How to Choose the Right Color for Your Dark Skin Tone: A Black Woman’s Guide

By: LaWanda Shields

If you are like me, you want to look good in everything you wear. One ways to accomplish this is to choose the right color to compliment your skin tone. This is sometimes easier said than done. Again, if you are like me, you have read countless articles on how to decide which colors are your best colors. So, what’s the problem?

The problem is that these articles are written for people who are fair skinned. If you have darker colored skin, these color guides that talk about “cool” skin tones and “warm” skin tones are not for you. Instead of “cool” and “warm” colors, I like to use the different seasons. The following is a guide to help women with darker skin find their right color match.

*Spring –lighter complexions (Vanessa Williams, Alicia Keyes, Leona Lewis, Ida Ljungqvist)

If you have lighter colored skin, you can wear “cool” colors and “warm” colors successfully. Your best color choices are earth tones, pastels, and metallics. Earth tones include browns, olives, golds, and burgundy. Pastels look especially good on you. Pastels include peach, lilac, powder blue, and coral. Metallic colors include gold, bronze, and silver. The metallic colors that compliment your skin tone the best are gold and silver. 

*Fall-medium skin complexions (Halle Berry, Rihanna, Zoe Saldana)

For those of you who have medium colored skin, you can also successfully go between “cool” colors and “warm” colors. However, earth tones and warm, rich colors are your best choices. You can use all shades of browns, olives, emerald greens, reds, oranges, golds, and blues like turquoise and sapphire. When choosing pastel colors, choose the richer versions of the color. The lighter colors do not highlight your skin tone as well as the darker ones do. Your best metallic colors are gold and bronze.

*Winter-dark skin complexions (Naomi Campbell, Alek Wek, Yaya Da Costa)

Your skin is of the richest hue. You should choose colors that highlight your beautiful skin tone. Believe it or not, pastels are your friend. Use pastel colors like lilac and powdered blue. You are also blessed to be able to wear all the different types of metallics. Your best metallic colors are going to be bronze and silver.

Picking the right colors to wear can make the difference between looking okay and looking fantastic. So, if you have darker colored skin, don’t get frustrated with articles that talk about people who have cool skin tones or who have warm skin tones. These don’t apply to you. The guide above provides a great way for you to identify the colors that will compliment your skin darker colored skin.