How to see Undertones in Paint Colors

It’s a rather common problem.. how to see undertones in paint colors. There are very few colors that aren’t made up of several different colorants… gray’s can have a blue undertone, purple undertone, brown, green, or they can come directly from black resulting in a true gray.

The same with beige… people will try to stay away from a certain beige because it has a pink undertone or gravitate towards a beige because it has a gold undertone. Almost every single color has some sort of undertone!

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The question is how to see the undertones… how do you determine if a gray comes from blue or brown? Black or Purple? When you’re looking for a certain color there has to be a way to tell which color is at the base. How to see undertones in paint colors?

There are several ways to determine the underlying undertone for each and every paint color… you can break down the colorants and see which colorants go into each color. Most beige’s are made up of deep gold, maroon and black. Those colors will lean a bit towards the pink side while a beige composed of deep gold, raw umber and black will have a gold undertone.

Sounds super confusing right?

So let’s take the easy route… the quickest way to determine the undertone is to take a look at the color strip.

How to see Undertones in Paint Colors? Look at the Color Strip!

If you’re looking at a light color then follow the color strip all the way to the bottom. Is the darkest color on the strip brown? Then your color has a brown undertone! Is the darkest color on the strip blue? Then your color has a blue undertone.

That’s it! That’s the whole trick!

It really is that simple, just take a look at the darkest color on that specific color strip and you’ll be able to see the undertone of just about any paint color.

Go ahead and try it, you’ll see how easy it is.

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