How to Find Your Undertone (and Why Your Concealer Keeps Turning Grey)

There's a photograph you've probably seen of yourself. Someone took it at a wedding, or a birthday dinner, or a work event with harsh overhead lighting, and when it popped up in the group chat your first thought wasn't about the moment. It was: why is my face a different colour from my neck?

Maybe your under-eyes looked faintly grey. Maybe your cheeks looked orange next to your collarbones. Maybe your concealer had a pinkish cast that you'd never noticed in your bathroom mirror. You stared at it, zoomed in, and wondered how you'd walked around all evening like that.

Nine times out of ten, that's not a depth problem. You chose a shade that's the right lightness or darkness. It's an undertone problem, and once you understand yours, almost every complexion product becomes easier to buy. Not just concealer, either. Undertone shapes which blushes look like a natural flush, which lipsticks make your teeth look whiter, which metals make your skin glow, and even why that one camel coat makes you look radiant while a cool grey one makes you look like you need a nap.

So let's work it out properly.

Skin tone vs undertone: the difference that matters

These two words get used interchangeably, but they mean very different things.

Your skin tone, sometimes called depth, is how light or deep your skin is, from very fair to very deep. It can shift a little with the seasons: deeper after a summer holiday, lighter by February.

Your undertone is the colour beneath the surface, and it stays broadly the same regardless of how much sun you've had. It's usually described in four families:

• Warm: golden, yellow, peachy or honeyed

• Cool: pink, rosy, red or bluish

• Neutral: a balance of warm and cool, with neither dominating

• Olive: a green-leaning neutral that sits somewhere between warm and cool, often with a slightly grey or khaki cast in certain light

Here's the part that trips most people up: any undertone can appear at any depth. Fair skin can be very warm. Deep skin can be distinctly cool. Two people with exactly the same depth can need completely different shades because one leans golden and the other leans red. Depth gets you to the right section of the shade range. Undertone gets you to the right shade.

The olive question

Olive deserves its own section, because it's the most commonly misread undertone of all.

People with olive undertones are often told they're warm, so they buy golden shades that look yellow and slightly orange. Or they're told they're cool, so they buy pink shades that look ashy. Neither works, because olive isn't either. It has a subtle green or grey quality that sits underneath the warmth.

Olive skin is found across a huge range of backgrounds: Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Latin American, East Asian, mixed heritage and many more. It also appears at every depth, from fair olive to deep olive. If you've always felt like no foundation is quite right, and that everything looks either too pink or too yellow on you, there's a good chance you're olive.

The tell-tale signs: your skin can look slightly sallow or greyish when you're tired or unwell; very pink and very yellow shades both look wrong; and you may tan easily without burning much. If that's you, look for shades labelled olive, or neutral shades that don't lean strongly in either direction.

Why lighting lies to you

Before you try any of the tests below, it's worth knowing how dramatically lighting changes what you see. This is the reason so many of us choose the wrong shade.

Bathroom lighting is often warm, yellowish and from directly above, which hides undertone mismatches and casts shadows under the eyes.

Office LED lighting is usually cool and flat. It exaggerates grey and ashy tones, which is why concealer that looked fine at home can look grey by mid-morning at your desk.

Shop lighting at beauty counters is designed to flatter. It's bright and often warm, and it makes almost everything look good.

Ring lights and phone cameras smooth texture and can wash out colour, especially if a filter is applied.

Natural daylight, ideally from a north-facing window or on a slightly overcast day, is the most honest light you'll find. It's the light that shows your skin as it really is.

The rule: test everything in daylight. If you're shopping in person, swatch the shades, then walk to the shop door or window and look again. It might feel slightly odd. It's also the single best way to avoid buying the wrong shade.

Four ways to find your undertone

None of these tests is perfect on its own, particularly on deeper skin, where some are less reliable. Try all four and look for the pattern.

1. The vein test

In natural daylight, look at the veins on the inside of your wrist. If they look mostly green, you likely have warm or olive undertones. Mostly blue or purple suggests cool. A mix, or hard to tell, often points to neutral.

On medium and deep skin, veins can be harder to see, so don't rely on this test alone.

2. The jewellery test

Hold gold and silver jewellery against your skin, or think about which you naturally gravitate towards. Gold tends to make warm and olive undertones glow. Silver and platinum often flatter cool undertones. If both look equally good, you may well be neutral. If rose gold is your favourite, you might be warm-neutral.

3. The white vs cream test

Stand in daylight without makeup and hold a bright white T-shirt next to your face, then a cream or ivory one. If bright white makes you look washed out, sallow or ashy and cream looks warmer and kinder, you're likely warm or olive. If cream makes you look slightly yellow and bright white looks crisp and fresh, you're likely cool.

4. The jawline-in-daylight test

This is the most useful one. Stand beside a window with a hand mirror and look at the side of your face, your jawline and your neck. Ignore any redness on your cheeks or nose, which is surface colour rather than undertone. What do you see underneath? Golden or peachy warmth suggests warm. Pink or red suggests cool. A slightly green-grey or khaki quality suggests olive. A mix of everything without a strong lean suggests neutral.

Why concealer turns grey, orange or pink

Once you understand undertone, concealer mistakes start to make sense.

• Grey or ashy: the shade is too cool or too light for your skin, or it lacks enough warmth or red. This is one of the most common complaints on medium and deep skin, and it's often made worse by a white setting powder on top.

• Orange: the shade is too warm or too deep, or it's oxidising (darkening slightly as it mixes with your skin's oils).

• Pink: the shade is too cool for warm or olive skin.

• Yellow: the shade is too warm for cool or neutral skin.

• Chalky under the eyes: the shade is too light, or the setting powder is too white. A tinted powder like Soft Set avoids this.

Choosing your concealer shade

Concealer has two different jobs, and they need slightly different shades.

To cover spots, redness and dark marks, match your skin as closely as possible in both depth and undertone. Anything lighter will draw attention to the area rather than hide it.

To brighten under the eyes, go half a shade to one shade lighter than your skin, in the same undertone. Going three shades lighter is a classic mistake that creates a reverse-panda effect, especially on deeper skin.

Swatch on your jaw, not your hand. The back of your hand is often a different colour from your face.

Give it five minutes. Some formulas deepen slightly as they settle. Check again before you decide.

Like Butter Concealer comes in 20 shades from Porcelain to Cacao, with warm, neutral and olive-leaning options across the range: Porcelain and Marshmallow at the fairest end, Sand Beige, Whipped Cream and Cookie through the light and medium shades, Warm Olive, Warm Tan and Cool Tan through the tan range, and Toffee Nut, Mocha, Muscovado and Cacao at the deepest. It's full coverage but soft and creamy, so a small amount covers a lot without looking heavy.

Shade-matching in real life

Shopping in person

Go without makeup, or at least without foundation and concealer on your jawline. Swatch two or three shades in a stripe along your jaw. Walk to the window. Take a photo in daylight with no filter. The shade that disappears is the one.

Shopping online

Start with what you know. If you already have a foundation or concealer that matches well, use it as your reference and look for its equivalent. Look at swatches on models with a similar skin tone to yours, ideally in natural light. Read reviews from people who describe their undertone. And if you're stuck between two shades, choose the one that matches your undertone best, even if the depth is slightly off. A slightly-too-deep shade in the right undertone blends far better than a perfect depth in the wrong one.

When you're between shades

Mix them. Plenty of makeup artists keep two shades of concealer for every client, blending them on the back of the hand to create a custom match. You can do the same.

How the seasons change things

Your undertone stays broadly the same all year, but your depth can shift. After a summer holiday, you might need a shade or two deeper. By the end of winter, you may need to go lighter. Many people keep two concealer shades on rotation and blend them together in spring and autumn, when they're somewhere in between.

If you use self-tan, match your concealer to your tanned skin while it lasts, rather than your natural colour. A pale under-eye on a bronzed face is the fastest giveaway.

Your undertone beyond makeup

Here's where things get fun. Once you know your undertone, you'll start to notice it everywhere.

Clothes. Warm undertones often glow in camel, rust, olive, mustard, cream and warm reds. Cool undertones often look striking in navy, emerald, jewel tones, crisp white and blue-reds. Olive and neutral undertones can usually wear a wider range. If certain colours always make people tell you you look tired, undertone is probably why.

Lipstick. A lip colour in harmony with your undertone tends to look effortless. Blue-based reds can make teeth look whiter on cool undertones, while orange-reds and brick reds often look beautiful on warm and olive skin.

Hair colour. Colourists consider undertone when choosing shades. Warm undertones often suit golden, copper and caramel tones; cool undertones often suit ash and platinum tones, or rich cool browns and blue-blacks.

Jewellery. You already know about gold and silver. Consider this your excuse to buy the earrings.

None of these are rules. They're tools. Wear the yellow jumper if you love it.

Finding a foundation to match

We don't make foundation, so if you'd like one to pair with your concealer, look for brands known for well-built shade ranges with clear undertone labelling. Fenty Beauty Pro Filt'r, Juvia's Place and Black Opal are all worth exploring. Use your undertone to narrow down your options, ask for samples where you can, and check them in daylight before committing.

Undertone and the camera

So much of how we see ourselves now happens through a screen. Video calls, holiday photos, wedding albums, the group chat. And cameras have their own relationship with colour.

Phone cameras often process skin to look smoother and warmer, and can shift colour depending on the lighting. Your concealer might look perfect in a selfie and slightly off in real life, or the other way round.

Flash photography can make some powders, particularly very white ones, reflect light and look ghostly under the eyes.

Video calls flatten colour and exaggerate shine. Ring lights can wash out warmth.

Professional photographs, at weddings and events, often use strong lighting that's unforgiving with undertone mismatches.

The fix is the same as in real life: match your undertone in daylight, set with a tinted powder, and before an important event, take a quick photo with flash on to check how everything looks.

Why so many of us never learnt this

If you've reached adulthood without knowing your undertone, you're far from alone. For many people, especially those with deeper or olive skin, beauty counters rarely offered the right shades to test, and consultants didn't always know how to match them. Plenty of people learnt by trial and error, from an aunt, a big sister, a friend at school or a stranger on the internet, buying the wrong shade three times before finding the right one.

That's part of why we wanted to write this guide. Knowing your undertone shouldn't be insider knowledge. It's simply a useful thing everyone deserves to understand about their own skin. Pass it on.

Your questions, answered

Can your undertone change? Your undertone stays broadly the same throughout life, though your depth can shift with the seasons, and some people find their skin changes slightly with age or hormonal changes.

I'm between two shades. What should I do? Mix them. Many people use a deeper shade in summer, a lighter one in winter, and blend both in between.

My under-eyes are much darker than the rest of my face. Do I need a lighter concealer? Probably not. You may need a colour corrector first. We'll cover colour correcting in full next month.

Is olive the same as neutral? Not quite. Olive is a neutral with a green or grey lean. Neutral has no strong lean either way.

Why does my concealer look fine at home but grey at work? Lighting. Office LEDs are cool and flat, and they exaggerate ashiness. Check your shade in daylight, and use a tinted setting powder.

Before you go

Finding your undertone is one of those small pieces of knowledge that quietly improves everything. Your concealer disappears. Your blush looks like you, only more rested. You stop buying the wrong shade on a whim. And you finally understand why that one jumper makes you glow.

Ready to find your match? Explore all 20 shades of Like Butter Concealer, and set it with Soft Set Powder in a tone that suits you. Then go and look at yourself in some daylight. You might be pleasantly surprised.