This week, I checked in on the online communities making undertones a main topic of conversation. Additionally, Tate McRae joins the celebrity fragrance market, and Sephora expands its footprint in the U.K. with a partnership with Marks & Spencer.
Does that pink blush look orange on you? Maybe you’re an olive
New York City-based content creator Olivia always knew she had fair skin. But most makeup geared for pale skin tones didn’t seem to suit her — until she realized she wasn’t just fair, she had a fair olive skin tone.
“My dad’s Middle Eastern, so I’m very Mediterranean. Like, I always felt my skin was kind of yellow. But I didn’t know you could be olive and pale,” said Olivia, who now posts about finding makeup for her fair, olive complexion under the handle @theporcelainveil. “Making content, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I am like the prototype of olive. Like, very undeniably, I am green.”
That may seem like a niche category, but those recommendations have resonated with viewers: A TikTok Olivia posted in May describing Sephora Collection’s Pink Frosting lip liner as the “ultimate cool toned light pink for fair olives” has more than 1.5 million views.
Brands like Fenty Beauty helped make an extensive shade range from light to deep skin tones a non-negotiable for foundation and complexion launches. But many beauty consumers are evolving the conversation around skin tones from overall depth of complexion to undertones, like warm, cool and neutral.
“I think there’s always been this conversation of undertone, but with the social content becoming more amplified, whether it’s through TikTok or Instagram, there’s more heightened awareness around it,” said Jeremy Lowenstein, chief marketing officer at Milani Cosmetics. “People are educating themselves in a more democratized way on how you pick the best foundation or blush or whatever you’re looking for, for your skin tone and your undertone.”
Olive skin tones, which are often described as having a “greenish” tint, seem to stir up particular confusion, however. That’s sent many beauty consumers to online platforms like Reddit looking for help.
According to data from Reddit, as of September, views on the r/Fairolives subreddit rose 12.5% year over year to 45.7 million views, while the r/OliveMUA subreddit generated 54.3 million views, representing a 6.5% year-over-year increase.
“The internet and social media have made the consumer very knowledgeable, and it’s given people a way to kind of discover more about themselves and makeup,” said Olivia, who said she also turns to Reddit for product recommendations for olive skin tones. “They have the resources to realize, ‘Oh, this is what I look like, too. This person’s having this [same] experience. Like, wait, this lip liner turns orange on me, but it’s so popular.’”
Those subreddits often include group discussions about the challenges of finding the right foundation shade, or users bemoaning how mauve or pink blush often turns orange on them or can make their skin seem dull. Users on those platforms may identify themselves by a flair describing an even more specific skin tone, like “light neutral olive.” Or they may indicate where they are on their skin tone journey: One user on the r/OliveMUA subreddit uses the flair, “I have no idea please help me.”
While recommendations and product reviews can be found all over the internet, beauty shoppers feel comfortable turning their makeup problems over to Reddit in part because of the perception that its users are everyday consumers like themselves.
“If you look at reviews on Sephora and a lot of other online stores, a lot of them are incentivized, and that is a huge pain point right now in the beauty community,” said Joie, a moderator on the r/Sephora subreddit. “When I’m talking to somebody on Reddit about their opinion on, say, a lipstick, I feel that it’s a more honest review than what I would see on the Sephora reviews.”
And recommendations from forums or social media can help fill in the gaps where online photos still can’t offer true-to-life representations of how a foundation or a blush may appear on the skin.
“Online, everyone’s screens are differently calibrated. So it’s never a true representation,” said Lowenstein. “We’ve created content before of, ‘Are you blue undertoned? Yellow undertoned?’ But you have to know how to diagnose that yourself a little bit.”
Some brands have emerged as standouts in the diversity of their undertones. Olivia cited makeup artist Lisa Eldridge’s namesake brand as offering some of the best makeup for olive skin tones; Joie noted that Armani Luminous Silk is particularly beloved on Reddit for its shade range, as are brands like Fenty and Danessa Myricks.
But consumers are still looking for more undertone diversity across the market.
“The conversation now has been not just adding shade tones, but also including more of the undertones,” said Joie of what consumers are looking for from brands. “Because you could have cool, but you could have somebody who is very, very cool and somebody who’s just kind of more cool, almost neutral. So I think more specifics among the undertones might become a bigger thing.”
Executive moves:
- Cécile Budge is named CEO of Fable & Mane. She previously served as chief operating officer of the brand’s holding company, Nirvana Brands. As CEO, Budge succeeds Fable & Mane co-founder Akash Mehta, whose father, Dilesh Mehta, is the owner of Nirvana Brands.
- Coty appoints Kara Langan as gm of U.S. Consumer Beauty, effective October 13. Langan previously served as chief marketing officer of face and skin care at Evermark and has also held roles at Johnson & Johnson Consumer, Elizabeth Arden and Revlon.
News to know:
- E.l.f. announces new fragrance and body-care line E.l.f. POP. The collection will launch in January with scents inspired by the Norwegian town of Tromsø and include a fragrance mist and body cream priced at $13 each. The mass beauty brand previously launched a limited-edition fragrance with fast fashion brand H&M.
- Tate McRae launches her first fragrance, Tate 01. The perfume was made with Scent Beauty, the company behind Sabrina Carpenter’s fragrance line, and will launch at Ulta Beauty in October.
- Sephora announces a partnership with Marks & Spencer. The LVMH-owned beauty giant will open Sephora-branded shopping areas in 100 M&S stores and sell products on the U.K. department store’s website. The partnership comes three years after Sephora relaunched in the U.K., where it now has over a dozen stores.
Stat of the week:
According to McKinsey data, roughly half of consumers plan to spend about the same amount during the 2026 holiday season as they did in 2025. Around 10% said they had already started shopping for the holidays in Q3 2026.
In the headlines:
Target is opening a store in the Hamptons. It’s not red. The Swan was horrifying. How much has plastic surgery culture actually evolved? Here’s where media insiders actually get their news.
Listen in:
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack is joined by veteran exec Jamiee Holmes to unpack “eye patch gate” and why innovation spurred Fel Beauty’s quick Sephora sellout.
Need a Glossy recap?
Beauty creators want brands to go off-script. Exclusive: Coty names new U.S. consumer beauty chief as it rebuilds brand support. The Lipstick Lesbians: “AI can recommend a lipstick. It can’t tell you how it feels.” Beauty brand Cakes wants to turn its TikTok virality into an owned media strategy.
