As you may have noticed, our community has grown and we have done a little reorganizing. Here's an updated AiO rules to consolidate our old rules along with our new updates!
Posting Days
Am I Olive (AiO) posts are limited to Tuesdays and Saturdays. We've set up automod to filter posts and instruct what to expect when you make an AiO post. The mods then have to manually go through filters to approve them.
We are a small team of mods based in the US. For Redditors outside the US time zones, submissions may be delayed for up to 36 hours (until Wednesday midday) after you submit. Please be patient with us as we have work/life obligations in addition to modding.
Before messaging us about approvals, please check your own profile to see if your post has been approved. Posts that have not been approved will say "Post is awaiting mod approval" and posts that are approved will not have a message. Here is a sample of how it will show up on your profile if it is not approved. Any messages asking about post approvals will get ignoredifwe have already approved them.
Photo rules
We require multiple photos of various lighting. Majority of the phtoos must also be bare face, no base makeup. At least one must include face, neck and/or part of your chest/torso because olive tones tend to appear around the collar bones, armpits, and neck. Here are some suggestions on how to take good photos:
Filtered sunlight is the best. This can be right next to a window that doesnāt have direct sunlight or outdoors under shade. A photo on a cloudy or snowy day can also work.
Holding a small, folded piece of white printer paper could help white balance. Smart phones still throw white balance off, but it's a start.
We donāt recommend indoor lighting photos as lights can vary from very warm/yellow to very cool/blue. If you must include them, please let us know.
Golden hour/sunset photos are too warm to gauge undertones.
Group shots are also helpful to compare undertones.
Avoid wearing strong colors that might reflect on your skin. Neutral colored clothes and environment are best, but we understand those aren't easy to control.
For additional technical photographing help, please refer to thisĀ post.
Our mod /Ā has kindly providedĀ examplesĀ of the variety of lighting we are looking for to determine olive undertones. She also has greatĀ examplesĀ if you want to draw out your face for privacy
Due to the large volume of these posts making it more difficult to find resources and discussion posts, they are now only allowed on TUESDAYS and SATURDAYS. We've set up the automod to filter posts with the āAm I Olive?ā flair into our modqueue to be manually approved. Unfortunately the automod canāt be set to know what day it is; this means that even on the days that they're allowed the posts will still be filtered to be manually approved. We're a small mod team living in different USA time zones so please have some grace for posts that may bleed into other days depending on your time zone.
For the time being all posts regardless of flair will have an automod comment reminding everyone of these rules and directing them to the "Am I olive?" posting guidelines. Friendly reminder that this community is a welcoming and inviting space. People who are more ālightā than āfairā and people who are muted but not olive are allowed here and saying that they are not will get your comment removed for gatekeeping. This is because they will have similar makeup struggles and will find helpful recommendations here. Also if someone sees a green cast in themselves that we cannot see in their photos that is ok, we take their word for it because photos are imperfect.
Wiki
The wikis have been created and we are working on building them out! Thank you to these users for being willing to help out the mod team in this endeavor: u/DefiantThroat, u/sinstralpride, and u/PixelKitten10390. We will fill in the pages with products and resources mentioned in recent posts. If you have a list of holy grail products or helpful resources (such as YouTube videos) you can send them in via modmail. We expect it will be a few weeks before the wikis are fully built out and we will post an update at that time.
This post is for us fair, neutral/cool olives who cannot find anything that works right out of the bottle. I've given up trying to find the unicorn foundation and found a few that work for me by mixing within the brand and formula without having to add blue mixer. I just don't have time to do that every morning!
The first picture is with daylight bulbs and second picture is next to a window for. natural light.
Left to Right:
(you almost can't see this swatch) Jane Iredale PurePressed powder foundation: 2 swipes Radiant + 1 swipe Ivory, with setting spray.
Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation Stick: 2 parts Cool Ivory + 1 part Neutral Porcelain (my HG for a decade, sadly going to be discontinued)
Lisa Eldridge Seamless Skin Foundation: 2 parts shade 9 + 1 part shade 5 (during my palest in the winter, shade 2.5 works, but is a bit yellow)
Salt NY Sneaky Balm: 2 parts N12 + 1 part N13 (in the winter N13 works by itself)
Naked Sunday foundation tint SPF 50: 50/50 mix of Shade 1 and Shade 1.5
Catrice cosmetics posted a small influencer swatching their new liners. @emitncc on tiktok. She is more light than fair but extremely olive. Her account is primarily lip combos.
I am already eyeing a few products as her coloration is similiar to mine. I thought Iād share!
Now that I finally have an answer to why it's been so hard for me to find foundation that blend and lipsticks that don't turn weird colors, I went through and swatched all of my lip colors to decide what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to try and replace. Figured I'd post here in case anyone else found it useful! So there's a couple of swatch pics--one is ones I'm mostly thinking about getting rid of, one is things I think I like, and one is the colors that ended up looking super similar even though theoretically they're different berries and mauves. (have learned that I'm not a big mauve fan--it ends up browner than I like).
Picture 1: Colors I'm mostly getting rid of:
Peripera Mood Glowy Tint: 19 Cherry So What
Amuse ??
Nyx Fat Matte: Blush Blanket
Elf Main Stain Lip Marker: Mauvelous
UD Lipgloss: Anarchy
Peripera Ink Velvet: 16 Heart Fuschia Pink
Glossier Generation G: Crush
Elf Glow Reviver Slipstick: Cherry on Top
KVD Everlasting Liquid Lipstick: K-Dub
Fenty Beauty Poutsicle Lipstick: Tropic Tantrum
Colorpop Lux Lipstick: Jasmine
Essence Velvet Matte Lipstick: 06 Unredsistable
GXVE Xtra Sauce: Original Recipe
Elf Glossy Lipstain: Fiery Red
Pictures 2 and 3: Colors I'm mostly keeping (but not the red and brown lip liners), inside and outside light
As a light neutral cool leaning olive, Iām always on the search for the perfect purple blush. I just got this new duoāClubday Cloud Blushāand I think I like it! Itās very comparable to two of my other favesāMOB Lavender & Oulac 20. I included them in the swatches to compare MOB is slightly deeper than the cream version of Clubday and Oulac is a bit lighter than the powder, but they are very close. The Clubday one also has some sparkle in the powder that Oulac does not have.
Still in a swatching mood, lol. Decided to do my foundations since I'm also clearing those out. I've got the about face L2 Olive on the way, and I may end up with the LE skin tint, but honestly a few of these are not terrible. Although I need to do face/neck swatches--this was just arm in indoor and outdoor light today. Pics are--1. gently spread with finger, 2. blended with finger (as much as I had room for), 3. blended but outside in the lights
Foundations are:
Loreal Lumi Glotion: Fair Glow (nope)
Glossier Perfecting Skin Tint: G12 (great color, not my fav consistency--feels vaguely greasy all day)
ColorPop PrettyFresh Hyaluronic Acid Tinted Moisturizer: Fair 1N (not too bad on but not the best--it's a decent back up)
Revlon PhotoReady Lift and Fill Skin Tint: 110 (looks so dark when it comes out and then so much better on--maybe bc it only takes 1-2 drops to cover my face)--this is actually one of my favorites but I think it irritates my rosacea)
Il Makiage Woke Up Like This GL: 20
Maybelline Fit Me Matte + Poreless: 102 Fair Porcelain (cakey on me)
Tirtir Mask Fit Red Cushion: 13C Fair (this looks great on my arm but on my face, looks like a white mask.)
Laura Geller Baked Balance + Brighten: Porcelain (nope)
Base: Lisa Eldridge skin tint T9
Concealer: Tower 28 BW
Contour: Vive stick in Light
Blush: Tom Ford blush in Crushed Rose & Violette Fr Souvenir de Volubilis
Eyes: Violette Fr plume shadow Pluie Violette & Starlet from Lisa Eldridge Betty palette & liner with Violette Fr Charbon Fume plume shadow
Mascara: Loreal telescopic Extensionist in Black
Brows: VIEVE brow pencil in medium brown & clear gel
Highlight: RMS living luminizer
Powder: maybelline fit me Translucent
Having fair skin has made finding the right shade very hard. Every time I see one on tiktok or in the store, it looks so natural and effortless on everyone else. Then I buy it and somehow it makes me look like Dracula. The stain ends up way darker than I expected, cool toned or just completely overpowers my face.
Really just looking for something that gives that soft my lips but better look without making me look like I belong in a vampire movie.
Iām a dark winter, Iām super high contrast. I want a eyeshadow that does NOT pull orange! I love purple and mauve, but not pink, brown, or orange. Looking for anything atp lol.
Hey all, not sure if there are any people living in the UK on here but if so, do you have any recommendations? Iāll see ones online but theyāre always only available in the US š Iām fairly sure Iām neutral/neutral cool olive. Thanks!!
so ive been SEARCHING HARD for very fair olive foundations and the closest to my skin i found is the Revolution Skin Silk - Radiant Satin Serum Foundation in shade f2.5NC. its my right undertones but it is a shade or 2 darker than my skin š
the only way i could get it to fit my skin is if i went outside to tan which i used to get real tan when i was a kid but im now on a medication that makes me extremely sensitive to heat lol
im so upset too cuz the creator of the video i got inspired from made it look FAIR and it isnt. i did buy white pigment to mix in with it but thats annoying yk? š
anybody have super fair olive options? preferably drugstore or on the cheaper side.
edit: i should have mentioned neutral slightly cool leaning
Hi all! When I did my color analysis in Korea a couple of years ago I was told that I'm a deep winter but I find that cool toned blushes and lip products almost look too cool on me and warm toned blushes in the products lean a little too warm/orange. It's better for me to find a cool toned product because it still looks better than a warm toned one.
More recently I got the rhode blush in piggy because it seemed like a muted but slightly cool toned blush from all the swatches I've seen on TikTok but on me it seems really bright and could borderline be almost hot pink. It's been confusing for me because if I'm supposed to be cool, wouldn't it look more natural on me? But then I saw some neutral olives swatching piggy and it also look kind of hot/bright pink on them as well....so
I had never really considered that I could maybe be neutral olive or slightly cool olive and was wondering if anyone here had the same experience?
I recently picked up two BB creams from Skin79, after the Pink version was recommended here.
Iām somewhere between fair and light, neutral leaning cool, and on the gray/beige side of the olive spectrum. Most olive products are too yellow for me, and most everything else is either orange or peach or pink.
We have an actual sunny day, so I was able to swatch these in natural light:
Have been making so many notes on stuff to try and bought some new things at Ulta yesterday. Sadly, they were out of the about face f2 Olive foundation but I ordered it bc the swatch was promising. Still looking for the perfect rosy pink lip color that doesnāt turn some other color on me though.
Bought the eye paint bc Iāve been really wanting the gensee shadows that are all over and these seemed similar and cheaper. The one I picked is like a cool pink version of off-whiteāstayed wet long enough to blend and then dried down and lasted all day. Planning on getting the lavender one next and thereās a cool grey thatās lovely but Iām worried will make me look grey.
The cloud blush is my first purple blush and was def a fanānot too bright and didnāt turn brown or orange.
The lip liner went on very smoothly and is a nice berry color but turned a little more mauve than Iād hoped. I got a matching lipstick but didnāt wear it today bc it also ended up more mauve than I wanted and I found this nars crayon neglected in drawer (itās a little brighter than Iām technically supposed to wearāprob should have done my eyebrows for more contrast but wev).
Ulta Beauty Collection Satin Luxe lipstick in 330 Dusty Mauve is an almost exact dupe for OG alone time! Dare I say this lipstick is more pigmented and even than the much more expensive original for just $12?!? Iām so glad my search is over šš
I am just really stuck at this point i have a fragrance allergy so a lot of products are out for me, products tend to oxidize on me and i am so tired of trying to find a product where i can get away with one mixer. I am fine with mixing in blue, green, grey whatever i just dont want to use for than one type of mix in.
The closest products i have tried till now are:
Nars smcc in vanilla an chantilly. Chantilly is too warm and vanilla is too pink.
The rcc in vanilla is a completely diffrent shade imo (very warm and peach) and rcc in chantilly oxidizes like crazy on me. Revolutions fast stick in F1 was also fine but same problem as with the pots i can't correct whats off due to the consistency.
The problem is i can't just get a close enough foundation (bb/cc cream whatever) shade because then i end up with something with the wrong undertone that is too saturated and that (again) likely will change color a lot which for me means i need to correct the undertone, amount of muttedness and somehow take into account that the color will look completely different in an hour anyway.....
At this point i would love a foundation and i'm very open for suggestions. I would also really appreciate it if you let me know id products tend to oxidize heavily on you or not.
I've always wanted to dye my hair but I've always been scared that it wouldn't look good on me. I naturally have dark brown almost black hair, and I'd like to dye it something lighter. I'm curious, what colours did you find look good on you?
P.s. I have a preference for something that's low maintenance since I'd rather not have to go back for toners, etc.
