Choose Your Next Nail Colour With Colour Theory

Colorimetry: what is it?

A key element in the fashion industry for creating clothing, accessories, and makeup collections, colorimetry helps find the most flattering colors for each person and create harmonious and aesthetic combinations.
Each color, warm or cool, comes in an infinite variety of shades, from the softest to the most intense, more or less in harmony with each skin tone, hair color, or even eye color. Colorimetry consists of testing these color variations to allow everyone to find the color palette that will highlight them best.

Using some basic colorimetry rules, you can easily find the colors that best suit the shades of your natural skin tone. Choosing a polish color can also be considered from this perspective if you want to determine the colors that will highlight you the most. These guidelines can then help you choose a bio nail polish, in the Green™ bio-sourced spirit, adapted to your undertone.

Warm, cool, or neutral: What is your undertone?

Do you know your skin undertone? Not to be confused with the “shade” of the skin, the “undertone” can be warm, neutral, or cool.
A person with fair skin can have a “warm” undertone, and conversely, a person with dark skin can have a “cool” undertone.

The easiest way to determine your skin undertone is to observe the small veins visible on the back of your hands or inside your wrists. Blueish veins indicate a cool undertone, green veins a warm undertone. If you fall between these two colors, your undertone is rather neutral!

Is your undertone rather cool?

Look for darker colors such as gray, brown, burgundy, green, navy blue, and bold shades of blue.

Favor colors that focus on the cool end of the color wheel, especially purples, greens, grays, and blues.

Is your tone rather cool? Favor the cool ends of the color wheel and rich shades blending dark and light.

Colors to avoid? Pastel tones that are too light or neon colors may be less suited to your tone... This doesn’t mean you should avoid these colors, but rather that you should look for shades that blend dark and light.
For example, instead of opting for a bright coral, look for something closer to a coral with cool tones, like a pink-orange shade (such as Bois de Rose for example).

For basic shades, instead of a pure white or light beige, choose a richer color like caramel, Khaki, or slate gray (Hollyhock, Khaki, Anthracite).

Some colors to try for cool tones: Aubergine, Lilas, Ultramarine, Amande, Lisa Lilas, Dark Pansy, Poison.

Is your tone rather warm?

People with warm tones tend to find it easier to work with most colors and shades. However, to best complement your tone, you can opt for lighter or darker shades of the spectrum rather than intermediate shades.

For basic shades, prefer pure whites, dark pigmented tones like black, navy blue, or dark brown ( Snow, Dark Night and Chestnut).

If you have green or yellow undertones, it is best to avoid these color shades, as well as colors very close to your complexion, to avoid a dull effect.

Some colors to try for warm tones: Hortencia, Bird of Paradise, Dark Night, Red Coral, Blossom, Mint.

Is your tone rather neutral?

People with this type of complexion benefit from the best of both worlds!
Warm and cool tones will most often suit you!

However, avoid shades that exactly match your skin color. Fluorescent colors like yellow or green can also be harder to wear for people with a neutral complexion.

Some colors to try for neutral tones: Crème, Clay, Mimosa, Petit Pois.

Find your seasonality

To go further, you can match the color of your nails to your phototype and find your seasonality by taking into account your skin tone, but also the color of your eyes or hair.
Are you more summer? Autumn? Winter? Spring? Maybe all four at once?
To find out your seasonality and the personalized color palette that will best highlight you, take the Color finder test!

Finally, let's remember that these are major trends and that the colors of your manicures should be chosen primarily based on what you like. There are no absolute rules in fashion; the main thing is to feel comfortable and confident with what you wear depending on the moments and seasons.

So fully enjoy spring, all that colors can bring you, and above all have fun 🌈

Also read: Discover the meaning of colors… and what they say about you!