Tips on Matching Your Nail Polish to Your Skin Tone

How do you normally choose your nail polish shades? Do you go with seasonal trends, simply wear your favourite colours, or actually try to match them to your skin tone? If this last formula never crossed your mind, you might as well start matching your nail polishes to your complexion to make the most of it. Here are some helpful tips based on different skin tones:

  • 1.If you don’t want your nails to stand out too much, or you are not a fan of experimenting, match colour density to your skin: pair pale skin with pastels and nudes, go for medium tones if your skin is medium dark, and choose midnight blue, purple, dark grey or black if you have dark skin.
  • 2.Dark polish conveys a goth look to fair-skinned ladies making their complexion look even paler. If you really want to go with darker shades, pick red or plum, but make sure your nails are well trimmed so they don’t look like creepy fangs. You will also benefit from pink and opaque blush which support blue and pink undertones in pale skin.
  • 3.Dark nail polish makes surrounding skin appear lighter, leading to an aristocratic look in the cold season. However, this is the best choice for ladies with warm complexion and a medium tan.
  • 4.Good news for women with darker skin tones: they have endless choices and can pull off pretty much any colour, from pale hues (creating a beautiful contrast) to bright (for an exotic look) and dark colours (the ideal match for glamorous long nails).
  • 5.Check the veins on the inside of your wrists. A bluish shade indicates a cool complexion, while a greenish one shows you have a warm complexion. This makes matching easier, since cool complexions ask for cool shades (any tone of green, blue and purple), whereas warm complexions obviously require warm shades (all tones of yellow, orange, red and violet).
  • 6.A great tip to make your skin look more tanned is to wear metallic polish shades, especially silver. Gold has almost the same effect, but applying a glitzy top over your polish will also do the trick.
  • 7.If your complexion is fair to medium but gets quite tanned in summer, you have the freedom to opt for a wide choice of nudes. Go for pale rose in winter, a more intense shade in spring and autumn, and a dark nude in summer to complement your tan. In case you tend to keep the same complexion all year round, find a nude shade that you like and stick to it.

Now all you have to do is go hunting for the perfect shade. This time you will definitely pick the right one!