Do you check the shade of foundation on your jawbone? I know a better way to find the best foundation colour for you

How to choose a foundation? How could we find out whether a particular shade suits us? Which body part to use to make sure that a certain foundation will provide natural-looking finish – jawbone, wrist or neck? I’m going to answer all these questions in a moment. Welcome all makeup maniacs!

Thousands of self-help books dealing with the subject of finding the best foundation colour, yet there is none that would make you 100% positive that the shade you bought would match your complexion flawlessly. Therefore, let’s walk together through all the stages of selecting the right beauty product.

1. Don’t you ever buy a foundation via the Internet!

I did it once. Just once. And I’ll never make the same mistake again. Why?

Getting a foundation form an online shop is like playing a game of chance. Ok, you select one shade from the dozens of presented on the website, yet you can never be sure what exactly will be delivered to you. It might turn out that the colour you chose is either too light or too dark because in reality it looks completely different than when displayed on the screen. In fact, this shouldn’t be surprising because it isn’t possible to represent a particular colour precisely on each device’s screen. For that reason, the idea of buying foundations via the Internet is just silly.

Besides, one of the biggest advantages of getting a foundation from a regular shop is that you can try a foundation on. There are no testers in online drugstores that you can put on your skin to verify if the colour suits you. For that reason, it’s definitely more difficult to find the right product. Also, by purchasing the foundation online you can’t check the product’s texture and how it behaves when it’s in contact with your skin.

Exception: when you already have your trusted foundation and you know which shade suits you best.

2. Go to a drugstore first to get the lay of the land!

Don’t get just any foundation. Treat your first visit in a drugstore as getting the lay of the land. What does it mean?

First, take a look at all the foundations a particular drugstore has in its offer. Secondly, decide which product is available for you, and I’m talking here about the money – perhaps you can’t afford to buy a little bit more expensive products, therefore you can discard them straight away. Thirdly, verify the foundations for answering your skin needs. For example, if you are young, you don’t need a foundation that displays anti-age action. The next step depends on taking a few testers to your hands to check the product’s texture. To clarify, those of you with delicate facial skin shouldn’t go for oily, thick and full-coverage foundation. No sooner than that can you focus on choosing the shade of foundation.

BUT! Don’t test the shade of a foundation in the drugstore. Take a few samples of the products that interest you most and apply them at home. Artificial and very strong light typical for drugstores will impede you making the right decision in terms of choosing the right shade. The best way of testing the colours is by doing this at home where the light is natural.

3. Neither jawbone nor wrist is a good place to test a foundation on!

I guess that it’s written almost everywhere that you shouldn’t use your wrist to check a shade of a foundation on. But why is it a bad idea to apply the product to either jawbone or neck?

Indeed, testing a foundation on jawbone is a technique recommended by many people. Basically, you can also move a little bit downward and apply the foundation to your neck because, after all, you want the foundation to blend with neck skin as well. However, the latest discovery of makeup artists shed completely new light into this issue. So what’s the most appropriate body part to test a shade of foundation on?

It’s said that the most appropriate skin area to test a shade on is the highest point of cheek bone, and to be more precise – this is the place where you apply your highlighter to. Reportedly this is the exact area where our skin is neither too dark nor too light. In the justification the makeup artists compare our faces to burned toast… Yes, you got this right – toast. They claim that the outer parts of our faces are the darkest (forehead, chin and jaw) because they react to the sun as the fastest. And this is the very reason why you shouldn’t apply a foundation to your jawbone because it might turn out to be too dark when you spread it evenly over your face.

Exception: if you can spot some discolorations or reddened skin on cheekbone area then this technique won’t rather serve its purpose.

Tell me whether my pieces of advice helped you choosing the right shade of foundation for you!