How to Find Your Undertone Using Green Draping

Daria
May 11
4 min read

There are, of course, many ways to try to determine your undertone, but draping remains the best method. And honestly, green is one of the best colours to drape with. Green can be incredibly varied — soft, bright, light, deep, cool, warm… the key is understanding which characteristic matters most in your colouring. Once you recognise that, finding harmonious shades becomes much easier.

Of course, draping isn’t the only method people use. Before we get into which shades of green are best for determining whether your undertone is warm or cool, let’s look through some of the more common techniques — starting with the trickiest ones.

Methods That Won't Help You Find Your Colours

Vein Test

Honestly… I still don’t really understand how this method became so popular.

When I first began trying to identify my own colouring, I read about the vein test and immediately tried it on myself. My veins looked teal, which — according to the system I was reading — supposedly meant I had a neutral undertone.

And I was delighted.

I thought it meant I could wear warmer colours near my face, go warmer with my hair, experiment more freely…

Now, looking back, I honestly feel sorry for myself during that period.

My undertone is actually extremely cool, and I spent years walking around with a constantly red-looking face because of all the warmth I introduced.

The problem with the vein test is that so many things affect how veins appear:

• olive skin

• fair skin

• tanning

• lighting

• skin transparency

Your veins may look blue, green, teal, purple — and none of it necessarily tells you your real undertone accurately. Personally, I think it’s a very outdated method that deserves retirement.

Jewellery Test

This one is tricky too — although definitely less misleading than the vein test.

The je

wellery test works much better if you understand what you’re actually observing.

Sometimes a piece of jewellery receives endless compliments on us not because it harmonises beautifully, but because it contrasts dramatically and steals all the attention.

A few years ago I bought a very yellow gold leaf necklace from Zara. People constantly complimented it. But looking back, they weren’t complimenting me — the necklace dominated the entire look. It was simply too warm and too deep for my colouring.

I still love it, honestly. But now I understand what it does visually whenever I wear it.

And that’s an important distinction:sometimes jewellery doesn’t enhance us — we become a display stand for the jewellery instead.

Jessica Chastain’s necklace seems to be living its own separate life

Another thing worth mentioning is that people often misunderstand metal temperatures. Silver, for example, isn’t always fully cool-toned; some silver can be surprisingly neutral and therefore work beautifully on warmer complexions too.

I go into much more detail about suitable metals in the colour guide books

White vs Non-White

Interestingly, this test is less about warmth versus coolness and more about saturation.

If bright white looks especially harmonious on you, there’s a good chance your colouring handles saturation well. In many cases ivory may still work too — it just creates a softer overall mood.

So this test is often more helpful for understanding whether your colouring is vivid or muted rather than purely warm or cool.

AI Colour Analysis

This one… I have to admit… I absolutely hate.

The amount of Tiktok videos I’ve seen where obviously warm-toned people get typed by AI as Soft Summers is honestly unbelievable.

The problem is that human colouring simply doesn’t work the way AI currently analyses it.

Official colour systems themselves already disagree on temperature classifications for certain shades. AI then tries to simplify everything even further.

It struggles with:

• visual harmony

• subtle skin changes

• lighting conditions

• contrast levels

• natural saturation

AI can’t truly see whether your skin becomes brighter, clearer, more lifted, or more tired in a colour. It tends to generalise people very harshly.

And if your photograph is warm-toned because of sunset lighting or camera processing, AI may instantly decide that you are warm-toned too — whereas an experienced human eye can usually recognise that it’s simply the lighting.

The biggest danger is this:

If you are incorrectly typed as a soft colour type and begin surrounding your face with muted colours, eventually you will start looking muted yourself — but not in a flattering way.

Even highly saturated complexions can appear dull in the wrong colours.

And please… don’t use ChatGPT for colour analysis alone. Remember: it was originally designed for language generation, not facial harmony analysis. It doesn’t truly “see” your complexion the way a trained eye does — it mostly extracts approximate colour information from images.

Picking Out Hues and Shades

And honestly, manually picking colours from photographs in Photoshop isn’t much better.

We all used to do this at some point.

When I tried it on myself years ago, the palette I extracted was unbelievably dull. Greyish, muted, soft…

But of course it was.

The photo had been taken on a cloudy day. Human colouring naturally contains softness anyway:

• our lips aren’t naturally neon fuchsia

• our eyes aren’t pure electric blue

• our skin contains greys, browns, olives, pinks

So naturally the extracted palette looked muted — and immediately convinced me I must be a Soft Summer or Soft Autumn.

This is exactly why context and harmony matter so much more than isolated colour picking.

Which Shades of Green Should You Use for Draping to Find Your Undertone?

warm or cool undertone with shades of green

These two shades of green will help you determine whether your undertone leans warm or cool. At first, both may feel “okay” or “wrong” depending on your colour depth — since they are mid-tone shades, they can initially seem suitable if your natural colouring is also mid-tone.

However, over time the difference becomes clear.

The wrong shade will make you look slightly dull or pale, or create unwanted shadows on your face. The right shade, on the other hand, will enhance your features, brighten your complexion, and make your eye colour stand out beautifully.

Try our free colour analysis quiz to discover your undertone and Colour Flower:

Colour Analysis Quiz