Seasonal Color FinderYour undertone is the warm, cool or neutral cast under the surface of your skin. Unlike your surface tone, it does not change when you tan or flush, which is why it is the most useful single fact for choosing colors.
There are four quick tests people use. Each one is unreliable on its own, for reasons explained below, so run all four and go with the majority.
1. The vein test
Look at the veins on the inside of your wrist in daylight.
- Mostly blue or purple: suggests a cool undertone.
- Mostly green: suggests a warm undertone.
- A mix you cannot call: suggests neutral.
Why it misleads. Veins look blue or green partly because of how light scatters through skin, and the result depends heavily on how thick and how light your skin is. On deep skin the veins can be hard to see at all. On olive skin they often look green-blue, so the test answers "neutral" for people who are really warm with an olive cast. Use it as one vote, never the deciding one.
2. The jewelry test
Put on a plain gold piece and a plain silver piece, one at a time, and look at your face rather than the jewelry.
- Gold makes your skin look healthier and evener: warm.
- Silver makes your skin look clearer and brighter: cool.
- Both look fine: neutral, or olive.
This test works better than most people expect, as long as you compare the same style of piece in the same light.
3. The white paper test
Take off makeup, stand by a window and hold a sheet of plain white printer paper under your jaw.
- Your skin looks yellow, golden or peach next to the paper: warm.
- Your skin looks pink, rosy or slightly blue: cool.
- Your skin looks grey or slightly green: often olive, which usually sits on a warm or neutral base.
- Nothing stands out: neutral.
This is the most reliable of the four at home, because the paper gives your eye a fixed white reference. It is also the same idea our photo tool uses: compare the skin to something known to be neutral.
4. The sun test
How does your skin react to sun without protection?
- Burns quickly, tans little: often cool, especially on light skin.
- Tans easily, rarely burns: often warm or olive.
Treat this one lightly. Sun response is mostly about melanin and genetics, not undertone, and it says little for medium and deep skin.
Reading your results
| Most of your answers | Undertone | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| Gold, green veins, yellow next to paper | Warm | |
| Silver, blue veins, pink next to paper | Cool | |
| Both metals, mixed veins, no clear cast | Neutral | |
| Both metals, grey-green next to paper | Olive | Olive skin guide |
Undertone is only one of three questions. To place you in a season you also need to know whether your overall coloring is light or deep, and clear or muted. A cool-undertone person with dark hair and high contrast is usually a Winter; the same undertone with soft, ashy coloring is usually a Summer.
Why your answers might disagree
Disagreement is normal, not a sign you did it wrong. The common causes:
- Indoor light. Warm bulbs make everyone look warm. Always test by a window.
- Redness. Rosacea, flushing or recent exercise make warm skin look cool.
- A tan. Recent sun shifts surface tone toward gold. Test on the inner arm or jaw.
- Olive skin. It genuinely mixes signals, so it tends to split votes.
Test it with a selfie
If the four tests split two against two, a photo can settle it. Our photo analysis checks exposure and color cast first, then reads warm or cool, light or deep, and clear or muted as separate answers, and maps them to one of twelve palettes. Prefer not to upload a photo? The no-photo quiz asks the same questions in words.
Keep exploring
See the skin tone chart · How to take a useful selfie · Try photo analysis