When buying jewellery, most people only consider their style and preferences. You need to also bear in mind is that skin colour and skin tone are two different things. Your skin colour, also known as the overtone, is the colour of the skin you were born with. It can change due to environmental factors like getting tanned. Skin tone, also known as the undertone, never changes.
There are three broad categories of skin tones – cool, warm and neutral. While there are a number of ways to figure out your skin tone, the easiest way to do so is by standing under natural light and looking at the veins on your wrists.
Warm skin tones – Take a good look at your wrists. If your veins look green, then you have a warm skin tone. If you stay out in the sun for too long, you get tanned very easily.
Cool skin tones – People with cool skin tones will have blue or purple veins. People who have cool skin tones will burn when exposed to too much sun, rather than get tanned. This is because they have a lower melanin count.
Neutral skin tone – Your veins will be both blue and green, in equal measure or leaning towards one or the other. When exposed to the sun, you will either tan or get sunburnt. Sometimes, this could depend on the part of your body exposed to the sun.
Matching Skin Tones to Metals and Gemstones
People with cool skin tones look best in light metals like silver, platinum and white gold. Those with warm skin tones will look good in gold, rose gold, copper and brass metal. Those with neutral skin tones have the best of both worlds – both yellow and white metals will them. Matching metals to your skin tone always ensure that your jewellery doesn’t look odd when you’re wearing it.
