Beauty | Picking my foundation shade with Makeup Atelier Paris

Hiya loves,

I haven't written a beauty post forever which is sacrilege as I'm probably more into it than ever right now. I've been using Makeup Atelier Paris foundation for about 8 weeks now and I absolutely love it. To make sure I got the right shade I ordered 3 samples of their waterproof foundation, and have been using them ever since. I was recommended it by Georgina from She Might Be Loved, whose face is always flawless.

I almost always pick the lightest shade available (unless it's someone like Illamasqua who does a white foundation) as my skin is uber, uber pale. Even makeup artists don't realise this at first because I have so many freckles and rosy cheeks so it's often hard to tell - but yes, I'm Casper the ghost underneath! This makes things easy for me as I just look at the photo with the palest looking tone and go from there.

So I picked the palest shade in 3 tones - pink toned, neutral, and yellow toned. FLW1A is for pink/cool toned skin, FL1NB is for those with neutral tones and FLW1Y is for yellow/warm toned skin.

L-R FLW1A (pink), FL1NB (neutral) and FLW1Y (yellow). With flash to highlight colour differences.

How do you know whether your skin is pink, neutral or yellow toned? I've got your back.

Look at the veins on your inner wrist. If they look blue, you have pink/cool tones. If they look green you have yellow/warm tones, and if you can't tell if they're green or blue you're neutral toned. Also, jewellery. If you look great in silver jewellery you're likely pink/cool toned. Yellow/warm tones look better in gold, and neutral tones can wear either.

I had no idea if I was neutral toned or pink toned, but I knew I wasn't yellow toned. After applying all 3 shades separately, I could easily tell that the pink toned foundation made me look most well, so ta-da, I'm pink toned. It's not that the neutral and yellow tones make me look bad (because they don't), it's just that they don't make me look my best. I have in fact been wearing all 3 shades over the last couple of months and they're all OK, but the pink one is definitely more flattering and looks more me. Here's a photo of me wearing it. I wasn't much of a foundation wearer before, but this evens my skin out so much I wear it a lot now. I've had NARS foundation used on me at a photoshoot which was nowhere near as good as this.

The coverage is great, and buildable. In the photo above I'm wearing a light covering - you can still see some of my freckles. If I layer it on a bit more thickly it almost does away with the need for concealer, but never looks cakey or highlights my pores. And it photographs amazingly with or without flash. Did I say this foundation is water- and sweat-proof? Hell yeah! I absolutely love it and am about to run out of my samples so it's time to buy a full size bottle.

I was worried this foundation would look horrible on my ageing skin, but it's amazing. Every time I've worn makeup in the last 2 months this has been on my face. Recommended! I've finally found the foundation for me.

Grab some here.