How to: Match your Foundation to your Skintone

Sometimes even Barbie gets it wrong...

 

The hardest thing in makeup is getting your base right. Once you have a flawless base it doesn't take a whole lotta work to look good. We have all been there, orange face and white neck because the beauty counter lady asked us did we want to "match our skintone or go a few shades darker?" YES, OF COURSE I WANT TO MATCH MY SKINTONE, NO I AM NOT AUDITIONING AS A OOMPA LOOMPA.

 

A lot of people forget that these are sales people, not trained makeup professionals although some might be, so realistically they couldn't care less if you look good as long as you buy their product.

 

I recently was giving my Aunt a makeup lesson, and a sales girl had sold her possibly the worst match of a foundation for her skin type in all mankind. Now my aunty,god bless her, doesn't know a lot about makeup and she is the type where they see her coming. She is a professional woman with money to spend on makeup and then has the "so-called" best of brands. This brand in particular was a Laura Mercier mousse like foundation, which gave extremely heavy coverage and was a shade called sunny beige.

 

The coverage of this foundation was absolutely ridiculous it gave a mask like effect. The shade was also about three shades to dark for her skin. I applied two liquid foundations, a mix of Collection in Biscuit and MAC Studio finish in NC40 and this formed her perfect match.

 

How to get your perfect match:

• Find out your skin type. Dry, oily, combination. Dry/Normal skin will be suited to liquid foundations, whereas oily skin is more suited to a cream compact foundation or a mineral foundation.
• Is your skin more pinky or yellowy toned? Irish skin tends to have a lot of pink tones in it, so if you want to colour correct and get rid of rednesss either use a green concealer on redness or a yellow based foundation.
• Test your foundation against a clean makeup free jawline in good lighting with a flat foundation brush.
• Blend the foundation on your jawline, if it is your perfect match it will melt into your skin seamlessly and provide a natural all over base, with no contrast between the face and neck.



Don't

• Try in harsh lighting at a cosmetic counter.
• Buy the first one the salesgirl recommends, ask for a tester. All good counters should provide one.
• Rush out and buy new foundation if you have an expensive brand that doesn't match up. Buy a cheaper foundation in a few shades lighter, mix the two and you have your custom colour.

 

 

Et voila, flawless skin!