I’ve known about the Pantone matching system at Sephora for a while now. I remember that there were only two outposts (or something like that) and one was at the Times Square store in NYC. More recently they’ve been heavily promoting the program and I think that almost all the stores have the system in place. This is wonderful. Wearing the wrong color, in any sense of the expression, can really affect your look. The “Color IQ” system at Sephora works like this: they take 3 pictures, one on your neck, cheek, and above your temple. Your Pantone color is an average of the 3 skin photos. Mine is 1Y01. The sales associate helping me explained that the 1 means I am the lightest on the color spectrum (not surprised), and the Y means I have yellow undertones (No, not me, not yellow, I practically look pink, I have pink undertones, I swear!). I’m learning to cope with this number, yellow is completely foreign to me. Regardless, Color IQ is very cool. When you get your number you can input it into Sephora.com and it lists all the foundation products that work for you.

The sales associate pulled a BB cream by Tarte for me to try. I’ve never really used any of their products so I was curious to try a sample. He suggested that I pair it with NARS Siberia for a full-coverage look, if I so desired to look extra porcelain.