Skin Tones: Discover if You're Cool or Warm

© Michelle Howard Smith - All Rights Reserved

Remember the lady with the clown face (See Make-up Tips)?  It’s important to know your skin tone.  If you are going to apply the right kind of make-up and stay natural looking, you must know your skin tone.  It amazes me how many people wear make-up products that are pink based when their skin has yellow undertones.  Now, I’m not a make-up expert but it doesn’t take a degree in cosmetology to figure out that if you put on make-up that has a different base from your skin tone, you’ll end up looking like the clown lady.

There are two “temperatures” of skin tones, if you will..  Within those “temperatures” are four groups of skin tones.  To identify your skin tone, consider the following:

Cool Skin Tone	Warm Skin Tone
Pink (very fair) Yellow (fair to medium)	Olive (brown skin) Brown (dark skin)

• The Pink skin tone burns very easily in the sun and has pink undertones such as in fair skinned Caucasians.
• The Yellow skin tone has beige or yellow undertones such as in Asians
  
• The Olive skin tone is has olive undertones such as in Mediterranean or Latin individuals
  
• The Brown skin tone is very deep such as in African American people (excluding the fairer skin type.  African Americans with lighter skin may fall into the Oliver skin tone)

When applying your natural mineral make-up consider these colors for your skin tone type:

Pink/Yellow – Pink based foundation; make-up that is in the family of blue, pinks, purples, and reds that are blue based

Olive/Brown – Yellow based foundation; make-up that is in Earth tone colors such as browns, golden colors and reds that are orange based

Another important thing to take into consideration after you have determined your skin tone is keeping your skin tone looking even.  Due to skin blemishes, sun tans, and other factors, your skin may appear to have more than one tone.  In order to even out your skin tone, it is suggested that you exfoliate your skin every 3-4 days.

Skin cell turnover takes place in approximately that amount of time.  If you don’t exfoliate, you have a bunch of dead skin cells sitting on top of your skin. This causes your skin to appear dull, uneven and older than it actually is.  In addition to exfoliating, a decongesting face mask should be used at lease once per week to open up pores which gives way to better circulation.