Find the Best Foundation Match For Your Skin Tone

There are some beauty products that we use every day and others that we reserve for special occasions. Foundation, no matter what your makeup style is, in our opinion, is one of those crucial makeup items that everyone should own (even if you don't use it every day). However, many people have trouble picking the correct shade of liquid foundation.

Without the help of a professional makeup artist, many people have trouble finding the right undertone when foundation matching. Even if your shade is correct, if your undertone is off, the color won't always suit you.

"Tone is the most important thing when choosing a foundation," Jorge Monroy, a Los Angeles-based celebrity makeup artist, tells POPSUGAR. "It'll help you narrow down your choices and find a color that best matches your undertones."

This is something I personally struggled with. A few years ago, I was introduced to L'Oreal Paris True Match Super-Blendable Foundation Makeup ($9) by a friend. She gave me a bottle of cold-toned foundation after realizing she bought the wrong color. I gave it a try and liked how light it was on my skin and how well it covered up blemishes. I eventually ran out of that bottle and went to the store to grab more — but by the time I got there, I had forgotten the corresponding letter and number indicating the tone and color. At the time, I really didn't think it mattered that much. Over the next few years, I bounced around buying refills of cold and warm tones — basically whatever bottle I thought looked good next to my skin that day. I didn't realize I was making one of the biggest (and most common) foundation mistakes.

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When picking foundation, there are a few factors to consider. "Most importantly, knowing your undertone will always help you find the correct shade of foundation since it will always stay the same regardless of the season," Monroy says. The color of your foundation may change throughout the seasons, depending on how tan you get in the summer, but your tone doesn't change.

If I'm being honest, I never worried that much about the tone of my foundation. It didn't seem like it was as big of a deal as the color — but, as Monroy points out, it's actually even more important. He offered insight on how to find the right color for your skin tone, ahead.

Warm, cool, and neutral are three of the most common undertones, and when shopping for makeup, you'll often see these three terms marked on products.

"To figure out your undertone, take a look at the veins on your wrist," Monroy says. "If your veins look blue, you have a cool skin tone. If they look green, you have a warm skin tone. If you can't figure out if your veins are either blue or green, you most likely have a neutral skin tone. Once you have figured out your undertones, you can move into deciding what is the best foundation color for you."

Knowing your undertones will help you find the best foundation color for you. Monroy recommends that cool skin tones go for pink and red hues and warm skin tones go for yellow and peachy hues. If you fall into the neutral range, an olive-tone foundation tends to contain both cool and warm tones. To test out the color, try going into the natural sunlight with a bare face and apply a little foundation to your jawline. Monroy says it's a good spot to see if it blends in with your face and neck.

If you're wondering how my whole liquid foundation tone saga wrapped up, it came to a happy ending. While using my foundation one morning, a light switch flipped, calling my attention to how the warm tone wasn't blending all that well. A trip to the drugstore had me back in front of that L'Oréal product wall where I opted for a bottle in the neutral category. Once I tried that, it seamlessly blended, providing me with my perfect foundation match.