A shelf asks you to pick from what already exists. We ask the opposite question: what color do you actually want? Almost everybody can see it in their head and still stall at the sentence. So here are the five ways to say a shade precisely enough to blend, and the four properties that turn a vague idea into a spec somebody can mix from.
Five ways to say it · four properties to match · one sentence that is enough
None of these is wrong. They are different amounts of information, and knowing which one you are using is most of the work.
“Brick.” “Mauve.” “Oxblood.” Names travel well but they stretch: one person’s brick is another person’s rust. Useful as a starting point, never as the whole brief.
“A brick, but the brown kind, not the orange kind.”Concrete and easy to be accurate with — a flower, a scarf, a ribbon, the cover of a book, the one lipstick you have worn down to the plastic. Objects are more honest than adjectives.
“The color of the inside of a red rose, not the petals.”Powerful, and the easiest to get wrong: a filter, a warm room, or a phone’s automatic white balance can move a color a long way. Daylight and no filter fixes most of it.
“The second photo, the one without the ring light.”A HEX or RGB code is unambiguous — six characters and there is nothing left to interpret. It is the shortest brief in the world, and the only one nobody can misread.
“#7A0A16 — and take it a touch less red.”Warm, cold, loud, quiet, sunburnt, dusty, lit from inside. It sounds vague but it is often the most useful sentence you can write, because it says which direction to move in when the first pass is close but not right.
“Something that looks expensive in low light.”Put a loose one next to a tight one and the brief is closed: a name tells us the family, a code or a photo pins the exact place inside it.
“A dusty rose, near #B96A6A, but deeper.”When two people disagree about whether a shade is “the same”, they are usually disagreeing about one of these — and once you name which one, the argument ends.
The family: red, pink, orange, purple, brown. This is the word most people stop at, and it is only a quarter of the answer.
How light or dark it sits. A rose and a wine can be the same hue and still read as two different colors on a face. “Deeper” or “lighter” is a full instruction.
How loud it is. Brick and rust are cousins; the difference is how much gray is in the mix. “Dustier” and “cleaner” are the words that move this one.
Whether it leans warm (orange, gold, brown), cool (blue, purple, pink) or neutral. This is the property people feel first and name last — and the one that decides if a shade sits on your face or fights it.
Matte, satin, glossy. Strictly it is not color at all, but a matte and a gloss of the same code do not read the same on a lip, so say it in the same breath.
“Not right” cannot be blended from. “Deeper and a little cooler” can — in one pass, without starting over.
Fill this in and you have written a shade brief. You do not need all four blanks — but each one you fill shortens the read.
I want a [depth], [warm or cool] [hue] that looks like [the thing, photo or code], in a [finish].
Worked example: “I want a medium-deep, cool rose-brown that looks like the leather on an old book cover, in a satin.”
Send it exactly like that, in your own words, with a photo if you have one. If something in it cannot be blended — a true metallic is a different chemistry, for instance — you will hear that back before anything is mixed, in plain words, with the closest honest version offered instead.
A phone camera is a very good instrument with a few strong opinions. These six habits remove almost all of them.
These five do more work than they can carry on their own. They are not banned — just expected to arrive with a friend.
Ten different colors wearing one coat. Say nude and the depth, or nude and the undertone, and it becomes exact.
Runs from a soft raspberry to something nearly black. Depth is the whole difference here.
Brown-red or orange-red, and people mean opposite ones. Point at a brick you can see, or say which side of red it leans.
Somewhere between purple and dusty pink, and the gray in it varies enormously. “Mauve, and more gray than pink” says it in six words.
Usually means one of three things: blue-red, true red, or orange-red. Say which, and say how bright.
A real brief, and a good one — it just needs a photo of your lips in daylight and the word deeper, softer or warmer alongside it.
Every one of our 120 shades carries its own code. Pick the nearest one, then move it: deeper, lighter, warmer, cooler, dustier. A code is not a commitment — it is a coordinate, and the direction you move from it is the brief.
If you are still deciding which family suits your skin, the two-minute skin tone read narrows the field before you write a single word, and the shade finder gives you a starting point when you have no vocabulary for the color at all.
“Any color you want. We make it.”
Yes — that is one of the most accurate briefs there is. Daylight, no filter, the bullet in frame, and one line saying whether you want it the same, deeper, warmer or softer. If the shade is discontinued, the photo is the only record of it that matters.
That is a good starting point and a poor finish, because two screens show the same name two different ways. Send the name and a photo, or the name and how you would move it. We describe the color; we do not copy another brand’s product, and we are not affiliated with any of them.
A HEX code is six characters that name one exact color, like #7A0A16. Most phones can read one off a photo: open the picture, use the color picker or a free eyedropper app, and tap the part of the image you mean. Your shade library also prints the code under every shade, so you can borrow the nearest one and move from there.
One sentence with three parts: the color you mean, the direction it should lean, and the finish. “Deeper than a true red, a little cool, in a matte” is complete. You will get a confirmation of exactly how it was read before anything is mixed.
Some things are chemistry rather than color — a true liquid metal, for instance, or a color that needs an ingredient a lip product cannot carry safely. You will hear that back in plain words, with the closest version that can be made, before any money moves.
No. Writing the brief and getting the read confirmed is free — you only pay when you order a shade, and a trial size exists so a first read can be tested before you commit to a full one.
Made to order
Every 10 Million Shades color is blended after you order it, for one person. Shipping, timing and returns all follow from that — so here is the whole of it, in plain words.
Standard shipping $8.00 — 3 to 5 business days after dispatch. Express shipping $15.00 — 1 to 2 business days after dispatch.
Free standard shipping on orders of $70.00 and over.
Your shade is confirmed with you by email before anything is mixed, so your order does not leave us the same day it is placed. Delivery estimates are counted from dispatch, not from the moment you order.
Custom-blended shades are final sale for hygiene and safety. That is exactly why we make a trial shade — test the match before you commit to a full size.
Describe it
Start with your email, and we will ask for the color in your own words and answer with the shade read before you order.
Your address is used for this list only. Prefer email? hello@10millionshades.com