Cool Summer · Makeup
Cool Summer makeup: foundation, blush and lip directions
By the Skintonic team · SKINTONIC LLC · Updated
No brand names appear below and this is not a Cool Summer shopping list. What it gives you is the direction each product has to take for Cool Summer coloring — the part that survives a reformulation, a discontinued shade or a different country's stock, and the part nobody at a counter can tell you.
Cool Summer is cool with medium depth and moderate chroma. For Cool Summer that means foundation answers to the undertone, blush and lip answer to undertone and depth together, and the eyes answer to chroma. Cool Summer sits at medium depth, which is the widest usable range of the twelve: most shades will work on it, and the ones that do not will be wrong on undertone rather than on strength.
Foundation: the one Cool Summer has to get exact
Cool Summer wants a cool, neutral-pink undertone. Every other shade on this page is a direction you can stray from by a step or two, and foundation is not: it covers more of your face than anything else and sits directly against the skin it is meant to vanish into, so a Cool Summer face in a foundation one step off is visible across a table in daylight.
- Swatch along the jaw, where your face meets your neck — on most people the wrist is a different color from the face entirely, and Cool Summer is no exception.
- Judge it at a window. Shop lighting is built to make products look good, which is a different job from making a Cool Summer face look like itself.
- Give it ten minutes before deciding, because most foundations oxidise a little and settle warmer than they went on, which drags Cool Summer toward an undertone it does not have.
- Between two shades, take the one that disappears at the jaw rather than the one that matches on the cheek, because cheeks on Cool Summer carry more color than the rest of the face.
Blush
Cool Rose and Raspberry. Directions, not products. What they have in common is being cool shades at the right strength for medium coloring, which is why a blush that looks right on someone with similar skin can still land as a bruise or as nothing at all on Cool Summer.
Either a clean or a softened finish works on Cool Summer, so pick by the look you are after rather than by a rule.
Lip
Berry, Cool Red and Rose Mauve. The same idea again — the names say where a Cool Summer lip sits rather than what to buy — so recognize a berry across a counter and you can find your shade in any range anywhere.
Your palette is the cross-check. Hold a lipstick against these eight and it either belongs to the Cool Summer family or it does not:
- Deep Raspberry
- Blueberry
- Plum
- Cool Teal
- Cool Burgundy
- Raspberry
- Cornflower
- Cool Fuchsia
Eyes
Cool Summer can take either approach. Defined when you want Cool Summer eyes to carry the look, blended when you want them to sit back, and neither will fight the rest of the face.
Eyes that read as clear without being striking is what Cool Summer coloring usually comes with, and the eye makeup that works is the kind that agrees with that rather than arguing with it.
All twenty-five Cool Summer colors, and the shades to avoid with the reason for each, are in your report.
Are you actually Cool Summer?
Worth settling before you buy a foundation: a box marked cool, neutral-pink undertone is only useful if that is what Cool Summer actually is. The scan reads your undertone off a photo rather than off a guess at a counter, so a Cool Summer can buy a cool, neutral-pink undertone knowing it is theirs.
Questions
What foundation undertone does Cool Summer need?
Cool, neutral-pink undertone — and for Cool Summer that phrase is the most useful thing on this page, because foundation is the one product that prints its undertone on the box and still gets picked by eye under a shop light. Test a Cool Summer match along the jaw in daylight rather than on the wrist.
What lip colors suit Cool Summer?
Berry, Cool Red and Rose Mauve are the directions to look in. None of those are products and none of them are the only option — they say where on the wheel a Cool Summer lip sits, which is what lets you recognize one in a range you have never used.
Is Cool Summer makeup different for men?
No. Undertone, depth and chroma have nothing to do with gender, so the Cool Summer shades are the Cool Summer shades whoever is wearing them. If a concealer or a tinted balm is as far as you go, the cool, neutral-pink undertone is the Cool Summer detail that matters and the rest of this page is reference.
Should I take the scan photo wearing Cool Summer makeup?
Better not to. The analysis reads your skin, and foundation is another undertone painted over yours — usually a warmer, more neutral one than you are, because that is what sells — so a made-up photo can come back as a neighbor rather than as Cool Summer.
More for Cool Summer
Cool Summer hair color · Cool Summer outfits · Cool Summer colors to avoid · Cool Summer in full