Wearing the correct foundation seems like a mistake that would be hard to make, but it happens. Finding the correct foundation shade is easy to do. When wearing foundation, it is supposed to even out redness or cover acne, but if you have the wrong color, it could be doing more harm than good. Don’t fret: it takes about ten minutes to figure this out.

The most important step is finding your skin undertone. This one trick will help you find out yours. Simply just look at the veins on the inside of your wrist, and if they appear to be blue/purple, then you have a cool undertone. If they appear green, then you have a  warm undertone. If you have a hard time discerning the blue/green, then you have a neutral undertone. This is a crucial step into finding the best shade for you, because if you have a cool undertone and you are wearing a foundation meant for warm undertones, it will look ashy or pink.

Once you have found your undertone, you need to match the foundation to the color of your skin. When swatching colors, don’t swatch it on your hand and match it to that color. You should swatch it down your lower jawline and down your neck. You would rather have it match your neck than to have it match your arms and have it look like a mask. If you go to Sephora or Ulta, they have samples you can use to swatch with, or there are employees that you can ask to match the foundation for you. If you are at the drugstore, they most likely won’t have samples available, so you are going to want to hold the foundation up to your face and neck to decide which one matches the best. Remember, some foundation lines are made for specific undertones, so always check the bottle for the undertone and make sure it’s the correct one for your skin.

Another tip to use when buying foundation is buying two different colors. If you go to Sephora and you can’t find the perfect shade in store, find two colors that are almost your color but not completely; usually if one foundation is too light but the next shade is too dark. Instead of guessing and buying one, the best option is to buy both and mix the colors. When going to apply foundation, mix even amounts of both products on the back of your hand and remember to swatch the mixture down your jawline and neck to make sure it matches.

Foundation is a fundamental base of a makeup routine; follow these steps and you will ace your base.