Find Your Color Range at DarkComplexions.com

Find Your Color Range

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Finding your color range isn't just important for makeup. It also determines what clothing, accessories, and gems look best on you.

It's a good idea to remember that it's not an exact science. Just because you're cool colored doesn't mean that no warm colors will ever look good on you. It only means that certain hues tend to suit you better than others, so your wardrobe choices and makeup selections should generally match, unless you're going for contrast.

The first thing you'll need to consider when finding your range is the lighting. Natural sunlight is the best situation in which to find what colors suit you best. Outside in the sun you'll figure out colors that will fit you in darker or special lighting just as well as they do outside. If you buy makeup in a store, they should have full spectrum lights so that you can see what colors really look like.

If you go to nightclubs though, you may also want to consider how certain colors will look under flourescent or UV lights In these situations, too much matte white or light yellow pigment can phosphoresce, causing a look that was subtle outdoors to look streaky or glowing in the club.

How To Find Your Color Range

First however, let's figure out where you are...

Here's a general illustration of the color range for dark skinned people. There are many more varieties than this, but this will give you some idea of what we mean when we say someone is a cool, mixed, or warm tone or complexion.

With this in mind, take a few objects of the standard rainbow spectrum of colors, and go outside with a mirror. They can be anything, but it's better if they are swatches or handkerchiefs of a satin fabric. This is because the satin will reflect off of your skin a bit, so you can see how the color "plays" with your tone.

If you find that red, blue, pink, and lavender look good next to your skin, and that yellow and orange do not, you are cool toned.

You should wear mostly colors that are blue, purple, maroon, and various shade of red, pink, and lavender. You would also likely look very good in combinations like black and silver. In jewelry, you should wear polished silver, white gold, rubies, rhodolite garnet, rhodochrosite, rose quartz, and blue topaz or zircon. You may also want to try pink gold.

If you find that yellow, orange, and apricot colors fit you and blue doesn't, and that maroon or red makes your skin color look too strange, you are warm toned.

You should wear earthy or sunny colors like yellow, gold, brown, green, apricot and orange. Yellow gold looks the best on you. You can get away with some silver if it is a little brassy or "Tuareg silver".

The gems that suit you best are citrine, honey amber, honey apatite. sunstone, emerald, and the more orangey carnelian agate. Rutilated quartz with gold needles also make fabulous pendants for you.

If you find that some cool colors and warm colors look great on you, but some across both types don't, then you probably have a mixed tone. Mixed tones are actually usually warm toned people with thin skin surfaces, or variant through the seasons. If you're medium to dark warm, but you sunburn or people can tell when you blush, this is you.

Mixed tones are somewhat hard to match for, but generally during the summer you will fit a specific tone, either warm or cool, because your skin will be dark enough to cover the blush.

You can wear both cool and warm colors, but test everything against your face before you buy it. Also remember that colors that suit you in summer may not suit you in winter. You may be a warm in summer but a cool in winter or vise versa.

Gems that suit you well are salmon pink sapphire (pink ruby), darker spessartite garnet, dark green tourmaline, and color change alexandrite.

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