You are free to wear any lipstick you wish. But wearing the ones that complement your skin tone can be hard to find. It’s like looking for your perfect foundation shade. You have to consider your undertone. You can enhance the look of your lips with the right shade and finish.

So which is the one that best suits you in the end? When choosing among more adventurous colors, what should you look for?

If you’re playing it safe, knowing your undertone is the easiest way to know which shades suit you. People have either cool, warm or neutral undertones. The quickest way to identify this is by looking at the veins on your wrist. If they appear to be blue, you’ve got a cool undertone. A greenish hue to your veins reveal a warm undertone. While veins that are not decisively more blue or green are neutral in skin tone.

Cool undertones work well with lipsticks that have blue or purple pigments. When choosing a red, a true red works best as opposed to red-oranges that complement warm undertones.

When choosing nudes, those with cool undertones must steer clear of shades that can be too light, since they can wash you out. Nudes with a pink undertone can look good. Fairer skin tones, which usually have cool undertones, can use light pink, coral, peach, nude, and dusty reds.

Warm undertones must look for a hint of orange in their lipsticks. This is true when choosing a brown or nude lipstick, along with reds and pinks. Look for deep pinks, bright reds, plum, caramel, and wine colored colors.

Those with neutral undertones look good in a wide spectrum of colors. You can go for lipsticks with either warm or cool tones.

Once you choose the right lipstick shade, you’re ready to put it on. But I think there’s one more step you need and that’s lip care. If you go over to my website right now, I’ve put up a video on my lip care routine.

I consider this important because the lips are part of your skin. So if you have a daily skincare routine, you should not neglect your lips as well.

Lip care starts at night. I put on something like the Burt’s Bees Overnight Intensive Lip Treatment. In the same way you need to moisturize your face, you need to lock in the moisture on your lips. This also helps protect it from pollution.

Every other day, I also exfoliate my lips. It’s important to get rid of the dead skin cells so your lips can regenerate and look healthy. For this, I advise the Burt’s Bees Conditioning Lip Scrub. Honey crystals gently exfoliate your lips while beeswax soothe and moisturize it, just so it’s supple and plump.

Before your pigment, go for protection. It’s good to layer a lip balm underneath your skin tone-matched lipstick. Recently, I have been using the Burt’s Bees Cucumber Mint Lip Balm. It smells and feels good on the lips, and is formulated without the bad stuff.

I hope these help you keep your lips looking their best all the time.

Ria Prieto is an editor, columnist and consultant who loves all things fashion, beauty and lifestyle. To read more of her musings, log on to www.riarecommends.com.

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