Best paint colors for darker skin color?

I'm blessed with the darker pigmentation and it has been such a pain in the patootie to paint myself that I often just forgo it. When I want to paint somethinig like a geisha, I find that using metallic white (DFX or Wolfe..Snaz is pretty useless for me in that application) it allieviates some of the ashiness, but I still have to apply a good solid base to get what I want.

I don't like neons on my skin...clothes...hair...or even my children, but have to admit that they do pop like no other color. When I have to paint myself, I've found that the metallics work really well for popl factor (and what would normally stain those less pigmentally enhanced doesn't leave much of a mark on me . For Spiderman, I like to us Snaz Red, but I lay down a nice solid base...holes will just introduce the darker skin color underneath and make it look washed out. I sometimes pounce a little IF Narce ontop to give it a little sheen since the industries attempts at a metallic red have been pretty big fails.

I actually love red on black skin. I use Snaz red - beautiful coverage on darker tones. Not a huge contrast, but a nice compliment to the skin tone.



Neon rainbow cakes look FAB on dark skin. The darker the skin, the more I silently hope they will choose a rainbow butterfly. I just love the way it looks.

I agree - avoid pastels for full face designs. If I have a design that is pastel pink and a black child asks for it, I will substitute bright pink and it looks great. Any bright color looks nice, IMO.

AngieAnders wrote:I actually love red on black skin. I use Snaz red - beautiful coverage on darker tones. Not a huge contrast, but a nice compliment to the skin tone.

Neon rainbow cakes look FAB on dark skin. The darker the skin, the more I silently hope they will choose a rainbow butterfly. I just love the way it looks.

I agree - avoid pastels for full face designs. If I have a design that is pastel pink and a black child asks for it, I will substitute bright pink and it looks great. Any bright color looks nice, IMO.

Angie, yes I agree, I love Snaz red on dark skin and know to avoid pastels because they wash out. I'm specifically asking about the DFX neons...do you have experience with that brand of neon on dark skin?
and thanks everyone for your help and insight!!

I have a couple of kids with dark skin who come to the market every week and I have used the DFX neon rainbow on the girl and it looks incredible!!

The boy usually wants to be a tiger and I use the DFX metallic gold, Snaz sparkle orange, and regular white on him and it looks fantastic. One time I used the DFX neon green on him as a base for a horned monster, overlaid with DFX metallic green "scales", and wow it really popped!

Yep, I currently use DFX neon rainbow cakes and they're the best I've found. I have a Kryolan rainbow cake that I hate. I've used Wolfe's too, and it's a winner.

CreateFaces wrote:
Angie, yes I agree, I love Snaz red on dark skin and know to avoid pastels because they wash out. I'm specifically asking about the DFX neons...

Oops, I just realized that much of what I was responding to were posts from back in April. Haha... Sorry about that! That's what I get for being off the forum since November.

Ha, ha that's okay I just didn't want to create a duplicate topic so I continued with this older one.

Angie, thank you, I'm so psyched that I get to use my new splits with confidence now!

It's scary when you get a new paint and are unsure of how it will work on certain skin tones. My very multi-cultural, multi-racial family comes in shades from palest white to medium brown...no dark brown to experiment on

Actually, the competition page on Snaz has a skin tone section.


http://www.snazaroo.us/02/skin.htm

Here in Ireland we have very pale skin so white line work disappears and black is too harsh. I sometimes use purple, dark blue or brown with a little black through it.

maurs wrote: Here in Ireland we have very pale skin so white line work disappears and black is too harsh. I sometimes use purple, dark blue or brown with a little black through it.

Here, near Boston, we have lots of Irish kids so I know what you mean I find Snaz black is not as extreme so long as you don't lay it down thick and go with a nice fine line. I also like to substitute different line colors as well depending on the design.

My daughter takes Irish dance and I dread the day when she's older and the competition requires them to wear makeup. Though my husband is Irish, French and Spanish and I'm 1/2 Italian and 1/2 Irish, she inherited only the Irish pale skin tone and is going to look crazy with that red, red lipstick and silly red rouge on her cheeks.

All colors are DFX

Anita, that's lovely!

I tried out my DFX neon rainbow cake and it was a disaster!! I think I used too much water, it did not look vibrant and it was much too wet. I really need to get the water mix right before I go to this party on Saturday.

Also, your avatar is fantastic! Is that your husband? Did you go to a party dressed like that?

Very fast flowers using DFX. A shame I had no time to make them smile and don't block each other!

That's lovely, what color is on their lips?

Is that just a white and pink loaded round brush?

The lips is metallic red and just either pink with white (small cat tongue brush) or white with pink (big round brush). Gold or purple glitter gel in the middle. The background is a mix between Ben Nye Lumiere Azalea and Bobbi Brown Pink brush. And then some iridescent glitter dusted on top.

Wow, I've never heard of a cat tongue brush. I just looked it up online, pointy filbert, I like it!

Guess it is the English word for it. Bought my fist in UK. I can only find a use for them to paint small butterflies and flowers, but they are really good at that

Cat Tongue brushes....*smacks head* I keep forgetting this one! I have been meaning to add one to my kit. I'm horrible at doing simple flowers.

I did a few dark skins this past weekend. Most of them were mixed so their skin was a nice mocha(the prettiest skin color ever). Even a simple black web and spider looked great! A little white highlight can really do the trick

CottonKandyClown wrote:Most of them were mixed so their skin was a nice mocha(the prettiest skin color ever).

I paint lots of brown skin. I just don't have much experience on very dark skin.

To give you an idea about my clients, their skin hue is comparable to this model, but their tone is slightly darker:


The party that I'm painting is for a young lady from Africa (I can't remember where exactly), her sisters and cousins. She booked me when I met her and her sister while painting at a festival. They didn't get painted there, but loved what they saw and booked me.

They are looking to do something different and thought face/body painting would be fun. One of them is photographing the end results in individual and group shots. I want to do a great job using the best colors and products especially since they're taking pics.

anita wrote:All colors are DFX

Thanks for the compliment.
The DFX neon collors are the worst.
At first I had problems with the water ratio,Always too much water!
I get used to it now.
And yes that is my husband in my avatar.
We had a Halloween party with some friends and 20 children!
I only had to paint 4 adults and 4 children.

Fab painting. Thanks for posting

That is so cool.

Wanted to resurrect this thread because Tamara had mentioned splits she made especially to look good on darker skin. Wondered if anyone had any new info since thread is over one year old. African-American friend of mine asked if I would paint all her girls from church for a parade in a couple of months and I'd love to give them some beautiful colors.

Right now I've got a Carnival and Gelati 50 gms that I'm thinking would look good as well as a Wolfe metallic palette done in two color splits. Oh and I'm crazy for metallics. Don't have any neons except the Carnival.