Ever look inside your wardrobe and think to yourself what colours truly look great on you with your complexion? What shades of clothing should you be leaning towards to make your eyes pop and your skin glow? What colours look best on YOU? Stop wondering and take it from a professional! Whether you’re fair-haired and funky, or darker and posh, your style should incorporate the right colour palettes to compliment your look.

Step 1: Don’t be afraid!

You may feel tempted to stick to more neutral colours to avoid any clashing, but where is the fun in playing it safe? Let’s get you in the right section of the colour spectrum, and then we can have some fun.

Step 2: Don’t overcomplicate this!

You will fall somewhere in the skin tone spectrum between warm, cool, and neutral. A warm skin is very easy to spot. Think Jessica Alba. The skin appears to have a yellowish or golden undertone and is common in the olive complexion. Cool skin tones, on the other hand, have that bluish undertone that can be seen in very light or very dark complexions. The tricky one is the neutral skin tone. Like many South Africans will say, if you can’t figure out someone’s accent (“is it British or Australian? That means you’re likely talking to a South African”) Your skin tone may not be warm or cool and so you’ll know that puts you in the neutral category. Also, another give away is that a lot of people with hazel eye colour with fall under the neutral skin tone category.

Step 3: Knowing what to pair with each skin tone…

WARM SKIN TONES

WARM SKIN TONES- You should be making friends with the warm colour family, such as reds, oranges, and yellows. If you do want to go with a green or blue try going a bit darker in those, such as magenta, deep turquoise, or fern green. Avoid the overly cool colours such as the icy blues or jewelled tones.

COOL SKIN TONES

COOL SKIN TONES-  You should be making friends with the cool colour family such as bright blues, royal blue, sapphire, emerald, deep purples, lavender. If you want to go with something warm, reach for the deep rich reds like a dark rose or very intense ruby. Avoid at all costs the oranges and yellows (reds work as long as they are deep and rich reds) that will clash with your tone.

NEUTRAL SKIN TONES

NEUTRAL SKIN TONES- Look for colours falling in the middle of the spectrum. You want to make friends with pastels and light peach, soft pinks, soft rose, placid blue, jade green. You want colours in nature to be your inspiration! Avoid overly bright shades of reds, oranges, or yellows. Your safe bet is to go with the most neutral shade whichever colour you reach for.

Tell me in the comments or email me and let me know what skin tone you are!

Chat soon,