Photography: Terry Richardson for Bulgari
Are you cool or are you hot? Determining your skin's "temperature" would help in choosing the right type of metals that complement you. It would be dreadful to wear gold on your wedding day only to realise it makes you look washed-out in photos. How to find out? Really simple. Just look at the colour of your veins and overall pallor.
Cool skin
Characterised by bluish veins, people who have cool skin would also notice pinkish or rosy red undertones when looking into the mirror. Cool doesn't refer to Snow White skin; in fact many darker skin complexions as super cool too! Silver or white gold would help brighten the skin. When matching with gems, you could look to pearl, sapphire, amethyst, aquamarine, emerald, opal, pariaba, tourmaline, tanzanite or zircon.
Warm skin
Identifiable by greenish coloured veins, and yellow or golden-apricot undertone. Warm doesn't mean dark-skinned; in fact most people with darker complexions are cool-toned. Gold would complement warm skin tone. When looking for gems, choose from alexandrite, citrine, garnet, morganite, peridot, ruby, Mandarin garnet or yellow diamonds.
