Where to Get Makeup Colour Matched for Darker Skin in London
Getting colour matched properly in London is harder than it should be. Most counters will hand you a bottle in under two minutes, under lighting designed to flatter, tested on the back of your hand. If you have darker skin, the odds of walking away with the wrong undertone are high.
Here is how we do it at Beauty Edit Mayfair, and what to expect if you come in.
Where to find us
Beauty Edit Mayfair is at 33 Berkeley Street, Mayfair, London W1J 8EN, a four minute walk from Green Park station and a few minutes from Berkeley Square. We are open Monday to Friday 10am to 8pm and Saturday 10am to 6pm.
Walk in, or book the time
Colour matching is free and you do not need an appointment. Walk in during opening hours and we will match you at the counter.
If you want longer, a Make-Up Session is 45 minutes at £75. That covers the match, full application, and the techniques to repeat it yourself at home. It is the right choice before a wedding, an event, or if you have never been shown how to apply for your own face rather than someone else's.
34 shades to match against
We colour match with et al. clean makeup, which runs to 34 shades. That matters more than it sounds. A range that size has room for undertone variation at every depth, rather than a few dark shades added at the end of a range built for lighter skin. It is why we stock it.
Every product on our shelves has been used in our own treatment room before it goes on sale, which is not something most retailers can say.
What we do differently
We match on the face, at the jawline and lower cheek, not on the wrist or the back of the hand. We put two or three shades side by side rather than handing you one. We check the result in daylight. And we ask you to wear it for a few minutes before you decide, because most foundations shift as they warm up, and on darker shades that shift is more visible.
We also check the match against your neck and chest. A face that does not match the body has not been matched.
If none of the shades are right, we say so. We would rather send you out with nothing than with the wrong bottle.
Why undertone matters more than depth
The most common reason a match fails is not that the shade is too light or too dark. It is that the undertone is wrong. Ranges have historically been extended into darker shades by adding brown without adding the undertone variation that exists at the lighter end, which is why a bottle can be the right darkness and still read grey or orange on the skin.
We have written about this at length in Foundation Shade Matching for Darker Skin Tones, which covers undertone, oxidation, lighting and what ashiness actually is.
Come in
No appointment needed for a colour match. Beauty Edit Mayfair, 33 Berkeley Street, Mayfair, London W1J 8EN. Call 020 7244 8371, email enquiries@beautyeditmayfair.com, or see the FAQs for anything else.
Sherrille Riley, founder of Beauty Edit Mayfair, has worked in professional beauty for close to thirty years, beginning at the Harrods spa in the late 1990s.