Two things matter
1. Your undertone. This is the color under your skin. It can be warm (yellow, golden or peach), cool (pink, red or blue) or in between. It does not change when you tan. Light skin and dark skin can both be warm or cool.
2. Your contrast. This is how different your hair, skin and eyes are. Dark hair with light skin is high contrast. Hair, skin and eyes that are close in color is low contrast.
Your undertone tells you which kind of a color to wear, like a warm red or a cool red. Your contrast tells you how bright the colors can be.
Check your undertone
No test is perfect. Do all three and see what most of them say.
- White and cream. Hold a pure white cloth under your chin. Then hold a cream one. If white looks better, you are likely cool. If cream looks better, you are likely warm.
- Silver and gold. Silver jewelry often looks better on cool skin. Gold often looks better on warm skin. If both look fine, you may be in between.
- The veins on your wrist. Blue or purple veins point to cool. Green veins point to warm. This test is the weakest, mostly on darker skin.
Always test near a window in daylight, with no makeup. Indoor lights are yellow and will fool you.
Test with your own clothes
This is the most useful step.
- Take out every plain top you own.
- Stand in daylight. Hold each top under your chin. Look at your face, not the top.
- Make three piles: better, same, worse. Better means your skin looks even and you look fresh. Worse means you look tired.
- Look at the better pile. You will see a pattern. The colors will be mostly warm or mostly cool. They will be mostly soft or mostly bright.
That pattern is your best colors. You found them in clothes you already own.
Your colors, in a table
| If you are | Plain colors to wear | Colors to try |
|---|---|---|
| Warm | Cream, camel, olive, brown, warm navy | Rust, mustard, tomato red, teal, moss green |
| Cool | Pure white, gray, black, true navy | Burgundy, emerald, bright blue, rose, pale pastels |
| In between | Soft white, taupe, mid gray, navy | Most colors that are not too warm and not too cool |
Then think about contrast. If you have high contrast, you can wear bright colors and strong pairs, like navy with white. If you have low contrast, softer colors that are close to each other look better, like camel with cream.
Rules you can ignore
No color is banned. If a color does not suit your face, wear it away from your face. Wear it as pants, a skirt or shoes.
Black does not suit everyone. If black makes you look tired, wear it on your legs and put a better color near your face.
How an app can help
An app cannot see you in daylight. So take its answer as a first guess.
Ukti is our app. It checks your undertone from your photos. Then it uses that every morning when it picks one outfit from your own clothes. So you do not have to remember the rules.
When Ukti builds outfits in your closet, each one gets a score out of 10 for how well it suits you. One part of that score is "color on you".
Shape matters too. Read how to dress for your body type.
Some other apps focus on color only. Our guide to styling apps lists them.
The pile test is still worth doing once. It takes ten minutes.
