The Ultimate Dummy's Guide to Foundation

By elaine.kiew on 20 May 2018

Just starting to get into the whole make-up thing but not sure where to start? This might just be the guide you need.

When done right, your skin might just start to glow too. What are you waiting for? Let's go!

1. Know Your Skin Type

There are five main skin types: normal, dry, oily, combination and sensitive.

Photo from Hello To Natural

Identifying your skin type is important because it allows you to focus on skincare tips and techniques that can help you achieve a clear, healthy-looking skin. The key to looking good lies in a good skincare routine. Foundation just helps us to enhance our skin tone or features and gives it the extra boost.

For instance, if you have dry skin, you might want to opt for a foundation with a strong hydration formula to keep your skin moisturised.

2. Identify your skin's undertone

The key to figuring out the most flattering colours for yourself is in the colour of your skin's undertones.

Here is how to determine if you have a warm, cool, or neutral undertone.

Photo from WikiHow

Look at the colour of the veins on the inside of your wrist. This is a quick way to determine your undertones if your veins are visible.

Green veins
Warm skin tone. On a warm skin tone, wearing gold jewellery would seem more flattering as compared to silver.

Blue or purple veins
Cool skin tone. If you have a cool skin tone, silver jewellery will look flattering while the yellow metal (gold) will seem too harsh on your skin.

Green or blue veins
Neutral skin tone.

Note: “Cool” or "warm" should not be confused with “light” or "dark." They are simply meant to help you establish your tone according to your undertones.

3. Test foundation shades on your neck, not your arm

There are divided views on where we should test out foundation shades at. Some say it should be done on our neck while others think it should be done on our underarm.

I say....

Photo from Maanavi

It should be done this way.

We don't want our face to appear a few shades lighter than our neck or vice versa. What we want is a shade that can help our face and neck merge together naturally.

When shopping for your perfect shade, try using a q-tip to swab your selection on your neck just like in the photo above and select the shade that match.

4. Decide if you want a liquid or powder foundation

There are many kinds of foundation in the beauty mindfield out there.. From sheer to full coverage foundations, matte to dewy-finish and the list goes on.

For a start, perhaps you could think about whether you want a liquid or powder foundation.

Photo from Makeup.com