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What Is My Skin Tone?
A skin tone test in nine questions, no photos, about three minutes. You get your depth on a five-step scale and your undertone — warm, cool, neutral or olive — with the answers that produced it. If you're asking "what skin tone am I", start here.
Your answers stay in your browser — we only look up your existing report to compare.
The short answer
What is this skin tone test?
This free skin tone test answers "what is my skin tone" on two axes: depth, matched against a ten-step swatch scale, and undertone — warm, cool, neutral or olive. Nine questions, no photos, about three minutes. You get a result with the answers that produced it and a two-minute check to confirm it at home.
Two axes
Skin tone is two things, not one
"Skin tone" mixes two separate questions. Depth is how light or deep your skin is — this test uses five bands, fair to deep, each one pair of swatches on the ten-step Monk scale. Undertone is the pigment that leads underneath: golden or peachy (warm), pink or rosy (cool), neither dominant (neutral), or yellow and blue together (olive). Every undertone occurs at every depth.
Most quizzes give you one word for both, which is how "medium" ends up meaning a depth to one brand and an undertone to another. Here you get one word for each: the depth sets which shade ranges apply, the undertone sets which direction inside them.
The full five-band chart, with names and what each band is usually called, is on the skin tone chart.
Skin tone swatches follow the Monk Skin Tone Scale (Google), CC BY 4.0.
The classic tests
When each home test misleads you
The four tests everyone knows each fail on a predictable group of people. This test keeps the two that still carry information, weights them by how often they fail, and drops the rest.
The vein test
Blue veins for cool, green for warm — except veins can't be read at all on much deeper skin, read blue on very fair skin whatever the undertone, and often read teal on olive skin. Here it is the lowest-weighted question but one, weighted lower again on fair, tan and deep skin, and "I can't see them" is a legitimate answer that counts against nothing. The jewelry test has the same blind spot: on olive and on deeper skin, gold and silver often both look fine.
The foundation test
How shades fail on you is the most telling single signal: warm shades going orange, cool going pink and neutral going gray at the same time is the one pattern that separates olive from neutral. Its limit is the shelf. Deeper shade ranges are built red-orange, so on tan and deep skin "most of them pull orange" says as much about the range as about you — the question is weighted a little lower there, and the result tells you to correct toward a neutral at the same depth, not toward a lighter shade.
The white-cloth test
Holding white against your skin assumes the skin will look pink or yellow next to it. Olive skin usually looks neither — gray or khaki — which is why so many people get no answer from it. This test makes that reading an option instead of a dead end, and gives the whole question the lowest weight of the set.
Sun reaction
Whether you burn or tan reflects how much pigment you have, which is depth, not undertone. Quizzes that use it as an undertone question are one reason so many people get told the wrong one. This test doesn't ask it: depth comes from the swatch match, undertone from what products do on you.
How it works
Our method
No questionnaire can see your skin, so this one is built as a starting point plus a verification method: every result shows the answers that produced it, names the runner-up when the call is close, and hands you a two-minute check to confirm or overturn it.
Why nine questions, not five
Separating olive from neutral needs at least two independent olive signals — one alone is too easy to get by accident. A five-question quiz can't fit the same-depth comparison, the foundation question and the coral question alongside the vein and metal questions people expect to see. Nine is the smallest set that can, so each question here has a job.
Why depth comes first
Olive signals don't carry across depths: what reads as a gray cast on fair skin looks nothing like it on deep skin, which is why online example photos so often fail to match the person looking at them. So the first question sets your depth, and the comparison question adapts its wording to that depth. If the screen match is unclear, it uses a separate depth-unknown prompt instead of assuming medium.
Why olive is a result, not a footnote
Most quizzes only return warm, cool or neutral, and fold olive into one of them. That is where a lot of wrong answers come from: someone matched "neutral" whose neutral products never worked is usually olive. Here olive is a fourth result, with its own lean — warm or cool — because that is the question people actually have about it.
Why there is no percentage
A number would be made up: nothing here measures your skin. Instead a result is marked likely when the usable answers clearly favor one undertone, close when two are near each other, and insufficient when there is not enough usable evidence to say. In every case you see which answers did the work.
Why no photos
A photo gives absolute color under whatever light it was taken in, and absolute color can't tell olive from neutral — that needs a comparison against other skin at the same depth. The observation questions carry that comparison; a photo would add lighting and camera error and remove your privacy. Your answers stay in your browser. If you're signed in and have a color report, the result page looks that report up to show the two readings side by side — nothing you answer is sent anywhere. Undertone is half of your color season — find the other half.
Asked before you ask
Common questions
What is my skin tone?
Two things: your depth and your undertone. Depth is how light or deep your skin is, matched here against a ten-step swatch scale in five bands. Undertone is the pigment that leads underneath — warm, cool, neutral or olive. The test above gives you one word for each, with the answers that produced them.
How do I find my undertone without a test kit?
Use what products already do on you: which foundations pull orange, pink or gray, whether coral blush stays coral or turns pink, and which metal makes your skin look clearest on bare skin in daylight. Then compare yourself with someone of your own depth in the same light. Those are the questions this undertone finder asks — they carry more information than veins or a white sheet.
Is olive skin warm or cool?
Neither by default. Olive is a separate undertone that carries yellow and blue pigment together; most olives lean one way. This test tells you which way yours leans — the result reads "olive, leaning warm" or "olive, leaning cool", or "balanced" when the answers are level.
Is olive a skin depth?
No. Olive skin comes in every depth from very fair to very deep. "Medium" is a depth; "olive" is an undertone. Quizzes that put olive on the light-to-deep scale are one reason it gets called wrong so often.
Can deep skin be cool-toned?
Yes. Deep skin can be cool-toned. The assumption that deeper skin is warm comes from how shade ranges are built, not from skin — and it's why so many deep shades go orange. This test scores deep skin on the same questions as any other depth, and reads the vein and foundation questions with that shelf bias in mind.
Why did the vein test give me something different?
Because it is the least reliable of the classic tests. Veins read blue on very fair skin whatever the undertone, often can't be read on deeper skin, and read teal on olive skin. This test keeps the question because people expect it, but weights it low and lower still on fair, tan and deep skin. When it disagrees with your foundation and comparison answers, those win.
Which undertone is the prettiest, or the rarest?
There isn't a prettier one — there are only better-matched shades. On rarity: there is no agreed definition to count by, so any percentage online is a guess. The useful question is which shades stop fighting you, and that is what the result answers.
Do I need photos or a sign-up?
No. Nine observation questions are enough, and nothing you answer is uploaded — the test runs in your browser. If you're already signed in and have a color report, the result shows that report's reading next to this one so you can see where they agree.