How to Choose the Makeup Colors that Are Right for You

Today, cosmetic manufacturers and beauty consultants are advising beauty seekers to choose their colors based on whether or not they have "warm" tones or "cool" tones in their complexions. The test is very simple. Consultants ask beauty seekers to hold up a pink color and an orange color next to their skin to decipher which color brightens their complexion more and which color makes it look more washed out. The consultants then go on to say that individuals who have warm coloring need to wear earthy and woodsy colors with red and orange tones. Individuals with cool coloring need to wear pinks and berries.

This method of choosing your colors may actually be inadequate and choosing your colors may actually have a few more complexities to the process. Mainly the test is misleading because pinks can have both blue and yellow bases to them, especially colors like raspberry and strawberry. Really what you need to see is whether or not a person has yellow, gold or red highlights in their skin and hair, or whether or not they have an absence of yellow, gold, or red highlights. Individuals with an absence of yellow, gold, or red highlights have silver or blue highlights in their skin and hair.

Furthermore, there is a group of individuals in the warm category that absolutely shouldn't frequently wear harsh reds and absolutely need to wear more muted yellow-based pinks and berries. Likewise there are groups of individuals in the cool category who do best in harsher, bolder colors and those who do best in muted colors.

In 1980 the cosmetic company Color Me Beautiful launched a revolutionary makeup line based on Carole Jackson's book Color Me Beautiful. Both the book and the company broke color coordinating into four different groups or seasons. Before the cosmetic company Color Me Beautiful, cosmetic companies tried to sell every color to everybody.