I am always looking for the ultimate flesh tone or nude colors. You could say I am looking for the Fab Four Eyeshadows with added dimension. I created two of the four. Not a bad result since they offer that multidimensional finish. You know, when the light hits the color, it should look like your skin without looking flat. It creates depth and highlights via its pigments.
After buying the skin tone pigments from DIY Cosmetics and after staring at their complexity for hours, I finally concocted a color which in a sense, made my makeup life easier.
Before I show you the results, let me give you a short explanation of how I like flesh tone colors to be. Some of you already know my theory already so just fall asleep while I explain to the rest of the cult.
I see skin tone colors as little dots of color like the pointillism paintings. Your skin tone is made up of different colors and what you see at the surface becomes one major color. Everything beneath your skin like blood flow, the layer of fat, the temperature, and outside forces all contribute to the end result of your skin color. This makes it hard to find a good foundation to match skin tone because the pigments won't sculpt the face.
That is basically my (short version) theory and you are welcome to disagree. I just have to think this way so I can just live with my thoughts!
Anyway, my journey to create the somewhat perfect "beige" or nude took many steps. Starting with a just a light color with multidimensional properties, I started adding other colors to just get towards or close to a skin tone one.
Once I got to a light warm beige, I started to tweak it for depth and more dimension which actually means I wasn't satisfied yet.
Here, you can see it begins to look more like a skin tone color, kind of a nude peach. Still the color lacks the depth but it has the highlights. Getting closer to a beige with a bit of coolness to it.
Now, it is getting closer to the fleshy colored beige or nude. The last one is pretty much where I want it. It has that skin tone to it yet it has glints of other colors.
End Result - The Creation or My Frankestein Beige
Here is the swatch under various lighting conditions and background colors. (From left to right) I swatched the color on a dark brown cream, a porcelain white cream, cool (pink) toned cream, a warm toned cream, and my own skin.
Another color I worked on was the interference gold. The color may look the same as before, but it isn't, it is blended to work with my skin tone better and to work in "harmony" with every other color.
And, an example used as eyeshadow. I used the nude color as a base color and gold as a lid color. The pigments blend in with the skin and also diffuses the light around my eye. I added a taupe and soft blue to the orbital ridge to contour but not much because the dimensional characteristic of the pigments just create the shadow or the highlights in my bone structure. I don't really have to worry about a precise application of eyeshadow to shape my eye.
Let me just say I am no expert when it comes to mixing these pigments nor do I claim to be some cosmetic guru. All I am saying is with today's technology, makeup colors should become one with your skin tone. No matter what angle the light hits, the makeup should enhance the muscular and bone structure to create the contours and highlights. Especially, if you are becoming old like me, you know using too much makeup shows up. Using multidimensional pigments allows less product on the skin all the while enhancing, diffusing, highlighting, and contouring it. Isn't that where makeup should be going especially if everything is going towards super HD?
*I bought these pigments. Created for my own entertainment purpose. Links provided for your convenience.*
