Want to quickly make your teeth appear whiter? Choosing the correct undertone in your lipstick or lip gloss can help! Makeup colors are based on the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. Blue hues tend to cancel out the yellow and accentuate the white in teeth. Warm red or yellow undertones, by contrast, will exaggerate the yellow in your teeth. So when shopping for lipstick, try to select shades that have a cool blue undertone.
Red Lipstick
Red Lipstick options are usually a range of blue, pink and orange tones. Blue tones will provide the greatest whitening effect, pink tones are relatively neutral and orange tones will magnify the yellow tones in your teeth. Savvy makeup experts lean toward blue undertones to take advantage of this whitening trick with their clients.
Pink Lipstick
Pink Lipstick can be less straight-forward. The key to pink lipstick is again looking for one with a blue underdone instead of yellow. Pink lipstick with a blue or purplish shade gives teeth a whiter appearance more so than one that contains a yellow or orange tint.
Nude Lipstick
Nude lipsticks usually range in the brown or peach category which, unfortunately, makes teeth appear more yellow. The best strategy is choosing a cool pinkish nude for the best results. Generally speaking though, light colored lipsticks don’t provide enough contrast to your teeth to make them appear whiter.
Darker Lipstick
Berry and plum colored lipsticks are a great choice, since they help brighten your pearly whites by providing a contrast to the light color of your teeth.
Some Popular Choices
MAC lipstick in Ruby Woo
Revlon Cherries in the Snow
NYX Cosmetics Liquid Lipstick in Maxx Out
Urban Decay Vice Lipstick in Acai
L’Oreal Paris Satin Lipstick in Red Passion
For Extra Oomph!
A layer of lip gloss on top of your cool toned lipstick will make teeth appear even whiter and brighten your whole look.
For a More Permanent White
For a more lasting whitening effect, give professional whitening a try. Tollgate Orthodontics offers both custom whitening trays to use at home and in-office speed whitening services. Give us a call if you’d like to give these a try. Whitening toothpastes are readily available as well but can be very abrasive to teeth, so use only as directed by your dental hygienist.