Asian Fortune Your source for all things Asian American
By Erin Sartori
Have you ever noticed how your eyes “pop” and your hair looks more vibrant when wearing certain colors? Or how some days you look washed out and sickly and just plain tired? Dressing to complement your skin tone is one of the simplest ways to look and feel your best. Just by wearing the right colors you can minimize facial blemishes and scars and go from looking tired to well-rested, and even a little thinner- with just the change of an outfit! But it can be confusing when trying to determine which category you are in, whether you have light/fair, medium, or dark skin tone with warm, cool, or neutral undertones, and if your skin has olive tones (a property of your skin, not a separate category) that give your skin a greenish tint.
Is your head spinning yet? The traditional classifying techniques (i.e. if your veins look blue or green, if your skin is yellow or pink, or if you are a winter, spring, summer or autumn) can be confusing for all of us, but are particularly confusing when it comes to Asian skin tone because many Asians don’t fit into any one category, or they fall into multiple categories. Because a large population of Asians have surface yellowness in the skin, they often get lumped into the warm-toned category because it is assumed that yellow=warm. However, saying that all Asians are warm-toned because they have yellow skin confuses the meaning of skin tone (surface color of the skin) with undertone (warm, cool or neutral). Because there are warm yellows and cool yellows, just as there are warm and cool variations of every color on the spectrum, yellow skin doesn’t necessarily mean warm skin tone.
The best way to determine which skin tone you are is to look at photos of yourself with friends and family so you can see the different tones in each person’s skin. It is important to look at yourself next to other Asians so that you can compare the different variations of yellow and start to figure out where you are on the spectrum. If you tend to look more pink or bluish in photos, you are cool-toned, and if you tend to look more yellow or golden, you are warm-toned. If you are neither then you are neutral. And if you have a greenish tint to your skin that means you are olive toned as well. You can be green and pink at the same time (which means you are olive with cool undertones), green and yellow at the same time (which means you are olive with warm undertones), or even green and pink sometimes and then green and yellow at other times (which means you are olive with neutral undertones) and in that case, lucky you- you can wear pretty much anything! Take a look at this photo and try to identify each person’s skin tone:
*Warm, warm, cool, warm, neutral
Photo 1: Try on clothing in various colors and notice how they make you look compared to someone with slightly different skin tones.
“The red/pink blouse looks better on both ladies because the red complements both the warm and cool skin tone of each of them, whereas the yellow/gray washes them out and makes their skin look sallow.”
It is valuable to know the colors that harmonize with and complement your skin tone so that you can utilize them to enhance your entire look. The use of complementary colors that flatter your inherited, natural born color will give harmony and unity to your entire presentation and help you look and feel your best.
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Top: Gold vs. Silver on Cool Skin Tone
Here you can see how the gold clashes with her pink skin and makes her look even pinker, whereas the silver picks up her skin tones and creates a more blended, even look.
Bottom: Gold vs. silver on warm skin tone
Here, the gold necklace picks up the warm golden tones in her skin and gives her an overall glow. And on the other hand, the silver against her skin looks very dull and makes her look paler.
Tip: You can also try putting warm eye shadow, blush and lipstick on one half of your face (without any foundation underneath) and cool on the other side and see which side looks better in natural light. If the warm makeup looks better than you are warm toned, and if the cool makeup looks better than you are cool toned. If you can’t decide which side looks better than you are probably neutral.
Now look at this photo and see how many skin tones you can correctly identify:
Answer: Warm, warm, cool, warm, neutral
The undertones are fairly obvious for the first three ladies from the left, but the last two, particularly the last lady, is a bit trickier. Because her undertone seems to go with a variety of both warm and cool shades, I would place her as a neutral (with possibly some olive undertones).
CREDITS: All clothes are courtesy of Doncaster
About the Author
Erin is the owner of Sartori Style, LLC, a company dedicated to all areas of style, with a focus in fashion and interior design. She is also a stylist for Doncaster, founder of the by-appointment, private shopping experience.
Erin graduated from Penn State University where she majored in Communications with an emphasis in advertising and public relations.
