This is Why You Shouldn't Wear Foundation Lighter than Your Skintone

Because foundation shouldn’t be a shade or two shade lighter than your skin tone, it needs to be just about the same shade as your skin tone. Even Hollywood celebrity like Demi Lovato can’t pull off that “two shades lighter than my actual skin foundation look” because it just looks like she’s wearing a mask. So please, next time you’re about to go to the makeup counter do ask about the right foundation shade for your skin.

To get the right foundation shade you need to:

1. Try the foundation on your face NOT at the back of your hand. Because the back of your hand gets exposed to the sun less so it will be a shade lighter than your face.
2. The perfect way to try on a foundation is to your whole face. Ask the beauty assistant at the makeup counter to try on the foundation on your face to know whether it’s a match or not.
3. If you’re still looking for your shade, you can try several shades that are the closest to your skin tone from your cheek vertically down to your neck and see which one disappears on your skin. That will be the one that is your perfect shade.
4. If you don’t feel like trying on the foundation in the cosmetic counter, you can ask the beauty assistant to give you a sample that is just enough for one time use to try at home. There’s really nothing wrong in doing this even if the beauty assistant refuses to give you the sample. Because after all you will be dishing out hundreds of thousand rupiah for a bottle of foundation and you want it to be the right shade for you. You don’t want to buy the wrong shade.
5. You need to check your face under natural light to see if the shade matches your skin tone or not. The lighting at cosmetic counters can be a bit deceiving. Try on the foundation on your face, stand near a window that has plenty of natural light and look at your face in the mirror. There’s no window inside the department store? Another reason you need to ask for a small sample to bring home.
6. If you already bought a foundation that happens to be a shade lighter than your tone, you can either sell it to Market Plaza so it can find a better home or see Darwyn Tse’s tips to solve the crisis at hand.

If you’re confused on which foundation is the best one for you, you can ask fellow FD-ers for their opinion on the Foundation thread.