Although I am still young, I have been wearing foundation for awhile. I started off with something called BB Cream, BB Cream is kind of similar to foundation except it is much lighter and much healthier for your skin, and it is almost like a tinted moisturizer. I definitely recommend starting off with BB Cream because you do not want to start with something heavy on such fresh skin. The only thing that I hate about BB Cream was its shade range. I have not found a BB Cream that has more than four shades and although I only have tan olive skin, I always had to use the darkest one. That means that if you were dark skinned, there was rarely any shades for you in BB Creams and that definitely makes me very upset.

As I got older and my mom allowed me to wear foundation, I can now tell you that the first two years of wearing foundation, I looked like a ghost with a tan body. It was bad, and no one told me! Apparently, I thought I was super cute and never even wanted to anyone’s constructive criticism anyways… so maybe they did try to tell me… Aside from that, after realizing that I super pale I decided to learn a bit more about ways to match my foundation shade correctly, and I am here to save you guys from humiliation. DISCLAIMER: If I list anything that I say I don’t do and you happen to do it, feel free to keep doing it. The things and tips that I am telling you guys are what worked for me, and I just wanted to share it. So now that we have that out of the way let me tell you guys a bit about Foundation.

UNDERTONES: Undertones are super important! I know of only three undertones, but there might be much more out there but these three are the most common.

Cool Tone: Cool tone typically means if you have a pinkish undertone. This does not mean if you have any red-ness! That is something that most get confused about!! Most people that are mostly pale have a pink undertone.

Warm Tone: Warm Tone means if you have a more of something yellow. I am warm toned because I have a yellowish undertone to my face along with my body.

Neutral: Neutral is in between both Cool Tone and Warm Tone. Now this can get confusing. Most people think that Neutral is sort of Translucent, meaning that it should fit either one of the undertones. But do not misunderstand that you have to be both Cool and Warm. Just because you have cool skin and can not find a match for you under Cool Tones you can not use Neutral. Vise versa for Warm Tone.

Now let’s talk about how to match foundation correctly. When I had Sephora do a color match to foundations, they often matched the foundation to the color of my face. Now let me explain, although that may work for you, it did not work for me. I naturally have a pale face but a tan body, so that made it difficult for me to find a right shade. So now when I color match myself to a foundation, I don’t match the shade of my face but the shade of my neck and chest.

Another thing that you need to know is what kind of finish you like. Like I said before there are many different finishes but these are the main ones that I know.

Matte: Matte is something that you should use if you have oily skin. Not to be said that you HAVE to have oily skin to wear matte foundation because I know some girls out there who have dry skin and they like the matte look for some finishes. So, here’s my advice; if you have dry and you and like matte foundations, definitely moisturize the heck out of your skin!! That way you don’t have any dry spot.

Dewy: Dewy is a finish that leaves your skin having a natural glowy feel to it. Like I said, definitely for you girls out there with dry skin. Now, girls with oily skin can too wear the foundation, I would just say make sure that you prime your face with a oil-free mattifying primer to help lock your makeup in and to help from your face getting too greasy. I personally stray away from Dewy foundations because I hate looking oily or shiny. When I use matte foundation, because my skin is so oily it helps balance my skin’s moisture.

There are many different techniques to finding your perfect foundation shade and to be completely honest, I haven’t even found mine yet. Although there are foundations with lots of shades, I still struggle to find my correct shade so don’t be afraid to always mix two different shades to create your perfect one. Just be aware that doing that maybe be pricey but hey, if it helps, it helps. Good luck to you finding your perfect shade! And thank you for reading!

– XOXO Tiffany!