Before you can find your perfect foundation shade, you need to check the undertone of your skin. What’s that? Well, every skin colour has a discernible undertone, most easily spotted via the vein colour on your inside wrist. If it appears blue or purple, you’re cool-toned. If your veins look green, you’ve got warm-toned skin. And if you’re not sure? You’re likely neutral.

You might also notice that your skin has a natural rosy or golden tinge, rosy meaning your undertone is cool, and golden meaning your undertone is warm. A mix of the two means you have a neutral undertone. With these couple of ways to determine your undertone, you can then look out for the foundation that best suits you. Following this rule of thumb, foundation for cool undertones tends to look more pink in the bottle and warm undertone foundation appears more yellow. Foundation for neutral undertones tends to fall in the middle of this spectrum. And that’s all no matter the actual foundation shade, whether falling into the light, medium or deep skin colour range. Find the shade that fits you best in store.

So you’ve been thinking how can I find my foundation shade? There’s no better way to discover if you’ve found the foundation shade for you than simply trying it out. But did you know there’s a right way to test foundation colours? Take our tips in-store next time you’re on the hunt for your perfect shade. Numero uno is to try your shortlist of shades only when the light is right. Look for the sun at its peak, as the midday light will help you see your made-up skin to the fullest extent.

You might even want to check it in different lights, check it in different mirrors, from your pocket mirror to the in-store ones, and take a selfie – all those different ways of checking your skin will help ensure you have found the right one. And forget testing on your arm, hand or anywhere else – swatch onto your jawline, as this is that tricky area where you’ll see how good a match you’ve found. Let it sit on skin a sec before you sneak a peek to see how it adjusts to your skin.

Like finding ‘the one’, to find a foundation shade for you, you want to look for the hue that doesn’t try to change you. That is, the right foundation shade should look, not to mention, feel like a second skin – like you at your very best. As we’ve said before and will say time and time again, this is about looking like the ultimate version of you. If a foundation shade stands out, that’ll be because it’s too light or dark. If the makeup is too light, chances are your skin will appear more ashy. If the shade is too dark, that’ll make you look overly tanned.

On the subject of tans – remember that your skin tone is likely to change within a subtle spectrum with the seasons, its tone warming up with the weather. That means, depending on when you’re searching for your best foundation shade, your skin might not be its truest tone. Ideally, you want to go for a shade that’s closest to the hue your skin is most of the year. When you try it, if the test shade seemingly disappears into your skin, it’s a match.

The Body Shop foundation with an oily skin-friendly ingredient built-in, our Matte Clay Skin Clarifying Foundation is enriched with Community Fair Trade tea tree oil and helps to promote clearer-looking skin. This vegan formulation feels lightweight and comfortable on skin, letting it breathe as you wear it, not to mention helping to minimise excess oil and control shine all day long to boot. It’s a bit of a saviour for shine-prone skin. It is both water and sweat-resistant and helps to give good coverage without an overdone mask effect. Instead, it looks natural, helping to improve the look and texture of the skin, while downplaying the appearance of pores and blemishes alike. Your complexion will be left looking smooth and more matte.

Though technically not a skin type, but a skin concern, we couldn’t help but tell you about our ideal foundation for sensitive skin. Our Fresh Nude Foundation is enriched with Community Fair Trade aloe vera from Mexico in a formula that feels an absolute pleasure to apply on skin – pretty important when you consider it does cosy up to your entire mug all day long. It helps you achieve a smooth, satin finish and healthy-looking glow with medium, even coverage that looks entirely natural. In fact, this foundation favourite helps you look fresh faced – it blends easily and lets skin breathe, its colour staying true as you wear it on what will soon be known as your good skin day. That’s every day that you apply this, then.

A good foundation for combination skin has got to be our Fresh Nude Tinted Beauty Balm SPF 30. If we’re being exact, technically this is a beauty balm (that’s what the ‘BB’ stands for), meaning it’s the lighter touch cousin of foundation, but that’s sometimes just what you need for combination skin. This tinted beauty balm is super easy to blend and can be worn under a fuller coverage foundation if you like. It feels non-greasy and lightweight on skin, helpfully not sitting in the creases of your fine face when you apply it, instead helping give you a smooth, flawless finish with buildable coverage. Oh, and did we mention, it doesn’t block pores? In fact, pores look blurred and skin feels hydrated and plumped all day with a luminous look.