Best Nail Polish Colors for Your Skin Tone: A Comprehensive Guide

Pretty painted nails! That is what we all love.

Sometimes, however, the colour that looks great on someone else may look  like a disaster on yours. It may look pale or completely washed out when you wear it. Or, it may look too bright and mismatched on your hands. Wearing the right shade will help you show off the colour in the best possible way.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when you paint your nails is your complexion. The easiest way to make sure the nail paint adds to your beauty is by matching it to your skin tone.

The most popular tip for choosing shades:

One of the most popular tips on choosing the right nail paint shade according to your skin tone is matching it exactly with your skin shade. This basically means that:

• Pale skin ladies wear pale nail paints
• Ladies with medium skin tone wear shades of medium darkness
• Dark skinned ladies wear nail paints that are very dark.

This may be one of the easiest shade guides to follow, but the fact is that it is very restrictive. This kind of shade matching will not leave room for any contrasts or creating vibrancy in your look.

There are a few other ways that may help you get the perfect nail paint shade for your skin tone.

Choosing the right nail polish colors for different skin tones:

1. Very Fair Skin:

Those with very fair skin often have pink undertones to their skin tone.

Colours you should try:

• Try wearing shades that are in the pastel family
• Very dark blue, navy blue and midnight blue shades are great if you want to wear very dark shades
• In very dark shades, you can also try dark reds and pinks

Colours you should avoid:

• Stay away from black nail paint
• Try to stay away from nail paint colours that have too much of a pink undertone in them.
• Avoid sheer or ‘invisible’ colours as they often have similar undertones that will completely blend in with your skin tone.

2. Fair skin:

Those with fair skin can play around with various light shades.

Colours you should try:

• All kinds of pastel shades
• Dark reds and ruby shades
• Plums, burgundy, purple
• Silver, white, pale pinks
• Blues, orange, peach

Colours you should avoid:

Avoid any shade that is too dark, except reds

3. Medium skin:

Medium skin tone or tan skin tones can wear a number of shades with ease.

Colours you should try:

• Light pinks, purples, blues and reds
• Silver and burgundy
• Peach and pale brown

Colours you should avoid:

• Avoid shades of gold and rust

4. Medium Dark skin:

• Deep shades will suit you the best.

Colours you should try:

• Red, purples, bright orange

Colours you should avoid:

• Avoid anything in pastel or that is too light as it can give a washed out appearance

While it is very important that your nail paint complements your skin tone, it is equally important that you decide on the colours keeping in mind the occasion and what you are wearing.

In addition to this, keeping your nails clean and trimming them at regular intervals also adds to the beauty of your nails.

The above tips are helpful in letting you decide what shades will bring out the colours best as per your skin tone. You can of course choose to experiment and wear whichever shade you prefer.