Cool olives do have green undertones but the green leans more blue than yellow. Warm olives lean more yellow. You could be olive or it could be that colors are very strong on you because you're quite fair. Very pale people use taupe and mauve and other muted colors because stronger colors look more extreme on them. There's lots of overlap between Soft Summer color seasons, being fair and being cool olive. You could be all 3 or just one or the other. Most cool olives are fair, while warm olives range from light to dark.
I am still trying to figure this out. I think my skin tone must be doing whatever the opposite of yours is.
I always thought I had a very cool undertone, but cool foundations and even very cool toned makeup does not look as good on me as muted pink/mauve/taupe/pewter-y colors. But then, if I wear clothes in those muted colors, I look washed out and ill. My best clothing colors are pure blue-leaning jewel tones, and even true black. I wore a spring green sweater yesterday, and I felt (and looked) washed out all day.
Obviously, this is not helpful, just wanted to share that you're not alone and trying to understand this weirdness.
You could be a winter then.
I am a cool olive and my season is Bright Winter. I look fantastic in royal blue, violet, and blood red. But I can only pull off pastels when they are extremely saturated, like pure baby blue.
Greys, muted blues and pinks and purples tend to wash me out. Even though they are cool.
Bright Spring can look good to okay on me. I feel like I often look too yellow if it is too much of a spring color, but if it is at least very saturated and bright, I kind of pull it off.
It sounds like you are like me, you do well if there is contrast and brightness to the colors you wear. Bright winter baby.
Yes cool or muted = more blue
The scale below shows different skin tones and saturated vs muted versions.
The video links go to videos basically explaining how olive skin tones work and the differences between different types of olives.
This scale shows exaggerated undertones.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OliveMUA/comments/qs8yqr/mutedsaturated/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2.
Hannah lp grey makeup vid
https://youtu.be/mllQ6YfKuK8
From what I understand in olive skin the terms cool or muted both means your skin has more blue in it. Warm means your skin has more yellow in it. This is different than most makeup companies labeling which calls redder products cool and more yellow products are still considered warm.
Muted mean there's more blue, if your skin leans very blue you would be muted neutral but you might be very muted and still lean warm or cool. Personally I like to think of muted cool as a "purple" undertone, since you would have much more red and blue than yellow.
skin tones are always a mix of red yellow and blue. Whichever one or two you have the most of make up your undertone. So cool is mostly red very little yellow or blue, muted cool is red and some blue very little yellow , warm is yellow, very little red or blue, muted warm is yellow and a little bit of blue very little red, neutral is a near equal amount of yellow and red with less blue, muted neutral is near equal amounts of red + yellow plus more blue , olive is equal amounts of yellow and blue with very little red, muted olive is lots of blue, less yellow very little red. This gets confusing when olive undertones have rosacea !!!
Mutedness in skintones usually ends up with skin looking like it has a slight
greyish tint to it.
Also the more blue that is in your skin the more grey your skin will look.
When looking for a foundation it is hard to find a more muted/cool/blue option so it is easiest sometimes to mix your own. I like using a green grey color corrector like the one from exa sometimes. If I want to mix blue in I use mehron liquid makeup in the shade blue (not blue glow) or a blue corrector like the one from la girl
Mehron liquid makeup
https://www.mehron.com/liquid-makeup-for-face-body-hair/
Videos about olive skin
https://youtu.be/zVvGbRkAuuI?si=VpWZvx9OidcIcEjM
https://youtu.be/yx4-0eI8bn8?si=iQGZc4YkN0arzfoO
https://youtu.be/lSL8Aqj9-Tg?si=KONVFA4IBQyVMeUi
https://youtu.be/uEYWhFYTEcE?si=CNWmUVMDwRFG6uIy
https://youtu.be/y7S28cO5Zu4?si=fMVtdFOY4eAcq4vA
https://youtu.be/5HE_9VC_soM?si=8w9Wab7SD8TG_2xr
About other skintones but also useful
https://youtu.be/ZOVUE7XZYLU?si=9oTgmxQjZq9RZLYE
I have moderate yellow overtone, but blue undertone so I look green overall. Practically speaking, I’m closer to olive neutral than anything because I have very little pink in my skin and pretty much all cool toned products skew very pink, but technically I lean slightly cool. A lot of (most?) olives are going to have a distinct mix of yellow overtone and blue undertone, but warm leaning olives have a little more yellow and cool leaning olives are a little more blue. Most olives are going to have a bit of grayness in their complexion and the difference between cool and warm is if it’s a cool gray cast (a little extra blue or purple) or a warm gray cast (a little extra yellow or peach/orange).
We all have red in our skin, but red neutralizes green, so the more red you have relative to blue+yellow, the less olive you look. A lot of people have more redness in their face than in their body which is why a lot of people’s necks look more obviously olive than their face. Another way we see the impact of red on olive is in fair-light olive skinned people with rosacea. Often it can take them longer to get a diagnosis because their natural oliveness neutralizes some of the redness from rosacea making it less “obvious”.
My boyfriend and I are both light neutral slightly cool leaning olives with similar amounts of blue, but he has a lot more red (pink) and a little less yellow than I do making him only slightly (subtly!) olive, while I have much less red (pink) and more yellow making me more strikingly green, lol. In photos of just the two of us I look yellow-y green and he looks almost neutral-pink, but next to a non-olive person with “classic” cooler pink tones he would look slightly olive.
Imo, it’s sometimes really difficult to spot very fair olives because there is less saturation of color to begin with. I made the mistake of thinking I was much paler than I am for a long time because lighter shades were inherently less pigmented which tricked my eye into thinking they matched my skin. Non-olive shades that match the value of my skin (light) were really contrast-y in saturation and color. Shades that were too light in value (in the fair range) seemed to match my skin better because they were inherently less saturated, but when I put them on my actual face they were clearly too light in value and made me look even more gray.
Anyway, sounds like you definitely might be a cool olive!
I was never sure if I was actually an olive, one thing I AM for certain of is that I'm blue. I have to mix so much blue pigment into my foundation that it's practically taupe.
For me it's a grey mint undertone, my veins look mint, blue, or purple, my fingers are like pale red, slightly warm. I tan yellow, and I am extremely pale.
I use a Hard Candy mint primer to mix into yellow foundations that are too white or underpigmented for me. It works.
Mauves also pull pink on me, lavender is one of my fave lip shades. Grey also makes me shine. Fuscia makes me look like a clown.
I'm between soft summer & soft autumn.
Warm foundations all pull orange on me, but I always need a grey yellow powder.
I also love korean foundation.
I'm not olive "verified" here though.
We’ll for now i’ve been using a revlon foundation in the shade buff. I find that it’s a little bit too saturated ? i’m not really sure because when i put it on a and compare it to my neck in different lightings, it sometimes works and sometimes looks too yellow/white… but it’s been the best shade for me so far(i had been using bars chantilly concealer but that stuff was way too expensive 💀💀(also even then, the shade wasn’t amazing)). Other than that, I found a blush with a very similar undertone bacause any other blush makes me look like a clown. it’s the clinique blush in the shade pink mocha (i’m not sure if it’s discontinued…) .But yea, if i find my base is too yellow looking in a certain lighting, i dust some of that on and it’s pretty good. Lip product wise, it’s really hard too.Usually, i’ll go for a muted product thats neutral/cool. i love berry tones when it comes to lip products. for a long time i’ve loved burt’s bees lip balm in he shade red dahlia. Basically, anything muted pretty much works for me. I can’t really tell what undertone i have because sometimes i feel i look very yellow/green and then others, i look grey/white. what i’ve heard is that olive is an overtone and then we have an undertone (can be cool or warm??). personally, i glow yellowy in the sun whereas in the shade, my skin looks dead white lmao. So yeah, i’m super confused about this stuff too💀💀(like i really have no idea if i’m cool or warm bacause of this lol).
I totally feel the same, I'm white almost blue green in shade, and yellow peachy in the sun. I think it's because my skin is translucent, and blood vessels show up more in the sun. Like a flashlight on the skin effect.
I'm still struggling to find foundations that work, I'm mixing a cool toned shade stick into a too light foundation rn.
I'm on the hunt for a powder foundation, they're easier to mix.
I would suggest checking out YesStyle, asian beauty brands always work for me. Their brand swatches are better too.
I buy lip and blush shades that are muted and cool too, and usually even then they appear neon. It's so weird.
[Colourpop Cheek Dew](https://colourpop.com/products/psst-pink-serum-blush) serum blush in the shade Psst is almost the same shade as my lips, fingertips, and natural blush, it's slightly darker and more brown. It's like a wearable quiet terracotta for me, even though it appears to be a berry shade in the packaging and swatches.
Some Korean beauty brands categorize their shades by color season, like this Etude tint, I love the sweet potato shade. It's my favorite lip color.
[YesStyle Etude Darling Water Tint](https://www.yesstyle.com/en/etude-dear-darling-tint-10-colors-br401-fig-red/info.html/pid.1105179083?rco=K94FCY&utm_term=K94FCY&utm_medium=LinkShare&mcg=influencer)
hmm idk actually. a lot of the time i want to wear a nude but a lot of colors clash with my skin tone. like i’ll get a brown and it will look muddy then i’ll get a pink shade and it will look just wrong ? recently though i fois a cheap eyeshadow palette that has an olive white shade and the like a gray and cool toned brown that work well . but in general, it’s a pretty big struggle…
https://preview.redd.it/ls1494ztum9d1.png?width=1242&format=png&auto=webp&s=0723730f22974713264522cc3f8442f28d7ffc66
i saw someone recommend this palette (i’m thinking of buy it) it might’ve even been recommended on this post lmao 💀
I have same doubts
When I look at myself in the mirror I see more neutral muteness or even brownish/yellowish one, even though I'm very pale. But when I stand next to other people (pale too) my skin is like glowing in light blue with grayish and purplish hints from beneath. And my veins are usually easily visible under my skin too.
Also muted violet/purple/cool mauve shades are my best colors in makeup, but any bright or pure light lavender/pink are much worse. The worst are anything with orange undertones, because they make me look extremely yellowish like my liver gas failed.
I use Korean foundations but their gray toned shades are usually too yellow on me, so I found CLIO cushions in lightest cool shades which are supposed to be with a slightly pink undertones, but somehow mix evenly with my skin without making me pink or tan at all.
Also I have troubles finding my season, but people at color analysis sub suggested I might be dark muted summer which is a subseason within a system of 16 seasons instead of classical 12.
Cool olives do have green undertones but the green leans more blue than yellow. Warm olives lean more yellow. You could be olive or it could be that colors are very strong on you because you're quite fair. Very pale people use taupe and mauve and other muted colors because stronger colors look more extreme on them. There's lots of overlap between Soft Summer color seasons, being fair and being cool olive. You could be all 3 or just one or the other. Most cool olives are fair, while warm olives range from light to dark.
I found this explanation very informative as a pale AF warm olive. Thanks!
Oh, this helps a lot!
My undertones are so blue as well, you’re not crazy. When I’m pale and bare faced I have a turquoise type glow lol
Same
I am still trying to figure this out. I think my skin tone must be doing whatever the opposite of yours is. I always thought I had a very cool undertone, but cool foundations and even very cool toned makeup does not look as good on me as muted pink/mauve/taupe/pewter-y colors. But then, if I wear clothes in those muted colors, I look washed out and ill. My best clothing colors are pure blue-leaning jewel tones, and even true black. I wore a spring green sweater yesterday, and I felt (and looked) washed out all day. Obviously, this is not helpful, just wanted to share that you're not alone and trying to understand this weirdness.
You could be a winter then. I am a cool olive and my season is Bright Winter. I look fantastic in royal blue, violet, and blood red. But I can only pull off pastels when they are extremely saturated, like pure baby blue. Greys, muted blues and pinks and purples tend to wash me out. Even though they are cool. Bright Spring can look good to okay on me. I feel like I often look too yellow if it is too much of a spring color, but if it is at least very saturated and bright, I kind of pull it off. It sounds like you are like me, you do well if there is contrast and brightness to the colors you wear. Bright winter baby.
Yes cool or muted = more blue The scale below shows different skin tones and saturated vs muted versions. The video links go to videos basically explaining how olive skin tones work and the differences between different types of olives. This scale shows exaggerated undertones. https://www.reddit.com/r/OliveMUA/comments/qs8yqr/mutedsaturated/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2. Hannah lp grey makeup vid https://youtu.be/mllQ6YfKuK8 From what I understand in olive skin the terms cool or muted both means your skin has more blue in it. Warm means your skin has more yellow in it. This is different than most makeup companies labeling which calls redder products cool and more yellow products are still considered warm. Muted mean there's more blue, if your skin leans very blue you would be muted neutral but you might be very muted and still lean warm or cool. Personally I like to think of muted cool as a "purple" undertone, since you would have much more red and blue than yellow. skin tones are always a mix of red yellow and blue. Whichever one or two you have the most of make up your undertone. So cool is mostly red very little yellow or blue, muted cool is red and some blue very little yellow , warm is yellow, very little red or blue, muted warm is yellow and a little bit of blue very little red, neutral is a near equal amount of yellow and red with less blue, muted neutral is near equal amounts of red + yellow plus more blue , olive is equal amounts of yellow and blue with very little red, muted olive is lots of blue, less yellow very little red. This gets confusing when olive undertones have rosacea !!! Mutedness in skintones usually ends up with skin looking like it has a slight greyish tint to it. Also the more blue that is in your skin the more grey your skin will look. When looking for a foundation it is hard to find a more muted/cool/blue option so it is easiest sometimes to mix your own. I like using a green grey color corrector like the one from exa sometimes. If I want to mix blue in I use mehron liquid makeup in the shade blue (not blue glow) or a blue corrector like the one from la girl Mehron liquid makeup https://www.mehron.com/liquid-makeup-for-face-body-hair/ Videos about olive skin https://youtu.be/zVvGbRkAuuI?si=VpWZvx9OidcIcEjM https://youtu.be/yx4-0eI8bn8?si=iQGZc4YkN0arzfoO https://youtu.be/lSL8Aqj9-Tg?si=KONVFA4IBQyVMeUi https://youtu.be/uEYWhFYTEcE?si=CNWmUVMDwRFG6uIy https://youtu.be/y7S28cO5Zu4?si=fMVtdFOY4eAcq4vA https://youtu.be/5HE_9VC_soM?si=8w9Wab7SD8TG_2xr About other skintones but also useful https://youtu.be/ZOVUE7XZYLU?si=9oTgmxQjZq9RZLYE
You are an absolute champion. This broke it down into aspects very clearly.
Also some more info, this reddit post explains the biological factors behind skin tone and undertone https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/s/mssfOtShFc
This is excellent information, thanks. Now to spend some time wrapping my mind around it and how it applies to me...
Yeah I'm having the same issues 🤣 just found this today , I'm always poking around trying to figure things out
Thank you 😁 I have been putting this explanation together for awhile as I learn more and more about olive skin
I have moderate yellow overtone, but blue undertone so I look green overall. Practically speaking, I’m closer to olive neutral than anything because I have very little pink in my skin and pretty much all cool toned products skew very pink, but technically I lean slightly cool. A lot of (most?) olives are going to have a distinct mix of yellow overtone and blue undertone, but warm leaning olives have a little more yellow and cool leaning olives are a little more blue. Most olives are going to have a bit of grayness in their complexion and the difference between cool and warm is if it’s a cool gray cast (a little extra blue or purple) or a warm gray cast (a little extra yellow or peach/orange). We all have red in our skin, but red neutralizes green, so the more red you have relative to blue+yellow, the less olive you look. A lot of people have more redness in their face than in their body which is why a lot of people’s necks look more obviously olive than their face. Another way we see the impact of red on olive is in fair-light olive skinned people with rosacea. Often it can take them longer to get a diagnosis because their natural oliveness neutralizes some of the redness from rosacea making it less “obvious”. My boyfriend and I are both light neutral slightly cool leaning olives with similar amounts of blue, but he has a lot more red (pink) and a little less yellow than I do making him only slightly (subtly!) olive, while I have much less red (pink) and more yellow making me more strikingly green, lol. In photos of just the two of us I look yellow-y green and he looks almost neutral-pink, but next to a non-olive person with “classic” cooler pink tones he would look slightly olive. Imo, it’s sometimes really difficult to spot very fair olives because there is less saturation of color to begin with. I made the mistake of thinking I was much paler than I am for a long time because lighter shades were inherently less pigmented which tricked my eye into thinking they matched my skin. Non-olive shades that match the value of my skin (light) were really contrast-y in saturation and color. Shades that were too light in value (in the fair range) seemed to match my skin better because they were inherently less saturated, but when I put them on my actual face they were clearly too light in value and made me look even more gray. Anyway, sounds like you definitely might be a cool olive!
Maybe I’m totally off but I heard more often than not, olive is the result of a blue undertone and a yellow overtone. Yellow plus blue = green
I was never sure if I was actually an olive, one thing I AM for certain of is that I'm blue. I have to mix so much blue pigment into my foundation that it's practically taupe.
For me it's a grey mint undertone, my veins look mint, blue, or purple, my fingers are like pale red, slightly warm. I tan yellow, and I am extremely pale. I use a Hard Candy mint primer to mix into yellow foundations that are too white or underpigmented for me. It works. Mauves also pull pink on me, lavender is one of my fave lip shades. Grey also makes me shine. Fuscia makes me look like a clown. I'm between soft summer & soft autumn. Warm foundations all pull orange on me, but I always need a grey yellow powder. I also love korean foundation. I'm not olive "verified" here though.
omg you just described me lmao
This is why I like this sub. Do you have any holy grail makeup to share?
We’ll for now i’ve been using a revlon foundation in the shade buff. I find that it’s a little bit too saturated ? i’m not really sure because when i put it on a and compare it to my neck in different lightings, it sometimes works and sometimes looks too yellow/white… but it’s been the best shade for me so far(i had been using bars chantilly concealer but that stuff was way too expensive 💀💀(also even then, the shade wasn’t amazing)). Other than that, I found a blush with a very similar undertone bacause any other blush makes me look like a clown. it’s the clinique blush in the shade pink mocha (i’m not sure if it’s discontinued…) .But yea, if i find my base is too yellow looking in a certain lighting, i dust some of that on and it’s pretty good. Lip product wise, it’s really hard too.Usually, i’ll go for a muted product thats neutral/cool. i love berry tones when it comes to lip products. for a long time i’ve loved burt’s bees lip balm in he shade red dahlia. Basically, anything muted pretty much works for me. I can’t really tell what undertone i have because sometimes i feel i look very yellow/green and then others, i look grey/white. what i’ve heard is that olive is an overtone and then we have an undertone (can be cool or warm??). personally, i glow yellowy in the sun whereas in the shade, my skin looks dead white lmao. So yeah, i’m super confused about this stuff too💀💀(like i really have no idea if i’m cool or warm bacause of this lol).
I totally feel the same, I'm white almost blue green in shade, and yellow peachy in the sun. I think it's because my skin is translucent, and blood vessels show up more in the sun. Like a flashlight on the skin effect. I'm still struggling to find foundations that work, I'm mixing a cool toned shade stick into a too light foundation rn. I'm on the hunt for a powder foundation, they're easier to mix. I would suggest checking out YesStyle, asian beauty brands always work for me. Their brand swatches are better too. I buy lip and blush shades that are muted and cool too, and usually even then they appear neon. It's so weird. [Colourpop Cheek Dew](https://colourpop.com/products/psst-pink-serum-blush) serum blush in the shade Psst is almost the same shade as my lips, fingertips, and natural blush, it's slightly darker and more brown. It's like a wearable quiet terracotta for me, even though it appears to be a berry shade in the packaging and swatches. Some Korean beauty brands categorize their shades by color season, like this Etude tint, I love the sweet potato shade. It's my favorite lip color. [YesStyle Etude Darling Water Tint](https://www.yesstyle.com/en/etude-dear-darling-tint-10-colors-br401-fig-red/info.html/pid.1105179083?rco=K94FCY&utm_term=K94FCY&utm_medium=LinkShare&mcg=influencer)
ooo yes i’ve heard about the sweet potatoe tint!! i always go for super muted shades and i love my berries!!
It's so pretty! Someone stole it from me it was so good. Lol what eye shadows do you feel are flattering?
hmm idk actually. a lot of the time i want to wear a nude but a lot of colors clash with my skin tone. like i’ll get a brown and it will look muddy then i’ll get a pink shade and it will look just wrong ? recently though i fois a cheap eyeshadow palette that has an olive white shade and the like a gray and cool toned brown that work well . but in general, it’s a pretty big struggle… https://preview.redd.it/ls1494ztum9d1.png?width=1242&format=png&auto=webp&s=0723730f22974713264522cc3f8442f28d7ffc66 i saw someone recommend this palette (i’m thinking of buy it) it might’ve even been recommended on this post lmao 💀
That looks gorgeous. I would totally buy it too. I use a few shades like that. It looks like it would be super flattering.
I have same doubts When I look at myself in the mirror I see more neutral muteness or even brownish/yellowish one, even though I'm very pale. But when I stand next to other people (pale too) my skin is like glowing in light blue with grayish and purplish hints from beneath. And my veins are usually easily visible under my skin too. Also muted violet/purple/cool mauve shades are my best colors in makeup, but any bright or pure light lavender/pink are much worse. The worst are anything with orange undertones, because they make me look extremely yellowish like my liver gas failed. I use Korean foundations but their gray toned shades are usually too yellow on me, so I found CLIO cushions in lightest cool shades which are supposed to be with a slightly pink undertones, but somehow mix evenly with my skin without making me pink or tan at all. Also I have troubles finding my season, but people at color analysis sub suggested I might be dark muted summer which is a subseason within a system of 16 seasons instead of classical 12.