Undertone is why your friend's bronzer looks like a week in Mykonos and yours looks like a mishap. Why that influencer's go-to nude makes you look vaguely unwell, and why the blush you borrowed off your friend — the one you thought was way too pink — looked exactly right on your face. Turns out, it’s not you, it’s your undertone. Here's how to find yours, and what to wear once you know.
It's Not Your Skin Tone. It's What's Underneath It.
Skin tone is the surface — fair, light, medium, tan, deep. It shifts with the seasons, changes after a week somewhere sunny, fades back in January. You know yours.
Undertone is what's underneath — the warm, cool, or neutral hue that colours your skin from within. It never changes. Which is exactly why you can be pale in February and bronzed in August and still have the exact same undertone both times.
The Three Undertone Types
Warm undertones have a golden, peachy, or olive hue. Think sun-baked, amber-lit skin that glows with earthy richness.
Cool undertones lean pink, rosy, or bluish — the kind of skin that looks ethereal in silver jewellery and icy tones.
Neutral undertones land right in the middle — warm enough to pull off a bright orange, cool enough to make a fuchsia sing. The rest of us are a little jealous, honestly.
How to Tell If You Have Warm or Cool Undertones (5 Easy Tests)
Still not sure where you land? Run through these.
The Vein Test
Flip your wrist and look at the veins on your inner forearm in natural light. Blue or purple veins point to a cool undertone. Green veins signal warm. If you're genuinely seeing both — or can't decide — you're likely neutral.
The White Paper Test
Hold a clean sheet of bright white paper next to your bare face. Does your skin look more yellow or peachy next to it? You’re warm. Does it pull pink, rosy, or slightly ruddy? Cool. Does it look pretty balanced and natural? Neutral.
The jewelry test
Do you reach for gold or silver without thinking? Gold tends to look alive on warm skin and a little flat on cool. Silver flips that. Both shine equally bright? You’re neutral.
The Sun Test
Think about how your skin responds to time in the sun. If you tan easily and golden — you lean warm. If you burn first, go red, and then maybe (maybe) tan — that’s cool. If it's a mix of both depending on the day? Neutral.
The colours-you-always-get-compliments-in test.
Terracottas, warm reds, mustard, orange? That's warm. If you're drawn to lavender, cobalt, icy pink, deep jewel tones — cool. If the answer is genuinely everything? Neutral. Which explains a lot about you, actually.
If You're Warm-Toned: Your ĀTHR Edit
Warm undertones thrive in earthy richness — bronzes, coppers, terracottas, peachy nudes, golden shimmer. You want shades that echo the warmth already living in your skin, not fight it.
On the eyes: The Summer Solstice Crystal Eyeshadow Palette is your palette. Twelve shades of amber, ruby, burnt bronze, and duochrome shimmer — infused with Topaz, Ruby, and Amber gemstone powder for that lit-from-within finish that warm skin was made to wear. The shade Citrine also doubles as a highlighter swept across the cheekbones.
If you want something more compact, the Citrine Crystal Eyeshadow Quad delivers the same warm energy in four beautifully wearable sunlit shades.
On the face: Diffused Reflections Bronzing Powder in Aurora — a rich, deep bronze with pearlescent warmth — is everything. Talc-free, crystal-infused, and so buttery it blends out like a literal dream. It was designed specifically for your undertone. Sweep it across the temples, through the crease, along the jawline, and wherever the sun would naturally hit.
On the lips: Desert Rose Lip + Cheek Oil Stain in Courage (a warm coral-peach) or Wisdom (a deeper desert nude) — nourished by organic jojoba and cactus flower extract, buildable from a sheer wash to a full flush. Tap the excess onto your cheeks and you've got a full-face warm, dewy glow with one product.
If You're Cool-Toned: Your ĀTHR Edit
Cool undertones glow in pinks, mauves, berries, lavenders, and anything with a silvery shimmer. The instinct to reach for warm shades to "add colour" often backfires — it can make cool skin look muddy.
On the eyes: The Rose Quartz Crystal Eyeshadow Palette is the one. Dusty pinks, champagne shimmer, rose gold metallics, cool mauves — ten shades infused with Rose Quartz to reduce redness, amplify radiance, and make every cool-toned eye colour absolutely sing. (Bonus: shades Moon Stone and Quartz double as highlighters for a soft, pink-toned glow.)
For a more compact version, the Rose Quartz Crystal Eyeshadow Quad is four shades of pink-champagne perfection that are basically impossible to get wrong.
If you want to go deeper on palette-to-eye-colour matching, that's all covered here: How to Choose the Right Eyeshadow Palette for Your Eye Colour.)
On the face: The Crystal Charged Cheek Palette in ‘Ruby’ was made for you. The rosy pink blush shades flush cool skin with soft, natural colour, and the pink diamond highlighter adds an ethereal shimmer without pulling warm or metallic. Two gemstone-infused formulas — Amber to energise and warm, Ruby to restore radiance — in one zero-waste palette.
On the Lips: Dewy Quench Tinted Gloss Stick in Aura (mauve-brown) or Muse (rose-mauve) — creamy, not sticky, both complete perfection for cool undertones. Or Desert Rose Lip + Cheek Oil Stain in Harmony or Influence for a berry-leaning, creamy flush that works on lips and cheeks at once.
If You're Neutral: Your ĀTHR Edit
Neutral undertones don't mean no undertone — it means you carry both warm and cool energy in equal measure. And the real gift isn't just that everything works — it's that you never have to choose a side. Warm one day, cool the next, both at the same time if the mood strikes. Neutral undertones are the ultimate yes-and.
On the eyes: The Rose Quartz Crystal Eyeshadow Palette — ten shades of soft cool-toned hues and warm earthy tones in the same palette, which is exactly why it was made for you. Dusty pinks alongside rich neutral mattes, champagne shimmer next to rose gold metallics. Most people have to pick a lane. You don't.
On the face: Diffused Reflections Bronzing Powder in Ethereal — the lighter, softer shade — sits beautifully across both temperatures without committing to either. Talc-free and crystal-infused, it adds warmth without going orange and glow without going flat. The bronzer that genuinely works for everyone, but feels like it was made specifically for you.
On the lips: Aurora Glow Lip Oil — the kind of luminous, ethereal shine that makes your lips look lit from within. Hydrating without the stickiness, glossy without the weight. Wear it alone, layer it over anything, tap it onto cheeks and lids. It just makes everything better.
The Clean Beauty Connection
Undertone mismatches aren't always just a shade problem. Sometimes they're a formula problem.
Conventional makeup often uses synthetic dyes and fillers — including talc — that can sit flat, absorb light, or pull grey and ashy on the skin. The result? Shades that look stunning in the pan and oddly dull on your face. Particularly on deeper skin tones and warm undertones, which are more sensitive to undertone-muddying ingredients.
ĀTHR formulas are a different thing entirely. Instead of absorbing light, they refract it — giving true colour payoff that works with your skin's natural frequency, not against it. It's why ĀTHR Beauty bans over 2,700 ingredients, and why every formula is talc-free: because better ingredients don't just mean healthier skin, they mean better colour on real people with real undertones.
Your Undertone, Your Glow
Your undertone is your constant — the hue that was there before the tan and will still be there long after the summer fades — the energetic signature of your skin. It’s why some shades just work, and others you keep trying to make happen.
Find your frequency, then lean into it:
Warm-toned? Start with Summer Solstice Eyeshadow Palette + Desert Rose Lip & Cheek Stain
Cool-toned? Start with Rose Quartz Eyeshadow Palette + Dewy Quench Gloss Stick
Neutral? Start with Aurora Glow Lip Oil + Diffused Reflections Bronzing Powder in Ethereal
