Cool undertone
Cool undertone is a pink, red or bluish cast in skin, or a lean toward blue in a lipstick shade such as a blue-based red or a berry.
Skin with a cool undertone tends to show pink or rosy tones at the surface. An informal check is the colour of the veins on the inner wrist: veins that look blue or purple are often taken as a sign of a cool undertone, although lighting changes the result and the check is only a rough guide.
For lipsticks, this encyclopedia calls a shade cool-toned when its hue angle falls on the blue side of red. That range covers blue-based reds, pinks, berries, plums and mauves, as well as the rosier nudes.
Under the colour-theory guideline used across the site, cool-toned shades are the natural match for cool and neutral skin, and the cool-undertone hub lists every shade the site classes as cool-toned. Anyone can wear any shade; the guideline only describes which pairings tend to look harmonious and which tend to contrast.
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