Olive skin guides.
Olive skin has a green-gold cast that sits over either a warm or a cool base, which is why most advice for it contradicts itself. These guides split olive into the three versions we actually see in analyses, and give each one its own shades.
Beauty
- Foundation for olive skinWhy every foundation turns pink or orange on you, and how to read a shade code so the next bottle doesn't.
- Makeup for olive skinBlush, lips, eyes and liner for all three kinds of olive, with the exact shades from the makeup maps in our analyses.
- Blush for olive skinWhy pale pink blush disappears on olive skin, and the deeper shades that give you a real flush.
- Lipstick for olive skinThe nudes, reds and pinks that suit olive skin, and why the beige nude in your bag keeps making you look tired.
- Nail color for olive skinThe polish shades that make olive hands look warm and polished, and the pale ones that make them look grey.
Skin tone
- Light olive skinFair enough to get called pale, olive enough to look grey in pink makeup. How to tell if that's you, and what to wear instead.
- Olive undertoneWhy you never fit warm or cool, what the green in your skin actually is, and how to tell which kind of olive you are.
- Deep olive skinRich, golden-green and often mistaken for tan or brown. How to tell if that's you, and the shades that make it glow.
- Olive skin and brown eyesThe most common olive combination we see. The eyeshadows, hair colors and palette that make it look rich and warm.
- Olive skin and green eyesA rarer olive combination, and one that can lean warm or cool. The shades that make green eyes the first thing people see.
Hair
- Hair color for olive skinWhich browns, blacks, reds and blondes make olive skin look clear, and the two shades that turn it grey or yellow.
- Blonde hair for olive skinOlive skin can absolutely go blonde. The trick is a warm-neutral shade with depth at the root.
- Red hair for olive skinWhich reds make olive skin glow, which ones turn it sallow, and how to go red without the brass.
Clothing
Pick a guide, or skip to your season.
Fifteen quick picks name your season, so every guide here reads as advice for you.
Celebrities with olive skin.
Penélope CruzDeep AutumnWarm olive
Selena GomezDeep AutumnWarm olive
Adriana LimaDeep AutumnWarm olive tan
Vanessa HudgensDeep AutumnWarm olive tan
Emily RatajkowskiDeep Autumnwarm olive-tan
Madison BeerDeep AutumnGolden-tan with an olive-gold base
Mandy MooreDeep AutumnLight-medium with a golden-olive cast that tans easily
Monica BellucciDeep WinterOlive, medium-deep, cool-neutral Mediterranean
Gal GadotDeep WinterMedium olive
Bella HadidDeep WinterFair-medium, cool olive
Rachel ZeglerDeep WinterMedium, neutral olive
Aubrey PlazaDeep WinterLight olive with a cool cast
Eva MendesWarm AutumnWarm olive
Meghan MarkleWarm AutumnWarm golden-olive
Kaia GerberSoft AutumnTan, warm-neutral with an olive-gold cast
Lucy LiuClear WinterLight golden-olive
Inde NavarretteDeep AutumnLight-medium golden olive tan
Lana Del ReyDeep AutumnMedium, warm ivory-to-honey depth
America FerreraDeep AutumnMedium golden olive
Kourtney KardashianDeep WinterFair-light, olive
Victoria BeckhamSoft AutumnLight-medium golden olive, tans deeply
Three olives, three sets of shades. Find your column.
The free quiz tells you which of these is yours in about two minutes. Nothing to upload.
Common questions
What is olive skin?
Olive skin is a complexion with a green or green-gold cast under the surface. It can sit over a warm golden base or a cool ashy one, and it shows up from fair to rich depths. The green cast is why pink foundations look grey on it and orange ones look muddy.
Is olive skin warm or cool?
Either. Olive is a cast, not a temperature. Of the 21 olive-skinned celebrities we've analyzed, 14 run warm (Autumn seasons) and 7 run cool (Winter seasons). A gold versus silver jewelry test in daylight usually settles which side you're on.
What color season is olive skin?
Most often Deep Autumn or Deep Winter. In our analyses, olive skin landed in Deep Autumn, Deep Winter, Warm Autumn, Soft Autumn and Clear Winter, and never in a Spring or Summer season.
Still not sure which olive you are?
Fifteen picks and you'll know your season and the shades that fight it. Free, no photo, no email.