Olive undertone

Olive skin undertone signs

Do this in daylight with a mirror in front of you. That's when you'll see your skin clearly. A phone photo won't do, and neither will indoor lighting, because both tint your skin the wrong way.

1. Check the veins inside your wrist. On olive skin they usually read as a greenish blue, not a clean blue and not a clean green.
2. Lay different metals on your skin. Soft-finish gold, pewter and old-style silver all love olive skin, so you might discover you don't need to pick a side between gold and silver.
3. Put white next to your face, then cream. Cream sits nicely on olive skin. Bright white can leave it looking gray or worn out.
4. Notice how you tan. Olive skin tends to tan quickly and deepen to bronze or a golden shade.

If most of those describe you, olive is a strong possibility. If only 1 or 2 matched, the undertone test here can help you sort out which cast you have.

Why does olive get mistaken for something else?

Olive refuses to fit in a simple warm or cool box. Because the green-gray cast can ride on top of any base, warm, cool or neutral, people frequently spot just the temperature and miss the green entirely.

The metal test trips people up as well. Plenty of quizzes force a gold or silver answer. Olive skin often looks good in soft versions of both, which can leave the result feeling vague when it's really telling you something.

Why do pale pastels turn grayish on olive skin?

Bright white drains olive skin toward gray, and pale, icy pastels often do the same. Those light, chalky shades sit next to your green-gray cast and drag your face toward gray instead of waking it up.

Colors that are muted and a bit smoky, or deep and rich, usually sit better with olive skin. That's also why cream makes a kinder light neutral than pure white.

Seasons for an olive undertone

This site divides color into 12 seasons. They grow out of 4 families, one for each time of year, and every family breaks into 3 seasons that take their name from their defining trait. Olive skin points to 4 of the 12.

Two more traits then separate those 4. Depth describes whether your natural features read light or dark overall. Clarity describes whether clear, bright colors or soft, muted ones look better on you.

With deep features you'll probably fall in Deep Autumn or Deep Winter. Should soft shades beat bright ones on you, think Soft Autumn or Soft Summer instead. From there, whether warm or cool shades look cleaner settles whether you land in an autumn or in a summer or winter season.

Shades that flatter an olive undertone

These 8 colors all work with a green-gray cast. Each one is muted or rich, so none of them fights that green undertone.

• Sage (#8ea789), a gentle gray-green that picks up the green notes your skin already has
• Soft Teal (#47787b), a muted blue-green
• Deep Jade (#027554), a green with real richness when you want more presence
• Cream (#f4ebd1), a soft light neutral instead of harsh white
• Espresso (#35251b), a deep brown neutral
• Dusty Rose (#b68b94), a gray-softened pink
• Rosewood (#854a4f), a deeper pink with brown in it
• Soft Rust (#985e47), a muted, toasty orange-brown

Every season palette here holds 60 named colors with HEX codes, sorted into neutrals, main colors and accents, along with a list of colors to skip. Each palette is free to download (as a PNG card, a CSV listing the HEX codes, swatches for Adobe ASE or Procreate) and you can grab all 12 together in a single archive.

Metals that suit olive skin

Brushed gold, pewter and antique silver top the list for olive skin. All 3 have a soft, low-shine finish that agrees with the muted green-gray cast. And since gold tones and silver tones can both work, you get more freedom with jewelry than many people do.