How to tell if you have warm or cool undertones

The quickest skin undertone test

The most reliable way Very YOU checks undertone is by looking at how colours behave next to your face. In good natural light, hold different coloured fabrics or scarves close to your chin and watch what happens to your skin. Some shades will make you look clearer and more rested. Others will throw shadows, dull you down or make you look a bit washed out. That reaction is your undertone talking.

You might have come across the wrist vein test, where green veins are supposed to mean warm and blue or purple veins mean cool. It's very widely repeated, but Very YOU doesn't rely on it. Vein colour is mostly about how deep your veins sit and how thick the skin is over them, so it's not a consistent read on undertone. The face test is far more useful because that's where colour actually lands when you're wearing it.

If you're struggling to see a clear difference between shades, you might be neutral. Finding your colour season might be a better move to see which way you lean.

Does gold or silver jewellery look better?

Another great way to check is your jewellery box. Hold a piece of gold and a piece of silver up to your skin. One usually harmonises with your complexion, while the other might look a bit separate, or even slightly jarring.

If the gold makes your skin look vibrant, you likely have warm undertones. If the silver makes your skin look bright and clear, you're probably cool. If both look fine, you're likely neutral, which is a great spot to be in because you can experiment with both. It's rarely about which metal is more expensive, and everything about how it interacts with your skin tone.

The white fabric test

If you're still not sure, try the white test. Grab two pieces of white fabric. One should be a crisp, stark, optic white, and the other should be an off-white, cream or ivory. Drape them individually under your chin in good light. See which one makes your skin look balanced and which one just highlights shadows or dullness.

Usually, cool undertones look more vibrant against that stark, icy white. Warm undertones tend to look better, or at least more at home, against the creamier, yellow-based whites. If you can't tell, you might sit somewhere in the middle, or your depth and contrast might actually be the more important factors in your overall colour season. Trust your gut; if you have to squint to convince yourself something looks good, it probably doesn't.

What if nothing seems to fit?

Sometimes, people get caught up trying to force themselves into a strict warm-or-cool box, but skin is complex. You might have neutral-warm or neutral-cool undertones. If you don't feel like you fit perfectly into either, look at your natural hair and eye colour. They provide massive clues about where you sit.

If your hair has golden, strawberry or red highlights, you're almost certainly leaning warm. If your hair is ash, blue-black or a cool-toned brown, you're more likely cool. It's also worth remembering that warm and cool undertones exist across every skin depth and every ethnicity. Having a deeper or lighter complexion doesn't point you in either direction on its own. Once you have a general sense of your undertone, you can start looking at the specific palette for your season to see how those colours actually perform on you.