My neck is yellower than my face or my chest, as the skin on my chest seems a little more translucent and prone to showing redness coming through at times. My face is darker than my neck/chest by several shades, so I tend to meet in the middle because whenever I match my face to my chest, it looks almost ashy as a result. When I really care, I’ll bring my foundation down to just below my neck, though.
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I hate foundation rubbing off onto my clothing so I try to meet somewhere in the middle or use a bit of bronzer (it’s one of the few uses I have for bronzer) to make the colour difference less noticeable (like most people, my neck is somewhat lighter than my face). I also wear scarves a lot and find that camouflages the colour difference considerably by covering and distracting.
My neck is a bit lighter than my face. I take my makeup down my neck just enough to make a natural blend, just an inch or so below my jawline. The top of my chest is a bit darker than my neck with some age-related sun damage, and then it gets lighter toward the cleavage area because I don’t wear low cut tops. But I don’t take any of that into consideration with my makeup. Just my face and neck.
I usually try to match my face with my neck but I’m generally bad at matching my skintone. I think I’m deeper than I am, so I end up with a darker face and lighter neck. I also need better lighting in my makeup space.
I don’t know, and that’s why I rarely wear foundation! I have the same problem; if I match my collarbone, my face looks ghastly pasty. If I match my face, I feel have to bring the foundation all the way down to my neckline, and that would just be weird, and dirty my top. If I take the time to blend well, it might work, but most days, it seems like more effort than it’s worth.
Eager to read how others deal with this issue.
I generally start with my neck because it is yellower than my face and I hope that color will tone down the redness in my face but it can’t be too close a match or I will look too washed out. It brings me back to yesterday’s question about using bronzers. Sometimes I cool things down too much to achieve evenness and then need some bronzer to bring back warmth where it is actually flattering. I pretty much ignore my chest unless I am heading off to an occasion where I might be photographed.
If I’m wearing a shirt that shows my chest, I’ll match it to my chest since I’m so super pale, it’s extremely easy to pick the wrong shade that doesn’t match my body. I’m constantly struggling with my foundation being too yellow or too pink. If I’m wearing a high collar, I just try to get the closest to my skin shade. I always bring foundation down my neck so it doesn’t really matter if the color isn’t exact.
I don’t, because I don’t want to stain my clothes.
So the question is more about when you go to find a color match, what are you matching the color to? Not necessarily where you’re applying it.
I aim to match my neck but find it difficult. My neck is very fair but with golden beige undertones (as opposed to being obviously pink, yellow or olive). Nothing out there really has the right depth and undertone for me. So typically I just go for light coverage on the face and if it’s looking a lot peachier than my neck I will bronze my neck.
I match foundation to my face but in a very slightly lighter shade, to accommodate for my much lighter neck but more so to make my slight rosacea less noticeable. That’s the extent of what I do in accommodating a lighter colored neck. The reason is that I think it’s quite normal nowadays that people’s necks are lighter than their faces, as the faces get more sun exposure regardless of how religious one is in using sunscreen. Beside, I rarely wear foundation as it is, so my face is always darker than my neck naturally anyway. I really don’t think we should bother trying to match the neck to the face (or vice versa). I mean, my arms and other body parts are a bit lighter too, as I wear sunscreen there too, but I’d never dream of applying makeup all over my body. I accept my skin being different colored and looking a bit pasty white in summer too. I prefer that look to being prematurely wrinkled or having dirty clothes from foundation getting all over them. But that’s me! 🙂
Always match my face with my neck and chest, as my face is lighter. I always wear spf on my face so it doesn’t have a chance to get darker. I do use self tanners but I just add bronzer to my face I don’t go with a darker foundation. Random but Double wear is my all time favorite foundation as it doesn’t break out throughout the day on my oily tzone and I finally found my perfect yellow shade 2W2 rattan 😀
I was beginning to think I was the only person with a lighter face–sunscreen addicts unite! (Though I do typically go a shade darker with my foundation to match my neck.)
Me too! I usually err on the lighter side and add in bronzer as I need it. Plus then I don’t need a different foundation shade for summer and winter!
My face, neck and chest are close to the same tone, and mostly I use a sheer foundation, so I don’t have to figure out how to bridge or blend much. Usually, I just take foundation down past jawline with a light touch.
For special occasions, when I’m most likely to wearing deep neckline or bare shoulders, I’ll extend the foundation with a light lotion — proportion mostly lotion, touch of foundation — just for smoothness.
I hardly show my chest so always tend to match to my neck, which is considerably darker and yellower than my face. When I do show my chest, I tend to go in-between because my chest is very fair and it would look very two-toned to match to the darkest part of my body.
I usually match them to my neck. My chest and face are a little redder than my neck because of breakouts (chestne is actually a thing ugh) so I just go for my neck. I don’t really care if my chest looks a little off. We’re all humans so a little discoloration isn’t really that noticeable.
I match my face to my neck in depth, but more neutral in tone because my neck is slightly paler but much yellower. I have a patch of sun damage on my chest that doesn’t match the rest of me so I don’t want to match there.
My face is a completely different colour than the rest of me and quite ruddy on nose and chin.
My neck is lightest and very fair. I match to my chest to try and create visual cohesion.
I try to match my overall tone. My face is darker than the rest of my body, but that’s more due to hyperpigmentation and sun damage. It’s also not even, so I couldn’t match a single tone on my face anyway. My neck tends to be quite light, but because I burn/flush easily on my chest, my chest is usually quite pink or red so matching that wouldn’t quite work either (unless I felt like using actual red paint on my face).
I suppose overall my neck is what I try to match most, but I focus on how my face will look compared to my skintone as a whole rather than one specific area.
When I try to match in stores, I use a combo of face and neck; I swatch multiple shades on both my cheek, jawline and neck, checking which works best across the board. Rather than matching my chest, I try to transition to my chest color through the shade; like Christine, my chest is more translucent and although it’s still yellow tones, it shows redness easier. I find that transitioning the shade through color and application looks more natural.
I also match my foundation on temptalia.com 😆 . It worked better in the past… these days it seems that all foundations oxidize. I’m a light-medium, leaning to medium… but I got to the point I’m trying light and fair shades, because some products oxidize at least 2 shades darker. The latest culprits are the Maybelline
Super Stay Full Coverage Foundation (Natural Ivory is actually a little too dark for me) and the Estee Lauder Double Wear powder (1W2, while in the foundation I can even pull 3W1).
Whenever I either do the matching myself, or via an SA using that Color IQ thingy at Sephora, I make absolutely sure to check how well it matches my neck, chest and outer arms. This, just so I have a more uniform color going on. My face when bare is more olive based (stays between NC35-37) with red areas around my nose, chin and sometimes between my eyebrows. The areas of skin most exposed to sunlight will darken even though I use an SPF 15 sunscreen. Starting around late March till late October, those areas will be a few shades darker than my face (up to NC42), and way darker than areas that stay covered (those are only around NC30!) Matching is so much a science experiment for me!
Oh, and stranger still, even though I’m not fair, heat makes my olive skin flush and get a red hue, anyone else here have this problem though not fair or light??? Has only been happening during the past several years, but so strange!
I don’t take any great measures to match my face to either neck or chest, as long as the undertone matches the chest, I’m good. I use sheer to medium coverage foundations with a yellow undertone to cancel out the redness. I used to blend the foundations I used halfway down my neck but with sheer formulas there’s no point. And I don’t want to remove foundation from my neck tbh.
So I match to my face for the most part, but I’ll color match along the lower cheek and jawline so it takes my neck into consideration. My coloring is fortunately similar across face, neck and body so I don’t need to try to make any drastic changes to match something and I don’t self tan. If my body picks up a bit of color through the summer, I might go a shade darker with foundation, but usually just warm my skin up with bronzer.
My face is different depending on section: forehead is even-toned and half a shade darker than the rest of my face. The rest of my face is uneven and half a shade darker than my evenly-toned pale neck. So I buy at least two base colors: one that matches my neck and another that matches my forehead and will have to commit to mixing. Or, on most days, a tinted moisturizer that matches my forehead and a concealer that matches my neck and mix those.
I’ll match my neck to chin and jawbone and stop right below cheekbone. I’ll do half a shade darker from the cheekbone up and blend up to my forehead.
Overall, my face is much lighter than my neck but about the same shade as my chest. The darkness on my lower neck is related to scarring I have from a couple of bouts of eczema that were mistreated initially and the treatment actually did more damage than the eczema would of had I left it alone. Thank you unknown dermatologist!! Anyway, I tend to match my face and bring my foundation a couple of inches down my neck, although not far enough to touch my clothing. If I try matching my lower neck the shade is obviously not right and makes me look ghastly. It is just easier to match my face and look relatively okay.
I always match my foundation to my face because it is the fairest. In the past I matched it to my neck and it never really worked.
I try to stay true to my face shade, it is usually a little paler than face and neck, and help adapt it with bronzer.