How to choose the right colour frame for your glasses
Oct 01, 2024 in Glasses & Sunglasses

So you’re choosing a new pair of glasses. Finding the right pair of glasses is important – they’ll help to frame your eyes and polish off your personal style. You've worked out what glasses will suit your face shape, now you’re trying to figure out what colour glasses will look the best. You may not have considered it but your eye colour, hair colour, and skin tone can have an impact on how your glasses look. Read on to find tips on the colours to look for to help complement and enhance your look.

How to match your glasses frame colour to your skin tone
Skin tone is often overlooked when it comes to choosing a pair of glasses but it can have a big impact on how your glasses look when you wear them.
Skin tone can be categorised into three different tones – warm, cool, and neutral. To find your skin’s undertone, take a look at the veins on your wrist. If they appear blue, you likely have a cool undertown. If your veins appear green, you have a warm undertone. And if they look like a mixture of blue and green you have a neutral undertone. You can also judge your skin tone by looking at jewellery – if you tend to suit gold jewellery, you likely have a warm undertone while cool undertones suit silver jewellery. If you tend to suit both, you have a neutral tone.
Choose a colour of frames that compliment your undertone – cool hues for cool tones, warm colours for warm tones. Neutral tones will suit almost anything!
Cool Tones
Cool skin tones suit cool colours – think blues, bluey-greens, cool-toned purples, and silver or gunmetal. You might also enjoy grey or clear acrylic frames for something a bit unique.
Neutral Tones
Neutral skin tones are lucky as they suit all colours. Check out our recommendations for good eye and hair colour matches further down this article to help you choose the right colour glasses to suit you.
Warm Tones
Warm skin tones work best with other warm colours – golden hues, oranges, reds, and burgundies all look great on you. If you’re partial to metal frames, opt for gold or rose gold shades to add vibrancy to your face.

How to match your glasses frame colour to your eyes
Once you’ve identified your skin tone and which colours will suit you, you can also use your eye colour to help you choose the right glasses. Your frames will be right next to your eyes, which means they have the power to really make your eyes pop.
Best glasses for brown eyes
Most brown eyes work well with warmer tones, such as golds, greens and darker yellows. Tortoiseshell is a really complimentary pattern with lots of warm hues that will highlight your eyes really well.
Best glasses for blue eyes
Blue and grey tones like gunmetal, navy, or silver compliment blue eyes but they are also highlighted by rich brown shades. Tortoiseshell, chocolate brown, and beige all make your eyes pop.
Best glasses for amber eyes
Jewel tones like purple, dark green, or cobalt blue make a striking contrast to the honey hues of amber eyes. Or, if you’re looking for something more subtle, go for a natural tone like brown or gold.
Best glasses for hazel eyes
Hazel eyes have the benefit of suiting many different shades. Golden hues will bring out the green flecks in your eyes. Brown, olive green, and amber colours will help the green and gold pop. The soft pastel tint of lavender can make the brown and green hues in hazel eyes stand out. You have a lot of options.
Best glasses for green eyes
Dark and earthy colours with gold tones are great for green eyes, helping the emerald hues shine bright. Alternatively, if you want to experiment with colour, go for a contrasting shade like magenta or burgundy.
Best glasses for grey eyes
Grey eyes are unique and alluring. Highlight those by matching the colour of your frames with your eyes for a monochromatic, sophisticated look. Alternatively, you can also try a pair of bright blue or purple frames to help highlight your eyes even more.

How to match your glasses frame colour to your hair colour
Another feature to look at when choosing glasses is your hair. Just like eyes, different hair colours will suit different shades of glasses frames. As with skin, hair can have warm and cool tones and will suit different shades depending on this.
Best glasses for blonde hair
Blondes with strawberry, golden, honey or bronze hues will suit light brown, tortoiseshell, bright orange, nude, coral, red, pink, khaki green and gold metal frames.
If your locks are a light ashy, sandy or platinum tone, try darker hues, dark tortoiseshell, and grey glasses. Pastel colours will also really suit you and will play off your cooler tones.
Best glasses for red hair
Red hair naturally suits warm colours like gold, yellow, copper, warm brown, tortoiseshell, bright blue and burgundy. For fairer red heads, try darker shades to contrast such as dark blue, dark green, or black.
Best glasses for light brown hair
Brown hair suits lots of different frame colours. Light brown hair with warm tones will be complemented by reds, purples, greens, and browns while cool tones will better suit pinks, purples, or blues.
Best glasses for dark brown hair
For dark brown hair, opt for tortoiseshell, forest green, or red. You might also find that metal frames are also very stylish. If you have a cooler complexion, go for silver or, choose gold for warm tones.
Best glasses for grey hair
Grey is a lovely neutral colour however, after we go grey, our skintone usually pales as well which makes colours that once suited us look a little too dark. This doesn’t mean you can’t be a bit more experimental with the glasses you choose.
Try reds, navy blue, khaki green, or deep purple for a contrast to light grey hair or bluey-green, orange, or metal frames for those with dark grey hair.
Best glasses for black hair
Black hair is another colour that is highly versatile. Try darker tones like black, gunmetal, dark blue, or dark green for a sleek and stylish look or go wild with some bright pink, orange, or lime green for a pop of fun colour. Metal glasses frames also look really good with black hair – silver for cool complexions, gold for warmer tones.

Still unsure of the right glasses for you?
Finding the right pair of glasses is important for your comfort and style and the colour is a good place to start. But don’t be afraid to experiment – if you want a bold look go for a single solid colour. Or if you want a more subtle style go for an opaque frame with a hint of colour or a rimless design with a coloured edge. Additionally, don't limit yourself to matching just your skin,eye, or hair colour – some mottled plastic frames will have a mix of colours that can compliment all 3. Alternatively why not match some colours and have a contrasting accent colour? Ultimately, don't be afraid to head into your local Leightons branch to try something on. You might find a hidden gem you may not have tried otherwise.
If you’re still feeling unsure about your decision, we have plenty of other resources for you to read in order to help you find the perfect pair. Check out our glasses frame size guide to help you work out the ideal size for your face. And, if you already know your prescription but need help understanding it a little better, learn more about your prescription with our helpful guide.