Best Foundation Mixers for Olive skin & neutral Skin
Foundation mixers are indispensible for anyone with a difficult-to-match skintone. Foundations often come in a wide range of tones that nonetheless don’t match the average person particularly well. What happens if you find a foundation with the perfect formula, but a terrible color match? That’s where foundation mixers come in!
The most common foundation-matching complaints I hear from my clients are…
Foundation that is not neutral/beige enough (either too yellow, too pink, or too peach)
Foundation that is not olive enough
Foundation that is the right undertone but too dark
Moira Beauty Superhyped Liquid Pigment
Moira Beauty Superhyper Liquid Pigment Swatches, L to R: Hashtag, My Way, Available
This product is a moussey cream that dries matte and comes in a doefoot applicator tube. It is moderately pigmented, which means it is very easy to control, but requires a little more product to tint a foundation. This is a low-cost product and the tube lasts around 6-8 months with daily use.
Shade Recommendations:
Hashtag (pure white): This makes any foundation lighter, perfect if you have a foundation with the right undertone that is a shade or two too dark. Suitable for any skintone except the very deep.
My Way (cool taupe): This can make a foundation more muted and more beige in appearance. Suitable for light to medium skintones.
Available (neutral dark taupe): This can make a foundation more muted and more beige in appearance. It is slightly less cool than My Way. Suitable for medium-deep to deep skintones.
Buy directly from Moira Beauty
About Face Matte Fluid Eye Paint
About Face Matte Fluid Eye Paint swatches L to R: White Noise, Smell Before Rain, Hidden Garden, Blue Monday, Sweet Disposition, No Queen Blues, Crocodile Rock, Smoke Signal
This product is a thin liquid that dries very matte and comes in a doefoot applicator tube. This is a moderately priced product and the tube lasts around 8 months to a year with daily use.
Shade Recommendations:
White Noise (pure white): This makes any foundation lighter, perfect if you have a foundation with the right undertone that is a shade or two too dark. Suitable for any skintone except the very deep.
Smell Before Rain (light beige-taupe): This makes too-yellow foundations into a more beige-neutral olive with no peachy tones. Suitable for light to medium skintones.
Hidden Garden (deep greige): This may be used to make a foundation more muted and more beige in appearance. Suitable for light to deep skintones. May darken foundation slightly for lighter skintones, or lighten very deep foundations.
Blue Monday (bright sky blue): This may be used to add a greenish olive tone to a too-yellow foundation. Suitable for light and medium skintones. May lighten foundation slightly.
Sweet Disposition (cornflower blue): This may be used to simultaneously lighten and add a greenish olive tone to a too-yellow and too-dark foundation. Suitable for medium and deep skintones.
No Queen Blues (primary blue): This can give a foundation that leans orange a more muted, greenish-olive appearance. Suitable for medium and deep skintones. Harder to control/easier to overdo than a green or a taupe.
Smoke Signal (deep cool green): This can give a foundation that leans orange a more muted, greenish-olive appearance. Suitable for medium and deep skintones.
Crocodile Rock (intense teal): This can give a foundation that leans orange or red a more muted, greenish-olive appearance. Suitable for medium and deep skintones.
Danessa Myricks Colorfix Matte
Danessa Myricks Colorfix MatteL to R: Lift, Exposed, Olive You, Primary Blue
This product is a fluid cream that dries matte and comes in a squeeze tube with a pointed opening. It is easy to dispense a small amount, although it is intensely pigmented. The tube lasts many applications, over a year with daily use.
Shade Recommendations:
Lift (snow white): This makes any foundation lighter, perfect if you have a foundation with the right undertone that is a shade or two too dark. Suitable for any skintone except the very deep.
Exposed (cool taupe brown): This makes too-yellow foundations into a more beige-neutral olive with no peachy tones. Suitable for light to medium skintones.
Olive You (olive green): This makes too-yellow foundations into the perfect warm olive with a touch of green. Best for medium to medium-deep skintones, as it may deepen foundation.
Primary Blue (deep cobalt): this may be used to add a greenish olive tone to a too-yellow foundation. Suitable for medium and deep skintones. Harder to control/easier to overdue than a green or a taupe.
Buy directly from Danessa Myricks
e.l.f. Camo Color Corrector
E.L.F. Camo Color Corrector Swatches, L to R: Green, Blue
This product is a thin, slippery serum texture which blends easily with base products, especially fluid liquid foundations or skin tints. This is a low cost product, but the tube will last only 3-6 months depending on usage.
Green (pale warm green): This makes foundations slightly paler and more yellowy-green. It may turn a foundation excessively warm due to the yellow content, so use with caution unless you have strong yellow olive surface tones to your face. Suitable for light and light-medium skintones only.
Blue (medium cornflower blue): This makes foundations more olive/green in tone without altering the depth significantly. Suitable for all but the deepest skintones.
Swatches & Comparisons
Taupe/Beige Mixers
Swatches, left to right: About Face Smell Before Rain, About Face Hidden Garden, Danessa Myricks Olive You, Danessa Myricks Exposed, Moira Beauty My Way, Moira Beauty Available
Beige and taupe shades are easy to use, as they are more similar to the colors of human skin, and will not turn any mix green or blue even if you add a little too much. Be cautious not to over-use, however, as they will mimic the shadows of your face when over-applied. This may turn your whole face grayish, sickly, or dirty-looking.
BLUE Mixers
Swatches, L to R: ABout Face Blue Monday, About Face Sweet Disposition, About Face No Queen Blues, ELF Blue, Danessa Myricks Primary Blue
Blue mixers have the ability to drastically alter a foundation’s undertones. The tradeoff is that they may be tricky to control—those with subtly neutral or olive skintones may find that their foundations turn excessively green with the addition of a strong blue corrector.
These images show a pale foundation (left) and a deeper one (right) in three stages:
Alone (no mixer)
With one drop of blue mixer (About Face Blue Monday)
With two drops of blue mixer (About Face Blue Monday)
As you can see, it takes very little blue pigment to turn a skin-toned foundation into an alien-looking shade!
Green Mixers
Swatches, L to R: E.L.F. Green, About Face Crocodile Rock, About Face Smoke Signal
Green mixers fall somewhere in the middle between taupe and blue mixers. They are a little more difficult to use than taupe, but they are easier to control than blue. If your skin presents as strongly yellow while also having muted or olive appearance, green can be a good option. Be wary that it does not turn your base too yellow, which it can easily do.
White Mixers
I have not swatched all the white mixers here, as they look identical on the skin and perform very similarly. However, I have swatched a foundation above and then added gradually more white mixer for each swatch, traveling left to right. As you can see, even a relatively dark foundation may be transformed into an ultra-pale shade with a small amount of white mixer. If you struggle with finding shades that are light enough for your skin, a white mixer is a makeup bag must-have.
Foundation Transformations
The same foundation can be totally transformed by simply changing what mixer you use. Below, you will find a series of arm swatches. Each one of these photos uses only one foundation shade—on the very left, the foundation is swatched by itself. Each of the other swatches shows that same foundation shade, mixed with a variety of color mixers.
AOA Dewy Blend Foundation in Shade M1
Shades, L to R: M1 (alone), Moira My Way, Moira Available, About Face Smell Before Rain, About Face Hidden Garden, E.L.F. Green, Danessa Myricks Olive You, Danessa Myricks Exposed
AOA Matte Vision Hi-Def Foundation in Shade L3
Shades, L to R: L3 (alone), E.L.F. Green, About Face hidden Garden, Danessa Myricks Exposed, Moira 001, About Face Smell Before Rain
AOA Matte Vision Hi-Def Foundation in T2
L to R: T2 (alone), About Face Smell Before Rain, Moira Available, Moira My Way, About Face Hidden Garden, Danessa Myricks Exposed, Danessa Myricks Olive You, ELF Green, About Face Crocodile Rock, About Face Blue Monday
AOA Dewy Blend Foundation in Shade T3
Shades, L to R: T3 (alone), E.L.F. Green, About Face Hidden Garden, Danessa Myricks Exposed, Danessa Myricks Olive You, Moira My Way, Moira Available, About Face Smell Before Rain
AOA Matte Vision Hi-Def Foundation in Shade D1
Shades, L to R: D1 (alone), Danessa Myricks Olive You, About Face Hidden Garden, About Face Crocodile Rock, About Face Smoke Signal
AOA Prowear Foundation in Walnut
Shades, L to R: Walnut (alone), About Face Hidden Garden, Danessa Myricks Olive You, About Face Crocodile Rock, About Face Smoke Signal, About Face No Queen Blues
Same as above, in different lighting conditions to show undertone shifts more clearly. This was a difficult series to photograph on my skintone, which is much paler than the foundation. These differences will be more apparent when tested on a deep skintone!
Bonus Tip
Use a palette with a mixing spatula instead of the back of your hand, which absorbs product quickly and may dry out the formulas before you have a chance to get the right color.
Metal palette at Amazon
Silicone spatulas at Amazon
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