Style Guide: How to Match Your Makeup with Your Outfit

Are you looking for new ways to shine at work or on a date? The newest fashion trend is makeup color matching, where you match your makeup or nails to your outfit.

Outfit color matching is pretty to do, but there are so many ways to get it wrong. We’ll take you through a few easy-to-learn ways to get into the spirit and match makeup perfectly with any outfit.

Finding a Perfect Match

Most of the time, you’re not going to want to match your makeup to your outfit exactly. If you have a bright blue dress, do you really want to step out in a bright-blue eyeshadow?

You might, but if bright eyeshadow isn’t your thing you’ll want to take a more relaxed, subtle approach to outfit color matching.

Take a look at your accessories: your purse, shoes, and hair ties. You can easily match your lipstick or eyeshadow to your purse or shoes.

For example, if you have a red dress with black shoes and a black belt, take the time to do a fashionable smoky eye. It’ll look great with your outfit, and you don’t have to worry about matching the exact shade of your lipstick to your dress.

If you want to match your lipstick to your dress, don’t feel like you have to find an exact match. If you have a really bold personality, you might look for purple lipstick to go with a purple dress.

Try your outfit on at home ahead of time, and put on your makeup to see how it looks. You don’t want to have a panic attack while you’re getting ready for a date or job interview.

Do Your Nails!

Technically, nail polish isn’t makeup, but it looks oh-so-good when you match your polish to your outfit. Exact nail polish matching is trending in Hollywood, and we see a lot of devastatingly beautiful nail shades show up on the red carpet.

If you’re going to try to match your nail polish to your outfit, accessories, or shoes, take the clothing with you to the store. You don’t want to get stuck with a shade that stands out because it’s “almost right.”

Sometimes, nail polish will look a little bit different once you put it on. Ask the store clerk if you can put a little bit on one of your nails to see what the shade will be.

Make sure that you get a clear gel top coat to prevent breakage and chipping. Matching your nail polish to your shoes or accessories can pull your outfit together. People won’t know why they love your outfit so much, but they’ll know that it’s beautiful.

Know Your Colors

When you’re trying to match makeup to your outfit, you should always know what colors look best on you.

Are you a person who looks great in dark green? You may want to put on some dark green eyeliner or eyeshadow, but you could also opt for a neutral shade like gray that looks great with the color green.

Avoid getting too “matchy” with your color choices. You’re looking for blush, eyeshadow, and lipstick that complements your outfit. Avoid any clashing color schemes, like a red lipstick with an orange outfit.

Of course, always follow your fashion sense. If you want to make a bold statement and use yellow eyeliner with a red outfit, go right ahead. But most of us aren’t so brave.

If you’re going to change at work for an evening date, bring your makeup to work and refresh it after you’re done working. Those fluorescent lights at work can make you look so washed out that you put on way too much makeup. Try putting it on in your car or outside to get a more natural look.

How to Match Makeup with Shoes

When we’re talking about matching makeup and clothes, we’re not really striving for an exact match all the time. Most of the time, it’s our goal to find makeup that provides a background for our outfits to stand out.

Matching your makeup with your shoes can be a little bit difficult because so many shoes come in darker colors. You could match your nail polish to your shoes, but you should also focus on matching your accessories to your shoes.

So if you have a purple outfit with a black belt and white shoes, you might want to go for a bright coral that looks great with all three colors.

You could also do a white lipstick, but that’s more of a cringe-worthy throwback to the 1970s. The same goes for black lipstick: unless you’re a dedicated Goth girl, you probably want to avoid wearing black on your lips.

What you could do, though, is find a shade of purple for your eyeliner, paint your nails with a french manicure with purple tips, or get a great shade of purple that matches your dress.

Again, don’t feel like you have to find an exact match. Check out our page for more info about great shoes.

Help! I Have No Fashion Sense!

Of course, you do! Everyone has their own sense of what looks good on them and what they feel comfortable wearing.

At the end of the day, don’t let anyone tell you what you should be wearing. If you want to wear white pumps and white nail polish and white eyeliner, go right ahead. If you want to be a vision in red, then do it up!

Take the time to find out what you like. Go to a makeup store and try on some new shades. You might be surprised to find that there is a wide variety of new lipstick shades in brown, purple, and beautiful neutrals.

Match makeup to your nails, belt, or even the highlights in your hair. Try green eyeliner or mascara to see if you like it. You never know what looks good on you until you try it. Fashion experiments are always worth the time and effort.