#see under the cut for what different colours are suited to each olive skin undertone

[amarriageoftrueminds]

@raindancing-with-the-stars-above in reply to your post “how weird is it to watch youtube fashion videos about olive complexions...” said: 

can u tell me the results of ur research when ur done, cause i have olive skin & am never motivated enough to google such stuff

WELL so far I’ve found:

for make-up advice: 

Alexandra Anele (pale olive Caucasian, great, very chill queer vibe tho a strate) 

Olive Embrace (Asian, sounds about 12 tho so YMMV?)

for clothing colour advice:

(both very soothing voices for some reason)

Meriam Style (Indian cool-olive, seems the most in depth/clued up)

Audrey Coyne (pale olive Waspy McWasp) 

.

All this is based on the idea that your skin has an undertone and the best colours to wear are the ones which match that undertone.

So far what I think I understand is: 

olive people can be cool (blue) or warm (yellow) undertone.

cool people have blue veins in their wrist or look better in silver jewellery

warm people have green veins and look best in gold jewellery

neutral people have mixed veins and/or look okay in both

undertone can change during the year if you tan strongly 

(eg. wear warmer, lighter colours in summer when your skin has gone over to the warm-undertone side and your teeth/eyes/hair are lighter)

within those undertones there are five kinds of olive, as far as I can see:

cool + saturated (vivid cool green) 

cool + de-saturated (muted cool green)

warm + de-saturated (muted warm green)

warm + saturated (vivid warm green) 

neutral (straddling de-saturated cool+warm green, varying through year)

cool olive need to wear blue-undertone colours 

warm olive need to wear yellow-undertone colours

neutral olive look good in a mix of some blue and some yellow colours 

.

And it actually seems that it’s most important to match your contrast. 

EG: 

Lupita Nyong’o has cool dark hair and dark skin, so that’s low contrast, BUT she has a high contrast between her dark skin and her white teeth / sparkling eyes. So she can wear an equally-pale colour (high contrast against her dark skin, just like her teeth) and look harmonious. 

(And because her eyes and skin are bright, bright, saturated colour looks good on her. She has a cool undertone, and those 3 things -- cool + pale + bright = mean a saturated light blue is her best colour. Remember that Cinderella-blue dress she once wore? That.) 

This is also why Chris Evans looks great in dark blue, despite being pale. That dark blue is highly contrasted against his pale skin - and so is his dark brown hair, so they match! 

But as Cap, with his hair honey blonde (medium contrast) he looks best in medium-tone bright blue. (Because his eyes are vivid/saturated and sparkly, he can pull off highly saturated colour, which is why the bright red, white n blue Cap suit looks good on him, but his best colour is vivid jewel-tone teal, which also brings out the blue and slight green in his eyes.) 

Seb Stan, IMO, is a neutral olive ( cool + de-saturated when pale, warm + de-saturated when tan.) 

He looks good in medium tone colours because he often has medium contrast between his hair/skin/teeth, but when he’s very tan his skin looks very yellow and his eyes/teeth suddenly look super pale (become higher contrast) and, like Lupita, he looks amazing in (high contrast) equally pale colours. 

His eyes are not a vivid/pure/saturated colour (because they’re so grey), so he cannot pull off vivid colour like Cevans can -- although he often wears it. Similarly muted, de-saturated versions of colours look best on him (camel, grey, beige, cream, charcoal, navy, burgundy, dull purple, puce, etc. and -- when he’s pale -- emerald green and ruby red. Basically he suits the classic Chanel colours!) 

The paler his skin is, the more sallow, the darker his hair looks, the higher the contrast, therefore the darker/higher-contrast the colour he can pull off; so, ironically, Winter would be the time he’d probably look best in black! (Though it would look better if his hair was black, too). Perfect for a New Yorker. 

Tips:

match your undertone (cool green, neutral/both, or warm green)

AVOID wearing cool-undertone (jewel) colours when very tanned 

the saturation level of the colours you can pull off depends on how ‘bright’ and pigmented your skin and eyes are:

if you look bright & vivid, wear saturated colour

if you look delicate, wear muted/desaturated colour

match your contrast 

dark tones look best on the high-contrast of dark hair/pale skin (in winter).

pale tones look best on very high contrast people (so dark skin/tan when the teeth/eyes look very light), OR NO contrast people (both pale hair/pale skin), but NOT on everyone else.

medium tones look best on medium-contrast people.

the best way to find your most flattering colours is to find your olive-twin celebrity and see what they look best in. 

(a piece of clothing that doesn’t suit will draw attention/look like it’s floating on top of you in photos; in extreme cases it can also make your arms/skin look grey and dead.)

mix green colour-corrector with foundation to get the best match?

Colour Variants in each Undertone:

Cool + Saturated: 

Red - pure red, fuschia pink

Green - teal, turquoise, mint green

Blue - royal blue, electric blue

Violet - amethyst

Black, white

Cool + De-Saturated: 

Red - ruby red, burgundy

Yellow - beige

Green - emerald green, forest green

Blue - navy, powder blue

Violet - dark purple/puce

Silver, grey, charcoal 

-

Neutral is a mix of ^ + v

- Warm + De-Saturated:

Red - blush pink, peach, coral, salmon

Orange - amber, mahogany

Yellow - camel

Green - olive green

Ivory, cream

Warm + Saturated: 

Red - tomato red 

Orange - blood-orange, orange

Yellow - gold, mustard

Green - lime green, leaf green

#olive #olive skin #complexion #undertones #colour theory #dat's me #raindancing-with-the-stars-above #toAyourQ #I HAVE NO IDEA WHETHER ANY OF THIS IS USEFUL #or just nonsense #also: if your skin darkness varies a LOT during the year #altering your contrast level #then the darkness of your outfits should change to match it #eg. light in summer medium tone in spring darker in autumn/winter #see under the cut for what different colours are suited to each olive skin undertone #also: #if you know the hex code of the colour you're interested in #you can google it to find out the exact percentage of cyan (green-blue) or yellow to find out whether it's warm or cool!