertones. Think cool, warm, or neutral — and then have fun trying different lipstick shades that are calling your name.
