Olive base

[egerandi]

Seeing Jen's gorgeous pic, I decided to experiment with the olive base instead of my regular ebony + smidgen of buttery gold + 10-12 medium ivory. I'm at 1 olive + 10 glow + 9 medium ivory now, and it's pretty close. However, it still feels a bit dark, or more like muddy. It's late right now, and my bathroom light sucks, so I have to wait till the morning to see what it really looks like, but the muddiness kinda concerns me, like too much bronzer or the wrong kind. I tried the 'half face' and my BF couldn't tell which part had foundation on, and which one had only untinted Blur. (again, awful lighting) When I told him, he did mention that one without was a bit more red.

Would it make sense to go half ebony and half olive? I definitely have yellow in my skin but still lots of pink too. Or should I just keep adding the white ones until it's light enough? Will that take care of the muddy or am I just doing the wrong color altogether? What's olive anyway: some ebony with green or yellow in it?

[JenW]

Definitely take the time to look at it in all lights. I think there is very little yellow in the olive. Warm Gold is kind of on the lines of Olive, too, but it has a golden component which translates to yellow. Olive is more green and brown (hence muddy on you), plus there is an amount of pink....it is probably too high a ratio of brown. I think the Ebony and Olive might work for you, but you did say you have yellow, too. I almost think your old color base recipe will be about the best. Olive is almost an Ebony and Warm Gold blend with a slight boost of green.

[egerandi]

It didn't look too bad in the daylight, but still, the slight muddiness bothers me. I mixed up the old base using glow: 1 ebony + 1/4 (or less, can't really tell) buttery gold + 8 glow + 6 medium ivory, and it's looking really nice. I can't wait to get my hands on more Glow - I'm not going to mix up a bigger batch until the fullsize goes on sale.

As the olive mix is not too bad, I'm just going to mix together the two, as to not waste any of it. I can always just add more ebony and b.g. later if needed.

Thanks for your help!

[Xarata]

I finally ordered the olive sample and am so happy i did. I've always worn other brands and most days, i mix a few very similar shades anyway (well actually i mix it up weekly in a dish). I have what i call golden neutral skin. I have yellow undertones and pinky peachy overtones so most neutrals will work but without a little extra golden in the mix, i end up looking ashy(kinda dead and greyish and definitely not as warm as my neck). In silk naturals, the shades that "worked" would end up whitish on me and if i took them to the right depth they showed orange. Ebony only looks dull/ashy on me. I was previously a 1buttery-.5warm-10 ivory and always just not quite as good a match as my other fdts. I am currently a 3 olive-2 ebony-40 ivory (i could figure out decimals but i don't want to. lol) It'll take a few days to be absolutely sure but i'm pretty sure i finally have a perfect SN match. Of course I'm figuring this out as the seasons are changing! lol

I forgot how much i like the feel of SN fdt... Thanks for making an olive tone, Karen!

[LionT]

I think the olive base is wonderful!

I mixed some foundation yesterday - my first time!
I had it down to 2BG, 2WG, 1 Ebony, 36 ivory. Looks OK, but it is still not right.. a little ashy, like there is a layer of white over my face. I think I need some green.
Today, I added 1/4 (or so) scoop of Olive to the mix.
Now it looks OK. I did a half face.. surfed the net a bit.. and checked. I couldnt tell the color apart from both sides of my face. I think I've got it.

My question :
What a complicated recipe! I want BG for the yellow, WG for the brown, ebony for the pink, and olive for the green. But that is a 4 color blend! Is there some duplication among the colors, so I could simplify my recipe? Thks..

Oh.. what I've learnt is that it is not a good idea to check makeup colors under vanity lights. Strange, isnt it? I tend to overdo my eye makeup, becasue the lights are so strong (4X100W?), esp if the makeup is for daytime. Also, for foundation color matching, the "yellowness' of the vanity bulbs actually skews the colors we see. So it is not as accurate.

[Xarata]

What a complicated recipe! I want BG for the yellow, WG for the brown, ebony for the pink, and olive for the green. But that is a 4 color blend! Is there some duplication among the colors, so I could simplify my recipe? Thks..

BG alone was always too yellow
WG alone was never warm enough

I had a mix of the two but it was a bit "off"

Olive seems to meet my golden quota without going orange and i balanced it out with the ebony to neutralize it a bit better. It sounds like you're fairly neutral too so you should have a balance of pinks and yellow too. All you can do is play but you might try a mix of just olive and ebony.

[LionT]

Thks Samantha. Will try that out next batch!