Because picking shades by "what looks nice on the internet" is not a strategy.
You've picked up a nude lipstick, thought it looked perfect, put it on, and immediately looked... washed out. Or weirdly grey. Or like you've somehow lost your lips entirely.
Sound familiar?
The culprit almost always isn't the formula. It's undertone - yours and the shade's - not matching.
Undertone isn't your skin tone (how light or dark your skin is). It's the subtle hue that lives underneath your skin. It doesn't change when you tan in summer, it doesn't fade in December, and it's the invisible thing that determines why some shades make you look like you just got back from a vacation in Positano - and others make you look like you haven't slept since 2021.
Here's the good news: figuring yours out takes less than ten minutes. Three tests. That's all.
Test 1: The Vein Test
Go to a window. Not in direct sunlight - sunlight has a yellow cast that'll throw the whole thing off. You want natural, even light, just not a beam of sun hitting your wrist directly.
Hold out your inner wrist and look at the colour of your veins.
- Blue or purple veins → Cool undertone.
- Green veins → Warm undertone.
- Genuinely can't tell? → Keep reading. You might be neutral.
This is the most common test you'll find online, and it's a solid starting point - but here's what nobody tells you: vein colour alone isn't conclusive. It's the first clue. You need the next two to confirm.
Test 2: The White T-Shirt Test
This one is simple and brutally honest.
Grab a crisp white cloth or top and hold it up close to your face and neck. No makeup. Natural light again.
Now look at what it does to you. Does the white make you look alive - skin glowing, features popping, dark circles calm? Or does it wash you out, drag up the shadows around your mouth, make your dark spots look like they've been underlined?
If white is doing you dirty, swap it out for something off-white. Ecru, cream, ivory - any of those warmer whites. Hold that close to your face instead. Does that feel better? If yes - that warmth is flattering you in a way crisp white never will. You're likely warm undertoned.
If white looks clean and flattering, you're likely cool undertoned.
One more trick: if you have a colour in your wardrobe that you know makes you look incredible (black doesn’t count) - the top that gets you unsolicited compliments every time - switch between that and the white cloth. The contrast helps you see exactly what the white is doing to your face versus what your go-to colour does. Best to trust what you see in the comparison, not the fabric in isolation.
Test 3: The Jewellery Test
This is the most honest test of the three, and also the one where a lot of Indian women get tripped up.
We've grown up being told that gold suits everyone. And look - we get it. Gold is cultural, gold is heirloom, gold is the default. But gold comes in different tones: yellow gold, antique gold, matte gold, rose gold. For this test, you're specifically testing yellow gold - the classic, bright, warm variety.
Here's how to do it properly: pick up a chunky piece of yellow gold jewellery — a thick necklace, heavy bangles, earrings that sit close to your face. Hold it up near your jaw and cheekbones.
Now - and this is the part people miss - don't look at the jewellery. Look at what it does to your face.
When jewellery suits you, it enhances your features. Your eyes look brighter, your cheekbones read more defined, and a person looking at you is drawn to you first — the jewellery is just adding to the picture.
When jewellery doesn't suit you, it competes with you. The metal becomes the first thing someone notices, and your features sit behind it.
Now do the exact same thing with a piece of silver - same size, same placement, same question: where does the eye go first?
- Yellow gold makes your features pop → Warm undertone.
- Silver makes your features pop → Cool undertone.
What if both kind of work?
Then you're most likely neutral - and honestly? That's a great place to be.
Neutral undertones mean you don't have to choose one side. Both gold and silver work on you. Both white and cream are flattering. You can pull from a wider range of shades than a strictly warm or cool undertone can. When you're in a 50/50 situation, don't force it - just lean into whatever feels right to you in the moment.
Neutral doesn't mean indecisive. It means versatile.
One more thing: olive is not an undertone.
We see this confusion come up constantly, and it's worth clearing up once and for all.
Olive is an overtone - a specific complexion with more melanin and a slight greenish-yellow cast to it. But olive skin can have any undertone. You can be a cool olive, a warm olive, or a neutral olive. The three tests above apply exactly the same way.
So, if someone ever told you “you’re olive so gold suits you" - go run those tests anyway. You might be a cool olive who looks incredible in crisp white and silver. Your skin tone, overtone and undertone are all different. They live in different layers entirely.
Why does any of this matter?
Once you know your undertone, everything becomes easier. The blush that's been making you look sunburnt instead of flushed. The concealer that photographs grey. The lip colour that turns muddy two hours in.
It's not bad luck. It was just the wrong undertone.
The Silk Lip Glaze comes in six shades named after Italian cities - each available in a warm and a cool variant - precisely so that once you know your undertone, you know your shade. No more guessing at the screen. No more hoping it looks the same on your lips as it does on the model.
Just lips that look like they were always meant to look that way.
With SPF and love, 42foundry
