Makeup Color Wheel
Traditional makeup wheels use red, yellow and blue. Choose neighbors for related colors or opposites for contrast. Screen wheels can give different opposites. Neither predicts a product on skin.
Try two colors
Choose a pair, then compare it in three placements. The two display colors stay the same.
Orange base, Blue as a thin liner. Display colors #E78A32 and #3867B8.
Placement illustration, not a face preview. Gray backgrounds are not skin tones.
How to read a color wheel for eye makeup
In the traditional teaching layout, red, yellow and blue are primary colors. Orange, green and violet sit between them; the six intermediate names, such as red-orange, fill the remaining positions.
Neighbors (analogous colors) sit beside each other. Start with one family and add a little of either neighbor. Opposites (complementary colors) sit across the wheel. Use one as the main area and the other as an accent, then compare how you like the balance.
Neutrals such as taupe, brown and gray can provide a base without adding another strong hue. A product called “brown” can still lean orange, red or another hue, so its label alone does not place it on this wheel.
For a different task, read our color-correcting makeup guide. For advice organized by iris color, see eyeshadow for your eye color.
Makeup color wheel: the 12-color reference
These are illustrative screen colors, not product matches. Traditional opposites follow our six-step layout; the HSL column rotates the same display color by 180°.
How the display colors and screen opposites are calculated
These display colors are illustrative choices, not cosmetic shades or an RYB-to-RGB conversion. RYB has no single standardized set of display coordinates. Our traditional pairs are six positions apart in this teaching layout. The nearest-name result depends on our chosen swatches: it uses the shortest circular HSL hue distance, with the earlier table row winning a tie. It does not measure visual similarity.
Why does red sometimes pair with green and sometimes cyan? Traditional red and green are across this artist-style layout. In CSS HSL, red is 0° and its 180° screen rotation is cyan. Those are different definitions of an opposite, not two competing product recommendations.
| Traditional name / display swatch | Traditional opposite | Neighbors | HSL opposite / closest name in this table |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red#D93838 · 0.0° | Green | Red-violet Red-orange | #38D9D9180.0° · Blue-green |
| Red-orange#DF6536 · 16.7° | Blue-green | Red Orange | #36B0DF196.7° · Blue-green |
| Orange#E78A32 · 29.2° | Blue | Red-orange Yellow-orange | #328FE7209.2° · Blue |
| Yellow-orange#E7B632 · 43.8° | Blue-violet | Orange Yellow | #3263E7223.8° · Blue |
| Yellow#D9CE38 · 55.9° | Violet | Yellow-orange Yellow-green | #3843D9235.9° · Blue-violet |
| Yellow-green#92B33D · 76.8° | Red-violet | Yellow Green | #5E3DB3256.8° · Blue-violet |
| Green#398759 · 144.6° | Red | Yellow-green Blue-green | #873967324.6° · Red-violet |
| Blue-green#328F95 · 183.6° | Red-orange | Green Blue | #9538323.6° · Red |
| Blue#3867B8 · 218.0° | Orange | Blue-green Blue-violet | #B8893838.0° · Yellow-orange |
| Blue-violet#6550AD · 253.5° | Yellow-orange | Blue Violet | #98AD5073.5° · Yellow-green |
| Violet#914AAB · 283.9° | Yellow | Blue-violet Red-violet | #64AB4A103.9° · Yellow-green |
| Red-violet#B6447D · 330.0° | Yellow-green | Violet Red | #44B67D150.0° · Green |
Check the idea with the products you own
- Choose two products intended for use around the eyes. Do not assume a face pigment is eye-safe.
- Swatch them side by side under the same light. Try a larger patch of one with a small accent of the other.
- Reverse the proportions and compare at normal viewing distance. Keep the combination you prefer.
Finish, opacity, lighting and application change the result. This illustration cannot predict pigment mixing, match a product, identify skin tone or decide which combination suits you.
Record your own plan on a makeup face chart, or use the random makeup look generator for a complete routine idea.
Sources and limits
The traditional names in the table come from Adobe's explanation. The six-step pairing is our conventional teaching layout. The screen calculation follows CSS HSL; it is not a perceptually uniform distance or a physical makeup model.