How To Find The Best Foundation For Medium Skin Tone?

Nothing ruins a good mood and makes your hours spent on makeup feel irrelevant, faster than catching your reflection and realising your neck & face are two completely different colours.

Every person with medium skin tone has been through that endless loop of buying a foundation for medium skin tone, and realising it’s either too warm or too cool for your skin. So now you either end up looking like you got a bad tan, or end up looking grey and ghostly. 

If this sounds familiar, then just know you’re not the only one. It’s not hard to find the best foundation for medium skin tone and you haven't been doing it wrong (if that’s what you thought.)

You’re simply dealing with a skin tone where a misread undertone can completely change the end result you were hoping for.

Finding foundation shades for medium skin tone shouldn't feel like a guessing game or a miserable series of trials & errors.

Whether you struggle with figuring out your undertones or get tricked by different light settings, we’re here to break down the nitty-gritty of this process and help you find the holy grail product you’re looking for. 

So why does finding a seamless match for medium skin tone makeup feel so tricky?

Because medium skin tone isn't just one skin tone, it’s a huge mix of different skin tones! Some medium skin tones have a golden warmth, some have pinkish undertones, and some have an olive undertone, which is a slight greenish-yellow undertone.

And this depth is often ignored by most brands who end up bundling all foundation shades for medium skin tone into generic categories like "light tan" or "honey." When you pick a foundation for medium skin that doesn't account for what’s underneath your skin.

This is why on application, the foundation looks more like a mask than your real skin. 

To break free from this endless loop of falling for generic labels, let’s dive deep into everything that helps you find the perfect foundation shades for medium skin tone. 

First, let’s decode your undertone! 

Your skin tone is the colour that’s visible on the surface. Your undertone is the shade underneath it. Matching this correctly helps you prevent looking orange or grey. 

The simplest way to figure out your undertone is to conduct a vein test. Look at the veins on the inside of your wrist in daylight:

• If you have a warm undertone, your veins will look greenish. Gold jewellery best complements your skin. Look for shades marked with a W or G, which stand for warm or golden. 

• If you have a cool undertone, your veins will look blue or purple. Silver jewellery tends to look best on this undertone. Look for shades marked with a C, which stands for cool, or something with a pink undertone. 

• If you have a neutral undertone, you can't really tell if your veins look blue or green, or if they’re a mix of both. Gold and silver jewellery both look good on this complexion. Look for shades marked with an N that stands for neutral. 

• If you have an olive undertone, your veins will look like a mix of green and purple. In this case, warm foundations will tend to look orange on this complexion, while cool-toned ones will make you look washed out. Look for foundation shades for medium skin tone marked as olive or G-neutral. 

Second, ditch the wrist swatching; it’s doing you no good! 

Your hands usually are a different shade than your face. So testing foundation for medium skin on your wrist will never give you an accurate shade match.

Instead of swatching on your wrist, switch to the jawline trick.

1. Pick 3 shades that look close to your skin tone. They could be 3 shades that are close to your skin tone, or 3 that are close to your undertone. 

2. Swipe them in vertical lines right from your jawline to your neck. First, check which swatch looks closest to your skin tone, then blend it in. 

3. The shade that "disappears" or most seamlessly blends into your face & neck without looking patchy, orange or grey is the winner! And there you have it - the best foundation for medium skin tone!

Third, daylight is the only light that will tell you the truth. 

Harsh store lights are a lie! They make every foundation look great inside the store, but as soon as you walk outside in natural light, it looks completely different.

That’s because store lights tend to make your complexion look dull or washed out. 

• Patch test the foundation shade in the store on your jawline. 

• Go to the nearest window or a space with natural daylight to check for your shade match. 

• Wait 5 minutes as the swatch dries on your skin because some foundations may oxidise as they dry. Give it a few minutes to see its true final shade before buying.

Even when shopping online, it’s easy to mess it up because the foundation shades for medium skin tones can look quite deceptive.

What looks perfect on your phone screen may not look too perfect on your skin. So when shopping online, check for the above-mentioned labels of warm, cool and neutral undertones, or use your existing shade of foundation for medium skin to determine the best match for your skin.

For example, if you’re shopping for concealers for medium skin tones, you can find your exact shade match through the product labels, marked with indicators of the respective undertones - Simply Nam Hydrafit Concealers. 

Lastly, however careful you are in choosing the best foundation for medium skin tone, there’s always a chance to run into a mishap. Here are some quick fixes to save your makeup look. 

• If your face is lighter than your neck/chest, then try to match your foundation to your chest so everything looks seamless.

• If your skin looks dull or tanned on a certain day, keep one lighter shade and one darker shade handy for days like these. Mix a drop of each on the back of your hand to get your best match. 

• If you're not ready to commit to full-coverage foundations, then try a tinted moisturiser or skin tint. Sheer formulations are more forgiving even when they’re not a 100% exact match.