"Ethnic" magazines always confuse olive skin with golden or tanned.

I hope this is the right board for this little rant. Is it just me, or do most magazines for "ethnic" women confuse olive complexions with golden or tanned? I know most people use the word "olive" to refer to any yellowish medium skintone, and that's okay, but a true olive complexion is noticably sallow, has cool undertones, and sometimes purplish lips. Seems like many magazines, including ones geared toward minorities, try to be inclusive by including recommendations for olive skin, but most of their recommendations are better suited to golden skin tones or lighter women with tans. I wonder how many olive skinned women are wearing bright orange lipstick because they heard it would bring out their "tan" tones. I've even seen this problem many times in Latina magazine! Also, I know this seems silly, but can anyone who cares about this as much as I do please write a respectful message to the Latina magazine beauty editor on the proper use of the term "olive". Sometimes I seriously wonder if the magazine's latina editors are just figure heads. Their beauty editor is a beautiful, stylish women with a very typical olive skin tone, but the orange lipstick example I gave comes partly from them, among many other terrible recommendations. I really love their idea of always catogorizing beauty products by skintone, but it's strange that they would make some of these suggestions for a skintone that the vast majority of their readers (and editors) probably have.
 

Larkin

Well-known member
I go to their website to read the beauty articles. I'm neither "olive" or "caramel" (as they group) so I just assume I can use either recommendation.

It irritates me when non-ethnic mags do something similar thing. They will go from fair-olive-dark, and their dark will be all over the place. Their dark can range from Rhianna's skintone, Halle Berry's,Mary J Blige's, or Missy Elliott's.


Not being Latina myself I ask, Who is considered "olive" in the Latin community? JLo?
 

blazeno.8

Well-known member
Yeah, some people just know of one "type" and then they make up all of the rules for that type that they possibly can (whether it's true or not). I'm not olive but I sure do get the "you have darker skin you must be NW45 or 47" (when right now I'm about a NC45 just because it's summer).
 

JamaicanDiva2

Well-known member
this annoys me too! cuz i am a lighter skinned woman of color w/ a skin tone closer to alicia keys, rhianna's, and even jessica albas, so i usually read what they recommend for "golden" or "olive" skin tones, but then i see they put beyonce in the "dark skinned" category, and i'm sorry, but beyonce is not dark skinned! what about alek wek or african american ladies w/ truly dark skin? if beyonce & rhianna are as dark as the mags recognize, what does this say about all the women who are MUCH darker than them?!
 

lsperry

Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by JamaicanDiva2
this annoys me too! cuz i am a lighter skinned woman of color w/ a skin tone closer to alicia keys, rhianna's, and even jessica albas, so i usually read what they recommend for "golden" or "olive" skin tones, but then i see they put beyonce in the "dark skinned" category, and i'm sorry, but beyonce is not dark skinned! what about alek wek or african american ladies w/ truly dark skin? if beyonce & rhianna are as dark as the mags recognize, what does this say about all the women who are MUCH darker than them?!

Thank you, thank you for saying this and very well-said....Hollywood or any beauty editor or writer who make up the rules seem to think only the women you mentioned are "dark" and we (anyone darker than they), apparently, don't count or are even thought about. I can remember hearing of the problems Diahann Carroll had in the 50s and 60s w/MUAs saying that they can use the same colors on her that they used on Lena Horne:confused:....

Here we are in the 21st Century and are still trying to get MUAs, cosmetic companies, beauty editors and the like to "SEE" and hear us.
soapbox.gif
 

JamaicanDiva2

Well-known member
you're welcome! It has bothered me for awhile now, because whenever i read the "golden" skinned options, i look & see they've classified my skintone as "dark," and while this would not bother me if i truly was dark, it bothers me b/c i'm like "Ok - FYI Beyonce & Rhianna are not the darkest women of color! In fact, in their culture (our culture), they'd be considered much more lightskinned! Halle Berry is NOT dark skinned!

It's just saddening the ignorance that still exists in our world today. . . because these magazines that try so hard to prove that they are not racist, by having women of color models & beauty sections that supposedly meet our needs too, are still touting the ancient false belief that lighter is better. . .
 

wiggle

Member
Those magazines are just not being specific enough with their word choice. Terms like "olive" or "dark" are so widely permeated and ill-defined in the cosmetics industry that it seems everybody has a different idea of what they represent. For me, I no longer rely on words -- just look at the pictures! If the model/actress/whoever looks like they have about the same skin color as I do, then it's all systems go.
 

righteothen

Well-known member
I wish they would have a little legend at the side, which showed fair-light light-med, med-dark etc., and show us a picture example of what they think that category is. It would be really quick and simple, and then we would know "okay, in that mag, I'm a light/med, but in this one I'm a fair/light."
 

elektra513

Well-known member
I found this thread through Google, but I have to say it is a good topic. I have such a hard time finding foundations that match me, because I am African-American, so when MAs see me coming they want to put me in a color like Nia Long or someone darker. But because I am yellow-green straight up, I look darker. Plus my skin is sensitive, so wiping my makeup off at the counter so they can match NEVER comes out well. I always have to wait till I get home and start from scratch with a sample.

Without makeup I look ill, pale, and almost deathly. Add in the darkness around my prominent eyes, and I look like Data from Star Trek, lol. So finding makeup that makes me look human is super important to me.

Following trends/tips for makeup in magazines has never worked for me. Thank goodness for Specktra.
 

chocolategoddes

Well-known member
I've always been confused with this and I'm glad this thread cleared it up. Olive skintones are very cool and I've noticed mostly Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern/South Asian people have a true "olive skintone".

I would consider my grandmother, who is Israeli, Sicilian, and Danish, to have an olive complexion. My dad also is olive toned but he is out in the sun all the time and his tan usually masks it.

Same goes for me. If I don't get any sun, I look like this strange mix of yellow, green, and brown. It's very difficult to find foundations cool enough for me when my skin gets that pale. :/
 

crystrill

Well-known member
Yeah, I don't go by magazine suggestions. Their dark is always reallly dark or someone of Rihanna's color when I think a good amount of us are in between those shades.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chocolategoddes

Same goes for me. If I don't get any sun, I look like this strange mix of yellow, green, and brown. It's very difficult to find foundations cool enough for me when my skin gets that pale. :/


I have the hardest time with foundation. A lot of the time I will find a foundation that blends into my color really well, but it's it too red. It's like, "If this was yellow based it would be PERFECT." I swear, every foundation, the color that matches me the most is always red based. But the shade lighter is always the yellow based one (but that color is always too light). I think I finally found my match though - the Revlon Custom Creations in the darkest one they have (or at least the darkest one I've seen) on number 5. I remember liking the MUFE HD but I can't remember if it turned me red or not. The Mat Velvet definitely does!
 

Shadowy Lady

Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by chocolategoddes
I've always been confused with this and I'm glad this thread cleared it up. Olive skintones are very cool and I've noticed mostly Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern/South Asian people have a true "olive skintone".
/


Well, even for ME girls it depends on their ethnic mixing. I’m ME and I would say I’m considered beige or olive but my mom is essentially "white". I think the whole concept of race and colour is pretty messed up in this society. I remember when my family immigrated to Canada back in '91 I was surprised that ppl in North America thought white = Caucasian. This is so far from true. Caucasians can be darker or lighter, same as blacks or Asians. You don’t have to be a NC15/20 to be considered Caucasian, lol! It’s more about things like your skull shape, your likelihood to catch certain disease…than your skin colour. I think the whole idea of putting ppl in too many boxes in the north American society just contributes to more racism. Coz then it means too many ppl are different from each other, when in reality there are only 3 races and at the end we’re all humans :/

Anyway, back to the topic. I agree about the magazines mix-up too. I’ve even seen someone like Jennifer Aniston being considered medium
shockt.gif
. I thought medium would be someone like Freida Pinto. I would be a medium light and JA would be light.
 

cupcake_x

Well-known member
I'm Latina, my mother and MUA's have all said I'm olive. I don't really know, this thread made me paranoid.

I noticed Latina magazine is pretty good with the whole olive/tanned thing. I don't really read many ethnic magazines other than that (the only ones around here besides Latina are ones like Ebony and Essence). So I haven't really noticed.

I have noticed however, non-ethnic magazines like someone else mentioned, Jennifer Anniston being considered medium.
 

wifey806

Well-known member
thank you to the OP! I have 2 questions!

1) I always thought Olive kinda had a greenish tint to it, (like what Chocolate goddess said) is that the right way to describe it?
1.5) and does that mean that Olive skin would look good with Ash-toned hair colors (such as Ash Brown instead of Golden Brown)?

2)I feel like my skin has a looooot of yellow (personally, I don't see any green) so would that make me Olive or Golden?

t.i.a.!
 

banana1234

Well-known member
ive always thought it pretty crappy that in magazines etc, there is reccomendations for extra fair, light, medium and dark skin tones, but their 'dark' is beyonce or rihanna... what about darker than that, the beauty industry, some of the cosmetics companies in england dont make products like foundations for anyone much darker than i would call medium, a lot of people with asian or latin skin tones and darker skin tones have to go some where special for their make up/read specific magazines..
whats up with that?
 

elektra513

Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by wifey806
thank you to the OP! I have 2 questions!

1) I always thought Olive kinda had a greenish tint to it, (like what Chocolate goddess said) is that the right way to describe it?
1.5) and does that mean that Olive skin would look good with Ash-toned hair colors (such as Ash Brown instead of Golden Brown)?

2)I feel like my skin has a looooot of yellow (personally, I don't see any green) so would that make me Olive or Golden?

t.i.a.!


Not the OP, but imo if you don't see any green at all, you're Golden.

When I go to counters to look at foundations, I like to swatch them on my hand before anyone even talks to me. If all I see is yellow, then don't bother trying to sell me something. It has to have some green in it or be a generic neutral base for me to even consider it.

My perfect matching foundations look ugly in the bottles, seriously [well, compared to golden ones]. Like "why would you want that on your face?!" ugly. Sallow, indeed.
 

sarahf

New member
I stumbled on this via google search as well. Sorry to revive an old thread. But I can't agree more. I am caucasian (one parent with mediterranean complexion), and I believe I have very pale "olive" skin, as in a subtle greenish-brown undertone, NOT medium-depth warm toned skin. My hairdresser is asian, and we talked about this. She, like me, only looks good in cool tones, and you can see that although she is much darker complected than I am, we have similar undertones. I think olive is a very confusing term. But I try not to let anyone tell me what looks good on me. As early as age 16, someone advised me that I had warm skin and should wear warm blush and lipstick. I'm proud that I was confident enough in my color sense at that age to refuse to buy the products she was recommending. I look terrible in terra cotta...
 

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