Find your foundation shade

An online shade guide can narrow the choice, but it can't guarantee a match. Screens shift colour, product images are styled, and the same shade can look different on a wrist, on a jaw and through a phone camera. What helps is knowing what a shade name tells you, where a range stops, and how to check the result once it arrives.

Reading the shade names

Each shade of the house's Peptide Foundation combines two words. The first is depth: Fair, Light, Medium, Tan or Deep. The number rises with it, from 05 to 50. The second is undertone: Neutral, Warm or Cool. There are ten shades, and not every undertone exists at every depth:

• Fair: 05 Fair Neutral
• Light: 10 Light Warm, 15 Light Cool
• Medium: 20 Medium Neutral, 25 Medium Warm
• Tan: 30 Tan Neutral, 35 Tan Warm
• Deep: 40 Deep Neutral, 45 Deep Warm, 50 Deep Cool

Within one depth word, don't read the number as a further step deeper. 10 Light Warm and 15 Light Cool differ in undertone, and the names don't say which of the two is deeper. Ten shades is also a short range. If you sit between depths, want a Medium or Tan with a cool cast, or know your skin reads olive, this range may not have your shade. That is worth knowing before you order.

Narrowing it down

If a foundation has matched you before, its shade name is useful for its words (light, medium, warm, neutral) more than its number. Brands don't share a numbering system, so a 20 elsewhere says nothing about a 20 here.

Judge depth where your face meets your neck, along the jaw. That is where a mismatch tends to show, because the foundation stops and the skin carries on.

Your history with makeup can hint at undertone. If foundations have often looked too pink on you, a neutral or warmer shade may be worth trying. If they have often looked too yellow or orange, try neutral or cooler. A grey or ashy cast can come from several things, including depth, undertone, the amount applied, the finish and the light. Treat it as a reason to compare shades, not as a diagnosis.

If you don't know your undertone, Neutral isn't automatically the answer. Comparing two candidates at the same depth on your own skin tells you more than guessing from a screen. The return terms below cover the one you don't keep.

The main images on the foundation pages are digitally styled. The original packaging views show the tube and box as supplied, which is useful for confirming the printed shade name. Neither is a swatch on skin.

Finish and coverage

Finish names describe a spectrum rather than a fixed result. Matte reflects the least light, dewy the most, and semi-matte sits between them. How any finish looks on you also depends on your skin, your prep and how much you apply. The house describes this foundation as semi-matte, with coverage that builds where you apply more. In the words of the shade pages, it is "a finish that still looks like skin." If you want a dewy or glowing finish, another formula is likely to suit you better. It makes no sun-protection claim.

A note on fragrance

Every shade's ingredient list includes fragrance (Parfum), citrus peel oils, and fragrance components such as limonene and linalool. If you avoid fragrance, this isn't the foundation for you. The full list is on each shade's page.

Checking it when it arrives

1. Start with clean, bare skin near a window in daylight.
2. Apply a short stripe along your jaw, from cheek onto neck. If you have two shades, put them side by side.
3. Let it settle for a few minutes and look again. Foundation can look slightly different once it has set, and the settled version is the one you'll wear.
4. Step back from the mirror. The closer match is the one that blends most quietly into both cheek and neck, without a visible edge or a stripe that reads lighter, darker, pinker or more yellow.
5. If you check with a phone camera, use daylight and no filter. When the camera and the mirror disagree, go by the mirror.

If the shade isn't right

Under the house's returns terms, you have thirty days from delivery to send a product back, opened or used, including a shade that turned out wrong on you. Send back what is left. Return postage is yours on a change of mind. It is the house's if something arrives faulty or in the wrong shade. Items that have been decanted, mixed with something else, or damaged other than by a product or delivery fault aren't refundable, so mix shades on your skin rather than in the tube. Refund amounts and the rest of the terms are in the full returns policy. To start a return, write to support@maisonregarde.com. The thirty days start at delivery, so it's worth doing the daylight check soon after the tube arrives.

Choosing brow products too? Read brow fill or brow hold, and how to keep the result soft.