What are the foundation undertones?

Warm (yellow or golden), cool (pink or rosy), neutral (a balance of both) and olive (a green-gray cast, usually over a neutral-to-warm base). Most brands label the first three with letters, W, C and N, next to a depth number. Olive is labeled by only a few brands; Fenty and Estee Lauder file it under warm, while Healthline and color analysts generally treat it as a fourth undertone.

How do I know my foundation undertone?

Swatch a warm, a cool and a neutral shade of the same depth down your jawline in daylight and wait ten minutes: the one that disappears is your undertone. The jewelry test (gold flatters warm, silver flatters cool) and the white T-shirt test back it up. The vein test is the least reliable of the three, because veins read green on most medium, olive and deep skin whatever the undertone.

What do the letters in foundation shade names mean?

In most ranges W means warm (yellow-golden), C means cool (pink-rosy), N means neutral, G means golden, P or R means pink or rosy and O means olive. The number is depth: lower is lighter. So 2N is a light neutral and 4W is a medium warm. MAC is the exception: its C shades are golden and its W shades are rosy, the reverse of everyone else.

What is the difference between warm and cool foundation?

Warm foundation has a yellow or golden base and suits skin that looks golden or peachy and tans easily. Cool foundation has a pink or rosy base and suits skin that looks pink, burns easily and prefers silver. At the same depth, a warm shade looks yellower and a cool shade looks pinker, which is easiest to see when the two are swatched side by side.

Should I choose neutral foundation if I'm not sure?

Neutral is the safest first guess because it sits between warm and cool, and many people are genuinely neutral. Then read the result: if a neutral shade looks slightly pink on you, you are warm or olive; if it looks slightly yellow, you are cool; if it looks orange, you are probably olive. Use that to move to the right family.

What undertone is olive skin foundation?

Olive is a green-gray cast, usually over a neutral-to-warm base, and brands handle it differently. Standard warm shades turn orange on olive skin and cool shades turn gray, so look for shades labeled olive (Haus Labs, About-Face and MOB Beauty label them), a brand's 'golden' or neutral shades, or a true neutral with a drop of green-leaning corrector. Healthline's advice is the same: olive should avoid the yellowest warm shades.

What do NC and NW mean in MAC foundation?

NC is Neutral Cool and NW is Neutral Warm, but MAC defines the words the opposite way to most brands. On its own shade finder, MAC says its warm shades are rosy and its cool shades are golden, and notes that other brands define the two the other way round. So NC shades have a yellow-golden base and usually suit skin that other brands call warm, and NW shades have a pink base. Swatch rather than trust the letters.

Can my foundation undertone change over time?

No. Depth changes with sun, self-tanner, pregnancy and age, so the number in your shade can move a step between summer and winter, but the undertone underneath stays the same. If a shade that used to match now looks off, check the depth first; the letter is almost never the problem.

Why does every neutral foundation look orange on me?

That usually means olive skin. Olive carries a green-gray cast, so a neutral or warm shade built on yellow and pink has nothing green in it and reads orange against your skin, while a cool shade reads gray. Try a shade labeled olive, a brand's golden-neutral option, or a neutral with a green-leaning corrector mixed in.

Foundation Undertone Chart: Warm, Cool, Neutral & Olive

In a sentence: foundation comes in four undertones, warm (yellow-golden), cool (pink-rosy), neutral (between) and olive (green-gray), labeled W, C, N and O or G in most shade names; find yours by swatching all three of the same depth on your jaw in daylight and keeping the one that vanishes. Skip to the chart, the shade-code decoder, or find your undertone from a photo.

Two foundation bottles at the same depth can look completely different on the face, one slightly yellow, one slightly pink. That difference is undertone, and it decides whether foundation disappears into the skin or sits on top of it. Depth gets you close. Undertone gets you invisible.

This guide covers what each undertone looks like on the skin, how to test yours at home before you buy, and what the letters and numbers in a shade name mean brand by brand. That last part is the piece most charts leave out, and it matters because one major brand uses the letters the opposite way to everyone else. For depth, testing spots and common mistakes, see how to find your foundation shade; for undertone in clothing and color analysis, how to find your undertone.

Depth versus undertone

Two separate dials:

Depth is how light or dark the skin is, from fair through light, medium and tan to deep. It is the number in a shade name, and it changes with sun and self-tan.
Undertone is the color underneath the surface: warm, cool, neutral or olive. It is the letter in a shade name, and it does not change.

Two foundations can be identical in depth and still look wrong on you if the undertone is off. A pink-based shade on golden skin looks chalky. A yellow-based shade on pink skin looks orange. Get depth right first, then undertone; the chart below is the undertone half.

The four undertones

Undertone	Looks like	Skin clues	Jewelry	Shade label
Warm	Yellow, golden, peachy	Tans easily, cream flatters, veins look green	Gold	W, G, Y, "golden", "warm"
Cool	Pink, rosy, bluish	Burns easily, white flatters, veins look blue	Silver	C, P, R, "rosy", "cool"
Neutral	Neither obviously	Both metals fine, veins look blue-green	Both	N, "neutral"
Olive	Green-gray cast	Looks sallow in pastels, foundation turns gray or orange	Both, often gold	O, "olive", sometimes N or G

Warm

Warm skin has a golden or yellow base. It usually tans rather than burns, cream looks better than stark white against it, and gold jewelry makes it look clearer. Warm foundations are built on a yellow or golden pigment base. L'Oreal describes its W shades as "yellow or golden"; most other brands mean the same thing by the letter.

Cool

Cool skin has a pink, rosy or slightly blue base. It tends to burn, white flatters it more than cream, and silver looks crisper than gold. Cool foundations have a pink base. L'Oreal's C shades carry "hints of blue or pink"; Estee Lauder's retailer guides describe cool skin as rosy and quick to burn.

Neutral

Neutral skin sits between the two, with neither yellow nor pink dominating. Both metals look fine and both cream and white are wearable. Neutral foundations balance yellow and pink, and N is the most common match in most ranges, which is why it is the safest first guess when you do not know.

Olive: the one most charts skip

Olive skin carries a green-gray cast, usually over a neutral-to-warm base. Sources disagree about what to call it. Healthline, Makeup.com and e.l.f. treat olive as a fourth undertone that combines neutral and warm with green, and that is how color analysts usually treat it too. Fenty's shade finder files "golden, olive, peach or yellow" together under warm, and Estee Lauder's retailer guide does the same. A few writers call it a subset of neutral.

Whatever the label, the problem on the face is the same: standard warm shades turn orange on olive skin and cool shades turn gray, because neither contains any green. Olive-labeled shades now exist at a handful of brands (listed in the decoder below); otherwise a true neutral with a drop of green-leaning corrector does the job. Healthline's advice is to avoid the yellowest warm shades and look for a slightly golden neutral. The full story is in olive skin undertones.

How to check your undertone before you buy

The three-stripe test (ten minutes)

Three stripes. Pick a warm, a cool and a neutral shade at the depth you think you are. Swatch all three side by side along the jawline, running down onto the neck.
Daylight. Stand by a window. Bathroom bulbs turn everything yellow or gray.
Wait ten minutes. Foundation oxidizes and darkens slightly as it dries. Mecca's shade guide suggests wearing a sample for a day for the same reason.
Find the one that vanishes. The stripe you cannot see is your undertone. If the neutral looks faintly pink on you, you are warm or olive; if it looks faintly yellow, you are cool; if it looks orange, you are probably olive.
Check in two lights. Daylight first, then a flash photo. "Why does my foundation match in person but look different in photos?" is common enough that Ulta's advisors answer it in their FAQ; a quick photo by the window catches it before you buy.

If two stripes tie, you are probably neutral or olive. Try a neutral-warm and an olive shade next.

The quick tests and their limits

The vein test, the jewelry test and the white T-shirt test appear on almost every brand's guide. They are useful as a second opinion, not as the verdict.

Veins. Green veins are read as warm, blue as cool, both as neutral. It is the least reliable of the three: Mecca's guide notes it works best on paler skin, and on most medium, olive and deep skin veins look green whatever the undertone.
Jewelry. Hold gold and then silver against the jaw. The metal that makes the skin look clearer, rather than the one you prefer, is the clue. Both fine means neutral.
White versus cream. Hold a true white and a cream top under the chin. Brands disagree about which way to read it: Maybelline's guide says white flatters warm skin and cream flatters cool, while Healthline says cool skin looks best in true white and warm skin in off-white. Color analysts side with Healthline, and so does experience with clothing: warm coloring tends to go sallow in optic white. Use the test the Healthline way.
Sun. Skin that burns and stays pink leans cool; skin that tans easily leans warm. Plenty of exceptions exist, so treat it as a tiebreaker.

The foundation undertone chart

Ten shades across the four undertones at light-to-medium depth, so you can see the difference at the same depth, plus the five base tones brands build on.

Foundation undertone chart with hex codes, warm ivory, warm beige, golden tan, cool porcelain, cool beige, rosy tan, neutral ivory, neutral sand, olive light and olive medium, with the five base tones, by ToneLala — Foundation Undertone Chart: Warm, Cool, Neutral and Olive Shades Explained, every shade with its hex code.

Shade	Hex	Undertone	Depth
Warm Ivory	`#F0D5B4`	Warm	Fair
Warm Beige	`#DDB88C`	Warm	Light-medium
Golden Tan	`#C5925F`	Warm	Medium-tan
Cool Porcelain	`#F2D9CF`	Cool	Fair
Cool Beige	`#D9B3A3`	Cool	Light-medium
Rosy Tan	`#BE8E79`	Cool	Medium-tan
Neutral Ivory	`#EFD6BE`	Neutral	Fair
Neutral Sand	`#D6B596`	Neutral	Light-medium
Olive Light	`#E2C9A2`	Olive	Light
Olive Medium	`#C6A880`	Olive	Medium

Base tones: Warm #E3B98E, Cool #E2BBB0, Neutral #DDBCA0, Olive #CFB58F and Golden #DEB57C. Compare the warm and cool bases side by side and the whole idea clicks: same depth, one yellow, one pink.

Warm, cool, neutral or olive? Find out from a selfie

Find your undertone and season →

Decoding foundation shade codes

The general pattern

Most ranges use a letter for undertone and a number for depth:

W / Warm / Y / G (Golden): yellow-golden base. G is usually a stronger golden; a few brands use Y for yellow.
C / Cool / P (Pink) / R (Rosy): pink-rosy base. R means red-warm in a couple of brands, so read the description.
N / Neutral: balanced, and the most common letter in any range.
O / Olive: green-leaning base, still rare.
Numbers: depth. Lower is lighter in every system, but the scale varies by brand (1 to 10, 5 to 65, 100 to 500), so a "2" at one counter is not a "2" at the next.

When a range has no letters, the shade names carry the clue: "ivory", "porcelain" and "sand" tend to be neutral-to-cool; "honey", "golden", "warm beige" and "caramel" are warm; "rose", "pink beige" and "cool sand" are cool.

Brand by brand

Brand and range	How the code reads	Example
L'Oreal True Match	Letter C, W or N, then a depth number; C = hints of blue or pink, W = yellow or golden, N = a mix. Half steps such as 5.5 appear in some markets.	W4, N5.5
MAC Studio Fix	NC, NW, N, C or W plus a number from 5 (lightest) to 65. MAC's own shade finder says its W shades are rosy and its C shades are golden, "the opposite" of other brands.	NC25, NW20
Fenty Pro Filt'r	Three-digit depth number, 100s lightest to 400s deepest, sometimes followed by a letter. Fenty's shade finder sorts skin into cool (pink or rosy), warm (golden, olive, peach or yellow) and neutral.	210, 386W
Estee Lauder Double Wear	Depth number, undertone letter (C, N or W), then a second number for the step within that group; decimals such as 1.5 mark in-between depths.	1W1 Bone, 2C2 Pale Almond, 3N1 Ivory Beige
Clinique Even Better	Letters CN, WN, N, W or C before the number, so CN is cool-neutral and WN is warm-neutral.	CN 28 Ivory
Maybelline Fit Me	Three-digit number and a name only; the range covers warm, neutral and cool but the undertone is not printed on the bottle.	120 Classic Ivory, 220 Natural Beige
Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless	Number for depth with warm, neutral or cool written out.	4 Neutral
Haus Labs Triclone	Depth number plus one of five words: Neutral, Golden, Rosy, Peach or Olive.	330 Medium with olive undertones

Sources for the table are the brands' own shade pages and finders, Ulta's foundation-undertone guide and the retailer guides for Estee Lauder; the trailing digit in Double Wear codes is not explained by the brand anywhere we could find.

MAC's NC and NW: why they confuse everyone

NC stands for Neutral Cool and NW for Neutral Warm, and people regularly buy the "wrong" one because of what those words mean at MAC. MAC's shade finder defines its warm shades as rosy and its cool shades as golden, and adds that other brands tend to define the two the opposite way. The usual explanation is that MAC names shades by the color-wheel temperature of the pigment, while other brands name them by the skin they suit.

In practice: NC shades have a yellow-golden base and usually suit skin that L'Oreal, Fenty or Estee Lauder would call warm; NW shades have a pink base and usually suit cool skin. If you are a W elsewhere, start with NC at MAC. If you are a C elsewhere, start with NW. And swatch, because the labels are only a starting point.

Where olive is labeled

Only a few ranges print the word. Haus Labs Triclone uses Olive as one of its five undertone words (shades 190, 260 and 330 carry it). About-Face adds an O suffix to its olive shades and MOB Beauty's cream foundation runs from 3O to 8O, according to the Medium Olive newsletter, which tracks olive shade ranges. Lisa Eldridge labels its olive-leaning shades "neutral, true or golden" rather than olive. Fenty does not label olive, but its Soft Matte range has several shades that reviewers single out as olive-leaning, including 130, 225, 265, 290, 345, 425 and 445. NARS and Il Makiage have no olive label at all.

If none of those is on your counter, the workaround is a neutral shade that is slightly too yellow rather than too pink, warmed with a green-leaning color corrector, or a "golden" neutral where the brand offers one.

Common mistakes

Choosing by depth alone. The right depth in the wrong undertone still looks like makeup.
Testing on the hand or wrist. They are a different color from the face. Jaw and neck only.
Assuming fair means cool. Plenty of fair skin is warm or olive, and plenty of deep skin is cool.
Trusting "neutral-warm" labels. At MAC, NW reads pink. Swatch it.
Matching in winter and keeping it all year. Depth changes with sun and self-tan, see foundation after self-tanner, but the undertone letter stays the same, so you only need to move the number.
Ignoring olive. If every warm shade goes orange and every cool one goes gray, you are olive, and no amount of depth-hopping will fix it. Go neutral or olive.
Matching concealer to a different undertone. Keep concealer in the same undertone family as the foundation so the two blend; going a half step lighter or a touch more peach under the eyes to counter blue shadows is a color-correction choice, not a change of undertone.

Undertone and your color season

Foundation undertone and color-season undertone are the same fact seen from two angles. Warm foundation undertones belong to Springs and Autumns; cool ones to Summers and Winters; neutrals sit on the border and lean one way; olives are most often Autumns, Deep Winters or Soft Summers. So if you already know your season, you know your foundation letter, and if you find your foundation letter, you have done a third of a color analysis. The other two-thirds are depth and contrast, which a photo-based analysis reads together, and which decide your whole palette, not just your base.

Which undertone is yours: where to start

If you have never been matched, buy or sample three neutrals at your depth from a range that prints the letter (L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, Clinique) and run the three-stripe test at a window. Most people land in N or one step either side of it.

If you keep landing on "too pink" or "too yellow" from every brand, you are not neutral; read the direction of the mistake. Too pink means go warm (or NC at MAC). Too yellow means go cool (or NW at MAC).

If warm goes orange and cool goes gray, stop cycling through depths and go to an olive-labeled range or a golden neutral with corrector. You are not hard to match. You were just never offered the right letter.