[Jennifer]

i was reading through robert jones's "makeup makeovers" - AGAIN - and i thought this was interesting, so i wanted to share it. i'm typing it out, so if there are any errors i missed, sorry!


all through the 1950s and 60s - really, until the 1970s - women were told that it was correct to choose the opposite of their natural skin tone for their foundation color. for example, if your skin had olive undertones, you used a pink-based foundation and if your undertones were pink, you used an orange-toned foundation.

then, in the 1980s, women were informed that this was all wrong and they should match their skin's exact undertone. if you had pink undertones, your foundation color had to be pink-based. if your undertones were olive, you put on an olive-toned foundation.

finally, in the 1990s, the cosmetic industry discovered that yellow undertones, instead of being undesirable, actually made the skin look the most alive and natural. yellow is the one color that everyone has in their skin, from the very lightest complextion to the darkest. it's just that some people have other colors in their skin as well, such as shades of red or brown. almost everyone looks better with some yellow in their foundation. it counteracts the skin tone you don't want to see and enhances the tones that you do wanna see.


for those of you that were around in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, do you remember that?

[Leony]

I got the book the other day and I finished reading it last night.
I LOVE the book Jen! I just wish that their model pics more natural and not too air brushed.

I laughed when I read that 50s 80s lol. I think those still happened in Asia even after millennium started.

I remember 6 years ago EL MA suggested me to get pink base foundation because it was the trend fndt shade at that moment lmaooo . I'm glad I didn't followed her rec, I'd look like a tanned clawn with pink face lol .

[kaeisme]

Cool read!

[Satin]

Interesting to Know!

[emily]

That book sounds awesome! i wanna read it

[Nessicle]

Cool info thanks Jen! It's interesting knowing what people were told in certain Eras. I read that from Elizabethan times to victorian times women used to paint their faces white with some sort of substance that was actually a poison! It was the trend to have a white face - if you were slightly tanned or had a darker skin tone then it showed that you weren't upper class

[Jennifer]

leony, i'm so glad you love the book! isn't soooooo good? i always refer back to it. LOL @ your story!

emily, you really should get it. it's sooooooo good.

vanessa, interesting! i never knew that

[ecandy]

Very interesting post! Although I’m not a makeup artist, I interface a lot with makeup artists. I do know a bit about the chemistry side of the business though, so if there is ever anything technical anyone would like to ask, please feel free to do so.

Anyway, a senior makeup artist for the Miss Universe and Miss USA Pageants once told me that she did not come across a single delegate at either of these pageants, who did not have yellow based skin. The Asians, Africans, Latinas and Indians I could understand. But Miss Russia in the heart of winter? I was dubious.

She explained that in the past, she would see women with pinker tones, but believes that the erosion of the ozone layer has changed people's basic undertones. I believe that. I was recently in the south of Chile which is close to Antartica, which has an ozone hole larger than Australia. I found the women there to be very, very yellow with very blotchy skin. I didn’t find the same in Cape Town South Africa, so I really believe the ozone theory. Caucasian women are a lot yellower today than 30 - 40 years ago.

Foundations were not actually invented to match people's natural skin color. They were invented long ago for Hollywood when they filmed with "white" light. Companies like Max Factor developed red-based foundations to put color in the cheeks. I certainly remember my mother dragging her foundation all the way to her shoulders to avoid the dreaded pinky, pasty, two-toned look.

When natural light was invented, the foundations ended up looking too pink.
Manufacturers then tried correcting this by adding more and more yellow to their existing shades. This succeeded in turning them orange (red + yellow!).

When you make shades for lighter complexions, you use so little pigment, that you really can get away with almost anything. When you start making shades for darker complexions, this is when it hits the fan. Darker women look too red (as with Fashion Far), too orange (as with Iman) and ashy regardless, because they have yellow undertones and these foundations have red/orange tones. They will always look two-toned.

The perfect line of foundations in my view, must be yellow based, have good coverage, apply smoothly, match every skin color, create the look of having naturally flawless skin and leave no silica residue.

[Jennifer]

wow, ecandy, that was sooooo interesting. thanks for posting! welcome to MuT, by the way, in case i haven't welcomed you yet

[Nessicle]

wow that's so interesting ecandy! thanks for that info!

Although I think the majority of women do have yellow undertones there are still quite a few pink undertones around - I know at least 5 people in my immediate family who have pink undertones. They've tried yellow bases before and it just didnt match the rest of their body and made them look really jaundiced, then they put their pink based foundation on and it matches perfectly. That is certainly interesting about the ozone layer though I never knew that!

[ecandy]

Thanks for the kind comments.

Ness, I'm willing to bet that the "yellow-based" foundations that your family tried were really "orange-based" which would definitely make them look cakey. There are very, very few genuine yellow based foundations around.

[girl_geek]

Interesting article!

I never could find a fuller-coverage foundation to match my very pale, pink-undertoned skin -- the yellow ones either looked orange (but they were probably just too dark for me) or canceled out the pink and made me look even paler and just weird looking. However I was never able to find a pinker foundation light enough for me. So right now I am using a yellow-based sheer foundation (Prescriptives Traceless) and I like it better than anything else I've tried -- it looks very natural, and the yellow lessens the extra pink on my nose and cheeks without cancelling it out completely. However, I am using a pink concealor (Prescriptives Flawless Skin in Level 1 Cool) -- yellow concealors look very bright on my skin when they're pale enough (or orange when they're too dark), but this Flawless Skin concealor matches my skin perfectly, I was amazed! (It runs lighter than the foundations for some reason, otherwise I would be using the coordinating foundation shade!)