Every man is unique both physically and mentally, obviously we are not psychologists to know them mentally. The one thing we know about them is, physically. To be more precise if someone describes another person they’ll say white guy or a brown guy etc.
What I am trying to say is that they’ll be identified by their skin tones, to be exact, skin color. We are not going to talk about skin color, which is out of scope of this topic, but we’ll talk about skin tones in particular.
Don’t get confused by skin types and skin tones both are different. If you want a clear understanding of skin types click here.
So, in this blog post we’ll talk about skin tones, undertones and how to determine them in a great detail. So, stick around with me.
First, let’s talk about skin tones.
Two men with different skin tones.
What are skin tones:
A skin tone is a visible color of the surface of the skin. It is determined by the amount of Melanin – a pigment responsible for the color of the skin. It is produced in the outermost layer of skin called epidermis.
You can understand the difference between skin tone and skin color by this example, we know men fall in to different set of skin colors ranging from white to black.
The spectrum between the whitest and the darkest skin is called a skin tone. This is another way to put forward the difference between them.
So, you might ask, what factors are responsible for skin tone?
Factors responsible for skin tone:
- If you have a certain skin tone the chances are it is inherited from your family members, as skin tone is purely genetics.
- Environmental factors like high UV exposure is also responsible for darker skin.
- Melanin production is also another factor responsible for skin tones.
So, How many skin tones do we have?
How many skin tones:
There are primarily 5 skin tones namely,
Fair/pale: Appears as Light or white colored skin.
Medium: Medium skin tone is slightly more colored than a pale skin tone.
Olive: Your appearance will be light greenish or olive color. This is due to higher melanin production than the above-mentioned 2 skin tones.
Brown: Skin appears brown in color and melanin production is higher than olive skin tone.
Black: Skin appears dark and the melanin production is the highest of all skin tones.
Role of Melanin in determining your skin tone:
We already know that melanin is responsible for all skin tones. However, the amount of melanin production is another factor in determining your skin tone. If the melanin production is lowest you’ll get pale/fair skin.
In the same way, if the melanin production is highest you’ll get dark skin. If it falls in between the highest to the lowest, then you’ll fall under remaining 3 skin tones. In this way, melanin is responsible for your skin tones.
How to determine my skin tone:
I hope you got some clarity on skin tones, now let’s see how to exactly determine your skin tone. To be frank determining your skin tone is pretty straightforward task, for lighter and darker skin tones.
You can also easily determine brown and average skin. But you need to put some effort into identifying olive skin tone, as this is slightly difficult. But if you observe keenly you can also determine it.
What do I mean by it is you can easily determine skin tones just by looking at it, that’s all.
The skin tone is what appears to others when they look at you, I mean they see you and identify what color you are. But there is another thing that others can’t see which are undertones.
What is an under tone:
Undertone is a natural layer of skin below the actual skin surface, by now you are familiar with the term skin tone right? Under tone lies beneath the skin tone. It is also defined as shade of the skin tone.
image depicting skin undertone
How many undertones:
There are 3 under tones namely,
Warm: Gold, peach or yellowish in color.
Cool: blue, red or pink color.
Neutral: A mixture of warm and cool colors; makes sense because neutral is a mix of warm and cool colors.
It doesn’t matter what is your skin tone, you’ll definitely have any of the three mentioned undertones. What do I mean by that? if you have a brown skin then your undertones might be warm, neutral or cool.
Which is similar to other skin tones as well.
How to determine your under tone:
So, now let’s understand how to determine your under tones, there are 3 different ways to determine your undertones.
- Tanning: When you stand in sunlight and observe that your skin tans to rose or a more reddish shade, then you are likely to have a cool undertone. In the same way, If your skin tans to peach, gold, or yellow then you’ll have a warm undertone. And if your skin doesn’t tan that quickly then you’ll have a neutral undertone.
- With the help of a white sheet of paper: Another way to determine your skin’s undertone is by the white paper test. Grab a white sheet of paper and go to a place with true natural sunlight. Hold that paper against your skin while looking at the mirror, if your skin looks pinkish or red then you are likely to have a cooler undertone. In the same way, if your skin looks yellowish then you’ll have a warm undertone. If you do not see any of the colors then you’ll have a neutral undertone.
- The jewelry test: It is a pretty straightforward way to determine skin’s undertone. If you look good on golden jewelry then you have a warm undertone. In the same way, if silver looks good on you, you’ll have a cool undertone. If both look flattering on your skin tone, then you have a neutral skin tone.
Note: The third method (the jewellery test) may not give you a best result as this is purely subjective. So, try to be thorough with the other two methods to determine the skin tones.
Skin tone is not permanent but undertone is:
The harsh truth about skin tones is they are not permanent – they tend to change with different climatic conditions.
If you go into scorching sun then your skin tone becomes darker doesn’t matter your skin tone.
This is due to the relation between the melanin pigment and UV light in sunlight. When you are exposed to sunlight the UV light present in sunlight triggers melanin production.
If you have a pale skin, the melanin pigment is very low, hence you’ll get tan more quickly than the darker skin tones.
Have you ever thought why I need to know about undertones in the first place.
Why we need to know your undertones:
There is not much of a problem with not knowing about skin tones/undertones, because it is clearly visible and can be determined easily. But you need to know your undertones due to, it helps in choosing the right colored clothes that look good on you.
And if you are in to make up, it helps in choosing the right make up products that easily blends in to your skin rather than popping out.
Knowing your undertones also plays an important role in selecting what colors of clothes looks good on you, according to your skin tone, which accentuates your look.
Speaking of dressing to your skin tone, there is an interesting topic related to dressing for skin’s undertones. Knowing about it will definitely improve your dressing and stand out in the crowd.
Let’s see how to dress for skin’s undertones.
How to dress for your skin’s undertones:
Actually, you can wear any colored clothes, no matter your skin tone. But, if you want to take your style to the next level then obviously you’ll have to follow these rules that I am gonna mention below.
Colors that look good on warm undertone:
Just for the sake of introduction I just wanted to touch up on what colors look good on each undertone. In this instance let’s look at what colors look good on people with warm undertone.
Gold, peach, and yellow colors accentuate the look of a warm undertone. Earthy tones/colors like green, and tan are also a good options to consider.
Best Colors for Cool Undertone:
For a person with a cool undertone, the colors that complement their looks are pink, blue, purple, etc. As these colors make your appearance more noticeable.
Best colors for a neutral undertone:
It is obvious that neutral colors look on neutral undertone people, but the beauty about this undertone is you can wear any colored clothes with this undertone, I mean both warm and cool undertones.
Because a neutral undertone can complement any color. This is about what colors look good for each undertone. It is just an introduction to what colors you need to wear based on your undertone. You can know more about them in detail here.
Conclusion:
So, this is all about skin’s undertones and many other related aspects of it. We also determined what undertone you have and what colored clothes look good on you while dressing.
As I previously mentioned, is all this necessary? To some extent no, but if you are really willing to take your dressing to next level, then try considering it.