BETTER MAKEUP BY KNOWING YOUR CONTRAST LEVEL

Whenever I hear about a new technique to help women personalize their own makeup, I get excited! Understanding the nuances of selecting the right colors for yourself can be tricky, but with more knowledge you'll be better able to choose, so today we are talking about understanding your face's contrast level.

Contrast level is the amount of contrast (how light/dark something is when placed next to one another) found in your features. Specifically the contrast between your skin level, hair/ brow color, and the pigment in your lips. Think about how a photo that’s black and white, is actually many variations of grey. The bigger the jump from the lightest grey to the darkest grey the more contrast you have.

There are three basic levels of contrast: Low, medium and high. And knowing yours will help you decide the shades and saturation you should be using for your makeup...

Low Contrast people don't have a major difference in color between their features, they kind of all live in the same level of saturation without a major difference between their skin and hair, as well as a very subtle difference from their skin to their lip shade. These people are the best candidates for minimal 'no-makeup' makeup without looking too washed out.

Medium Contrast live more in the middle where there is a noticeable jump in color from the skin to the hair especially, it’s not drastic, but it’s not subtle like our low-contrast friends. They can play with brighter clearer tones, but usually look best if they choose either the lips or the eyes to punch up color, but not both.

High Contrast people have the largest jump between their skin tone and their hair, brows and lips. Their faces can handle full saturation and bold color better than any other category without it feeling foreign. High Contrast doesn’t have to mean only Bright color, but also more saturation and opaqueness.

If you want to try the Tik Tok filter that uses AI to help you determine your contrast level, search ‘Contrast Filter’ in the search bar. If you don’t have Tik Tok, take a selfie with no makeup on in front of a window for the best lighting, then use your camera filter editor to change the image to black and white. This will give you a good reference point to experiment from.

Good luck