The Pros Tell All: The Key To Choosing A Lip Color That Compliments Your Skin

To narrow down the search a bit, you can call on the undertone matching method—something plenty of makeup experts and wearers do on the regular.

But just remember, makeup should be fun! When you overthink the shades and second-guess all your choices, all of a sudden it becomes belabored. Life can be stressful enough, let’s not add “lipstick undertones” to the list of things that may give you pause.

So even though the following are great pointers to help you on your shopping journey, the best advice is to just go with what makes you feel the best in your skin.

Skin tone has to do with the richness of your skin color (fair, medium, and deep for example). Undertones are the colors shining through under your skin.

Each skin tone can have different undertones—the main four being cool, warm, neutral, and olive. When lip color doesn’t match the undertone, there may be a clash.

• Paper test. “Take a piece of red paper and a piece of blue paper, and put each next to your face to see what looks more flattering,” natural makeup artist Amber Talarico once told mbg. “If you look best with blue, you have cool undertones, and if you look best with red, you have warm.” And for those people who look radiant with both? You likely fall somewhere in the middle and have neutral.
• Jewelry test. Look at what you prefer wearing, or what you think looks best on you. Golds flatter warm tones, while silver flatters cool. (Of course, if you prefer either metal over the other just wear what you want—again, this is an art not a science.)
• Vein test. This is simple: Look at the veins on your wrist. If they appear more blue or purple, you have cool tones. If they look more green, you’re warm. And if they look like a mix of both, you have neutral.
• A quiz! Lucky you: we developed an easy quiz to help you figure out your own undertones. If you need to pop on over to take the quick assessment, please do. We’ll meet you back here ready to help you find a lipstick.

You may have figured out what undertones your skin has, but what about the lipsticks themselves? Yes, makeup has it’s own undertones too. For example a red may have more blue undertones (making it a cool shade) or more coral (making it warm.)

One way to figure out if the lip color is more warm or cool is to default to the paper test above: Compare the shade to red paper versus blue paper, and see which one it better blends with.

However, a word of warning: Identifying undertones in reds and pink lipsticks can be a bit easier than doing so in nudes.

“When it comes to finding the right nude lipstick that matches your skin tone the key is to realize that nudes have undertones too. Some nudes have a pink undertone or an orange undertone,” celebrity and editorial makeup artist Delina Medhin tells mbg.

Pro tip:

“One tip that may be helpful is to look at your foundation color and mix a red or pink lipstick into it so you can see what the color would look like & keep adding to it, get the color to where you want it. Then use this mixture as a benchmark for matching a potential nude lipstick too,” Medhin says.

Cool undertones give the skin a pink, blue, or red hue. If silvery jewelry complements your skin best, you just might have cool undertones.

This can show up more significantly under the eyes for some (yep, even if you have warm undertones otherwise). As the rule goes, you’ll want to pull from those colors to find your perfect lipstick shade. Here’s a few base colors you might be drawn to: 

• For brown or neutral shades: Purple, mauve, taupe
• For reds: Cherry, wine, berry, purple
• For pinks: dusty or nude rose

Lipsticks for cool undertones

Warm undertones have a base of yellowish, gold, and peach hues sneaking through.

If gold jewelry compliments your skin better than silver, you may have warm undertones.

You’ll want to pull from generally warmer colors for your lip. A few hints to keep an eye out for: 

• For brown and neutral shades: Caramel, 
• For reds: Brick, terracotta, candy apple
• For pinks: Peach, coral, orange

Lipsticks for warm undertones

Neutral undertones have the luck of the draw, as most colors will complement a neutral undertone.

This means you’ll have both yellow and blue undertones, so you can pick from a wide variety of colors without worrying about clashes. 

Olive undertone is different from neutral (though they’re often confused for the same). Olive undertones have a green, grey, and sometimes ashy undertone.

When it comes to lip color, warmer and deeper colors tend to compliment olive skin best, a few examples include: 

• For brown and neutral shades: Chestnut, hints of hold, chocolate brown
• Reds: Deep corals, cranberry
• Pinks: Light to deep shades of peach

Lipsticks for neutral & olive undertones.