Anyone who has ever
been in the search for the perfect foundation shade from might be familiar with
these words, but I’m very sure most of the people still get confused what do
they actually mean and how to actually pick their shades.
Getting the perfect
foundation color the first step is always to find your undertone. If you don’t know
your undertone yet, you can find it here.
A walk into any MAC
store and you can see many potential customers who would feel completely
confused for so many different colors which al lay in front of them
More as for foundations.
Where do you start? There are so many. And the most difficult question what on
earth does NC or NW means and would I be AM I NC or NW? From the palest of all,
to the deepest of all skin tone, no matter what shade you are looking for. You
want it? MAC has it.
It one of the most
asked questions that what does NC and NW stands for, and what is the difference
between an NC and NW?So, today I’ll give a
short intro what it actually means, as If people have a more in-depth know how
of what NC-NW means they would have more understanding and a little more
confidence in matching up themselves at the store next time when they are on a
foundation selection.
AN easy way to look at
it as: Think of each MAC foundation shade as being named as either warm or cool
undertone to neutralize and balance out the respective skin tone. Now the
complete list for MAC foundation coding is.
“C” stands for “Cool”
“NC” stands for “Neutral
Cool”
“NW” stands for “Neutral
Warm”
“W” stands for “Warm:
In this post we will just just discuss two of
them NC and NW.
MAC works in a complete
different way compared to other companies, and there colors are actually
opposite.NC (Neutral Cool)
through its termed cool, while it’s designed for people who have warm
undertones shades like yellow, gold or olive. While NW (Neutral Warm)
is for people, who belong to cool undertones, like pink or red.
Confused? Why cool
undertone is labeled warm, and warm undertone is been named as cool?... Don’t
be…let’s make it simple.
MAC names them
backwards, because they use color correction technique.
Warm skin has yellow
/gold undertone, and there veins look more green, so in MAC a warm skinned
person would get NC shades to balance out the warmness in their tone, while NW
can make them appear more read.
Now if you are a pink undertone
you’re going to want a shade which falls under the NW series. This is to
balance out their tone.
From the above picture
you can clearly see the difference in the hue of both series, even the same
numbers both of the series have different tones.
A pictorial example: to
make it more clear
Would these well-known
Celebrities be matched up to an NC or NW? Answers below
Kim Kardashian - NC
Kate Winslet – NW
About the number which
number to opt from a specific series depends on your skin shade the paler your
shade is the lower number you will choose while the darker you are the higher
you go. It’s numbered as low numbers being lightest and higher numbers being deeper.
For example NC 05 is a very pale shade while NC 40 being quite a deep shade.
Another thing to keep
in mind, is that not all series having the same number system would have
exactly the same shades. Different series means different formulations and a
difference in shades. For example if you are a NC 25 in studio fix series, NC
25 from pro long wear series might appear a bit darker even if they are same
numbers. So, always recheck the shade numbers before switching between series.
I hope now you all feel
a little more confident with your NC and NW worries...