Color · Tools
Skin undertone test.
Answer five questions to see whether your undertone leans warm, cool, neutral or olive, with a note on how confident the result is. Optionally, paste a hex colour from a photo of bare skin to get its CIELAB hue angle. No camera, no upload, nothing stored.
Undertone questionnaire
Do this in soft daylight with a bare face. Skip any question you cannot answer.
Your result
Answer at least one question and press Show my result.
How the questionnaire works
Each of the five questions has four answers, and each answer is tied to one type: warm, cool, neutral or olive. Every answered question adds one vote to that type. The type with the most votes is your result. Confidence is the winner's share of the answered questions: clear at 60% or more (for example 3 of 5), slight below 60%, and mixed when two or more types tie, in which case the result is shown as neutral because the signals cancel out. Unanswered questions are ignored.
These questions are folk heuristics. Vein colour, jewellery metal, tanning, white-versus-cream paper and flattering colours are the rules of thumb makeup artists and style guides pass around. They are not clinical measures and are not standardised. That is why the result is a lean with a confidence level, not a diagnosis.
How the hex hue-angle check works
The pasted sRGB colour is linearised (IEC 61966-2-1), converted to CIE XYZ under the D65 white point, then to CIE 1976 L*a*b*. The hue angle is hab = atan2(b*, a*) in degrees, where a* runs green to red and b* runs blue to yellow. A lower angle is redder or pinker; a higher angle is more yellow. Worked example: #c68642 gives L* 61.2, a* 18.0, b* 45.6, so hab is 68.4 degrees.
This page buckets the angle as below 50 degrees = cool-leaning (pink-red), 50 to 60 = neutral, above 60 = warm-leaning (yellow). Those cutoffs are this tool's own illustrative values, not from a standard or a study; the hue angle itself is the standard part. The check does not attempt olive. It also warns when chroma is near grey or the colour is outside a plausible skin range.
Sources (checked 2026-10-01): CIE 15: Colorimetry (CIELAB, hue angle hab); ISO/CIE 11664-4:2019 CIE 1976 L*a*b* colour space; IEC 61966-2-1 (sRGB).
Frequently asked questions
What is skin undertone?
Undertone is the subtle hue beneath your surface skin colour, usually described as warm (yellow or golden), cool (pink or blue-red), neutral (a balance) or olive (a muted green-yellow cast). It is different from depth (light to deep) and stays the same when you tan or flush.
Can the vein test tell me my undertone?
It is a popular folk rule, not a measurement. Wrist veins sit under skin whose thickness and lighting change how they look, so many people honestly cannot tell. This page counts it as one vote among five, never as the answer.
What is an olive undertone?
Olive usually means a muted yellow-green or grey-green cast over a warm or neutral base, often with skin that tans easily. It is a cosmetics term, not a medical one, and it is the hardest to judge by eye, so the quiz treats it as its own option.
Can I change my undertone, or does it change with a tan?
Surface colour changes with sun, season and health, but undertone is treated as the underlying hue. If your results shift between tests, call it neutral and use the lighting tips below to retest.
How accurate is the hex hue-angle check?
It computes a real number, the CIELAB hue angle, from the colour you paste. The accuracy of the answer depends entirely on that colour: phone cameras apply white balance and filters, and room light tints skin. Treat it as one more clue. The warm/neutral/cool cutoffs are this page's own illustrative values, not a standard.
What lighting should I use for these tests?
Use soft daylight near a window, with no direct sun, no coloured walls nearby and a bare face. Warm bulbs push everything yellow, and cool LEDs push it blue, which can flip a result.
A guide, not a diagnosis
Undertone tests are guides for choosing makeup and clothing colours. Lighting, screens, cameras and recent sun all skew perceived colour, so retest in daylight. This page makes no medical or skin-health claims. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded or stored.