Il Makiage Foundation: Your Full Guide to Shade Ranges and Comparison Colour Swatches

Il Makiage ‘Woke up like this’ Foundation has 50 shades for several skin tones and undertones. Having so many is great, but it can come with challenges – how do you know which is for you? That’s where the Il Makiage shade matcher comes in which I’ll talk about below.

Now into the foundation shades…

Contents:

What are the skin tones available with Il Makiage foundation?

Il Makiage has 4 skin tones to choose from:

• Light – includes 12 shades
• Medium – includes 14 shades
• Tan – includes 12 shades
• Deep – includes 12 shades

They each have 4 undertones to choose from, except for Medium which has an additional one; Olive. The undertones include:

• Neutral
• Pink
• Yellow

Skin tone: Light

There are 12 light skin tone shades, with 3 undertones:

• Neutral – 5 shades
• Pink – 3 shades
• Yellow – 4 shades

This is the first shade, #5, and is classed as ‘neutral’:

Included within the Light skin tone is #35 (pink undertone), which is what I am:

If you’re on the fence, check out my full review of Il Makiage foundation where I test it on my oily, acne-prone, 35yo skin. I have now been using the foundation for over 2 years.

Skin tone: Medium

There are 12 medium skin tone shades, with 4 undertones:

• neutral – 4 shades
• pink – 4 shades
• yellow – 4 shades
• olive – 2 shades

This is the lightest medium shade starting at #65:

Skin tone: Tan

There are 12 ‘tan’ skin tones with 4 undertones:

• Neutral – 3 shades
• Pink – 5 shades
• Yellow -4 shades

Skin tone: Deep

There are 12 ‘deep’ skin tones, with 3 undertones:

• Neutral – 5 shades
• Yellow – 3 shades
• Pink – 4 shades

Help – what are undertones?

Il Makiage has 3 (or 4 if you choose ‘medium’ skin tone) undertones of foundation. If you have no idea what yours is, they have a foundation tool you can use.

Undertones are underlying hues or tones of your skin that affect its overall colour. The better the match, the more natural your skin will look with it on.

What’s my undertone?

Il Makiage describes these in their shade matcher tool:

• Yellow/Golden/Warm – you have veins with a blueish-greenish hue. You tan or darken in the sun. You look better in gold jewellery than silver.
• Pink/Red/Cool – you have veins with a blueish or purple hue. You burn easily in the sun. You look better in silver jewellery than in gold.
• Neutral – your veins have a mix of blueish, greenish and purple hues. You can tan but burn if you stay in the sun too long. You look equally good in silver and gold jewellery.

I’m neutral because my skin has neither a pink nor yellow hue to it. I don’t burn unless I overdo it in the sun and either silver or gold jewellery looks okay on me. There’s a plethora of images and YouTube videos to help if you’re stuck (it’s difficult to understand to be honest).

If you still have no idea, keep reading.

Il Makiage shade matcher

If you choose (as I did) to go through Il Makiage shade matcher tool, they ask several questions, to help find the right shade for you. Questions such as your vein colour, what colour jewellery looks best and several questions asking you to choose the best photo that matches you (this is useful for a visual guide!).

As you can see, the images get more in-depth and harder to choose from because they get more similar. If you get really stuck, contact them on the website via the contact page. I did this, and even sent them photos so they could help me figure it out (who wants to buy the wrong shade?).

Shade match results

When you finish the foundation shade matcher, you land on a tailored page like this after putting your email in. It gives you the recommended shade, benefits and helpful information such as free returns if you don’t like it.

This was a big selling point for me as I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve purchased the wrong shade online only having to sell it on eBay for a 5th of the price.

What’s the Il Makiage Foundation returns policy?

At the time of writing, it’s this:

Free 60 day exchanges or returns

1. Try your products from the comfort of your home.

2. Love them? Yours to keep.

3. Not your fav? Just download our prepaid return label for simple, free & easy exchanges or returns.

After buying foundation for nearly 20 years, I’d say this is pretty reasonable. Read more on the Il Makiage website.

How much is Il Makiage Foundation?

It’s £39 for 30ml. If you subscribe, you get 10% off (£35.10) your first purchase then 20% off (£31.20) & free delivery on all future deliveries. Get it on the Il Makiage website. Use code ‘welcome10’ which should get you money off (it works at the time of writing!).

If you’re on the fence, check out my full review of Il Makiage foundation where I test it on my oily, acne-prone, 35yo skin. I have now been using the foundation for over 2 years.

The foundation is cruelty-free, oil-free, Paraben-free, Phthalate-free, Sulfate-free, and Gluten-free and is enriched with Vitamin E and Hyaluronic Acid for anti-ageing and moisture. I’ve written about if Il Makiage are non-comedogenic and what this means for your skin.

Still stuck?

If you need further help understanding your skin tone, message Il Makiage. Before I purchased their foundation, I spoke to them via Facebook messenger. I told them I wasn’t sure, and they asked me to send them headshots with good lighting. I sent them, and they told me which shade to get. It matched the one I got in the POWERMATCH tool and is a perfect shade.