Sample 01
Patches land on both cheeks, the flat of the forehead and the jaw. Eyes, brows, lips and hairline are left out, and the brightest and darkest pixels in every patch are thrown away so a shiny forehead cannot drag the reading lighter.
Your foundation shade, measured.
Measured, not guessed. Upload one photo and we read the colour of your skin the way a colour lab does: the depth, the undertone, and the shades that sit closest to it.
Cool ←
Undertone
→ Warm
Read my skin tone
One photo · about 6 seconds
What actually gets measured
No opinion about your season, no quiz about your wardrobe. Three steps, all of them colour arithmetic.
Convert 02
That average becomes three numbers in CIE L*a*b*: how light the skin is, how far it leans red or green, how far it leans yellow or blue. Distances in this space line up with what the eye actually sees, which is why colour labs work in it.
Compare 03
Your three numbers are measured against 6752 real shades using CIEDE2000, the standard for how far apart two colours look. What comes back is the closest shade in each brand.
6752 shades, 106 brands
Your reading is compared against every foundation shade sold at Sephora and Ulta, each one a colour sampled from the retailer's own swatch rather than a guess at what the bottle looks like.
Deep
How many shades exist at each depth
Light
That shape is the finding, not the design. 64% of every shade on sale sits in the lighter half of the range, which is why matching gets harder the deeper your skin runs, and why a shortlist across brands beats loyalty to one.
Depth tells you the number. Undertone tells you the letter.
Every strip below runs through the same four depths. The only thing that changes between them is the hue underneath, and that is the difference between a shade that disappears and one that sits on your face like a mask.
Cool
Red sits ahead of yellow. Skin reads pink, rosy or slightly blue at the jaw, and a shade that is too warm looks orange on it within an hour.
- Veins
- Look blue or purple at the wrist.
- Metals
- Silver flatters more than gold.
- Shade codes
- C, N-cool, or the lower numbers in a pink range.
Neutral
Red and yellow are close to balanced. The widest set of shades will work, which also makes it the easiest undertone to mismatch by eye.
- Veins
- Read blue-green, hard to call.
- Metals
- Silver and gold both sit well.
- Shade codes
- N, or the middle of a brand ramp.
Warm
Yellow sits ahead of red. Skin reads golden, olive or peachy, and a shade that is too cool leaves a grey cast across the cheeks.
- Veins
- Look green at the wrist.
- Metals
- Gold flatters more than silver.
- Shade codes
- W, NC, or the golden half of a ramp.
The photo decides the answer
A camera records the light in the room as much as the skin in front of it. We pull part of that colour cast back out automatically, but the reading is only ever as honest as the photo you give it.
- Face a window, in daylight Indoor bulbs run warm and screens run blue. Both push the undertone reading.
- No foundation, no filter Beauty mode smooths and lightens skin. It is measuring the filter, not you.
- Whole face in frame, looking straight on Cheeks and forehead carry most of the signal. A three quarter angle loses one side to shadow.
- Out of direct sun Hard sun blows the highlights and drops the shadows. The middle, which is your skin, gets squeezed.
- Hair back, one person only Hair across a cheek gets sampled as skin. Two faces in frame and the reading is refused.
Questions people ask
How does the foundation shade finder work?
It places small sampling patches on your cheeks, forehead and jaw, averages the colour inside them while throwing away highlights and shadows, and converts that average to CIE L*a*b*. That gives three numbers: lightness, red-green, and yellow-blue.
Those numbers are compared against every shade in the catalogue using CIEDE2000, the industry measure of how far apart two colours look, and the closest shade in each brand comes back.
What is a skin undertone?
Undertone is the hue that sits under the surface of your skin, separate from how light or deep it is. In L*a*b* it is the angle between the red-green and yellow-blue axes. When red leads, skin reads cool and pink. When yellow leads, it reads warm and golden. When they are close to balanced, it reads neutral.
Two people can share a depth and still need different shades, because their undertones differ. That is why a foundation can be exactly the right lightness and still look wrong.
How accurate is the reading?
Accurate enough to narrow a wall of bottles down to a few, not accurate enough to buy blind. The two halves of the reading are not equally solid, and it is worth knowing which is which.
Undertone holds up well. The colour of the light in the room is corrected for before anything is measured, so the same face under a warm bulb and in daylight lands in the same undertone band.
Depth is an estimate. A phone exposes for a pleasing picture rather than for a measurement, and a brighter photo reads as lighter skin. There is no way to undo that from a single photo with nothing of known colour in it. Shoot in even daylight, take the depth as your place on the ramp rather than a verdict, and check the tone either side of it.
Which foundation brands are included?
Every foundation sold at Sephora or Ulta at the time the catalogue was collected: 6752 shades across 106 brands, from Maybelline and L’Oréal through MAC, NARS and Estée Lauder up to Tom Ford and Pat McGrath.
Rather than a flat top ten, your result shows the closest shade each brand makes, so you can pick on the counter you can actually reach.
How should I photograph myself for an accurate reading?
Stand facing a window during the day, with the light on your face and not behind you. No foundation, no filter, no beauty mode. Pull your hair back off your face, keep your whole face in frame, and avoid direct sun, which blows out the highlights the reading depends on.
What is the difference between warm, cool and neutral undertones?
Warm skin runs golden, peachy or olive, looks better next to gold, and usually shows green veins at the wrist. Cool skin runs pink or rosy, looks better next to silver, and usually shows blue or purple veins.
Neutral sits between the two and is the hardest to judge by eye, which is why measuring it is worth doing.
What happens to my photo?
It is read in memory, the cropped face and the measurement are held just long enough to show you the result page, and the record is deleted the moment that page loads. The photo is never written to disk, never shown to anyone, and never used to train anything. The full detail is in the privacy policy.
Does my foundation shade change with the seasons?
Depth does, undertone mostly does not. Sun exposure can move your L* by several points between summer and winter, which is roughly one step on a brand ramp, while the hue underneath stays where it was.
Measure again at the start of a season and expect to change the number on the bottle, not the letter.
I have oily or combination skin. Does that change the reading?
Shine is the main problem, because a specular highlight is the colour of the light source rather than the colour of your skin. The reading throws away the brightest and darkest pixels in each patch for exactly this reason.
Blotting your face before the photo still helps, and picking a matte finish in the results helps more.
Can I use this for concealer, powder or bronzer?
The measurement carries over, the product list does not. Your depth and undertone are the same numbers a concealer or powder has to sit against, so use them as a guide. As a rule, concealer goes one to two steps lighter than your foundation and bronzer two to three steps deeper, keeping the same undertone.