Ever had the experience where you saw a t-shirt online that looked great on those models? Even people who shared reviews wearing the same tee looked fantastic as well. But when you finally get your hands on it and put it on, it just looks meh.
No, it's not because of the lack of natural light in your room. More often than not, it's because of the mismatch between the t-shirt's color and your skin's undertone. That's why today we are going to discuss how you can choose the best color of t-shirts based on your skin complexion.
Understanding Skin Undertone
Understanding the harmony of colors with your skin undertone is not rocket science. First, you have to understand the difference between the skin's surface tone and undertone. The surface tone may change throughout the year depending on seasons, tanning, exposure to the sun. While the undertone stays more or less the same throughout your life. Three types of skin undertones are:
- Warm Skin Tone: When your skin has a yellow, golden or peach hue.
- Cool Skin Tone: When your skin has blue, red or pink hints.
- Neutral Skin Tone: If you feel your skin tone has both of the above-mentioned features, or you can't really pinpoint one, most likely you have a neutral undertone.
Understanding your skin undertone is crucial when shopping online. So you can choose the best t-shirt colors for yourself.
How to Find Your Undertone
If you're still unsure about your type, here are a few simple tricks that will help you determine.
Vein Test Method
Observe the veins on your wrist attentively under natural sunlight and see:
- If they look green or olive, you have warm undertones.
- If they look blue or purple, you have cool undertones.
- If they are something in between and can't be distinguished, you most likely have neutral undertones.
Paper Test Method
Stand in front of a mirror and hold a clean white paper beside your face under natural sunlight.
- If your skin looks pink, rosy, or blue-ish against the paper, you have cool skin tones.
- If your skin looks yellow, green, or light brown, you have warm undertones.
- If your skin looks grayish, you have neutral undertones.
Jewelry Test Method
See what metal looks best on your skin.
- If silver or platinum looks the best, you have cool undertones.
- If gold and brass look the best, warm undertone it is.
- If both look equally good, you are most likely a neutral undertone.
Choosing The Best T-shirt Colors According To Your Skin Tone
Now that you have mastered the art of identifying the skin tone, it's time to learn about your natural palette when shopping for men’s t-shirts:
For Warm Undertones
If you are warm-toned, you should lean towards colors that radiate warmth, like sun or solid colors like earth.
Best Choice: Warm shades like orange, yellow, cream, and earthy shades like olive green.
Colors You Must Avoid: Stay away from sky blue, icy blue, pink, sapphire as they will wash away your warmth.
For Cool Undertones
For cool undertones people, the ideal shades are cool, frosty shades.
Best Choice: Choose t-shirt colors like emerald green, royal blue, purple, navy, and so on.
Colors You Must Avoid: Try to not wear warm shades such as yellow, orange, tomato red as they'd make you look sick.
For Neutral Undertones
If you're a person with neutral undertones, you gotta be among the lucky ones. Among the three categories, neutral undertones people have the most choices to choose from. They can almost wear anything and make it work.
Best Choice: As we said, anything would be great for you. You can try muted, dusty colors such as off-white, sage green, dusty rose to make your skin look radiant.
Colors You Must Avoid: Try to avoid extremely neon colors as they'd overwhelm your skin complexion.
Understanding The Concept of Contrast
Doesn’t matter if you are buying just one t-shirt or shopping for wholesale blank apparel for custom prints, ignoring the concept of contrast might not be the greatest idea. Wearing the wrong contrasting t-shirt can still make your skin look dull or overwhelming, depending on the situation.
High Contrast
If you have light skin, dark hair, dark eyes, or vice versa, a high-contrast outfit would suit you the best. For example, you can pair a black or white t-shirt with a dark denim jacket. In short, if you have high-contrasting features go for a high-contrast outfit as well.
Low Contrast
If the color of your hair, skin, and eyes are in similar shades, be it dark or light, you have lower contrast. In that case, wearing high-contrast clothing like a black tee and white pants would overpower your features. It's best to opt for low-contrast or monochromatic color shades. A good example would be shades of grey or muted colors.
Mirror Is The Ultimate Solution
While all the theory sounds great on paper, the mirror will give you a reality check. If you are buying t-shirts or shirts offline, make good use of the trial room mirror. That should be your decision maker.
When giving trials for new tees, try to avoid wearing heavy makeup or bright jewelry as they become a form of distraction.
Bring the t-shirt up to your chin and look in the mirror. Try to identify whether the t-shirt makes your face pop or the color is drawing brightness from your face and casting shadows under your eyes and chin. You will avoid the latter one at all costs. The winner is the one who makes your face look vibrant and alive.
Another great tip would be to trial t-shirts under natural light if possible. Artificial fluorescent lights often cause color distortion.
Common Mistakes You Should Avoid
Even when following all the rules, you may stumble upon some common scenarios or mistakes that can ruin your outfit.
Black T-shirt Supremacy
It is believed that black goes with almost everything which is true. But the color black is also very high-contrast and harsh. So if you're a light-skinned person, wearing all black can make you washed out. It's best if you pair it with some other colors that go with your undertones to balance out the harshness.
Fabric Texture
While talking about colors, often we ignore fabric texture that also plays an important role in how you gonna look. For example, a matte cotton t-shirt will absorb most of the light coming towards it while the synthetic ones reflect the most amount of light. This creates a situation where wearing synthetic blends can make your imperfections on your skin pop out, while the cotton tees are more forgiving.
Final Thoughts
All in all, decoding the color theory and adjusting your skin tone might seem a lot of work. And, there is no hard and fast rule that says you can't wear this color. If it's your favorite color, go for it, wear it with confidence. That's the sexiest thing.
But, if you are still looking for answers to the question “How to pick the right t-shirt color for your skin tone?”, understanding your undertone is a great start. Then you can start experimenting with your favorite tees following the discussed theories here. If you pay close attention you might notice the t-shirts you get the most compliments for, follow the same principles we've discussed here as well. Once you understand the core principles, you will easily start choosing the best t-shirts for your wardrobe upgrade.