Foundation Shade Translator

MAC NC42 → Fenty, NARS, Maybelline, NYX, Hourglass, Charlotte Tilbury.

Pick a brand + shade above to see cross-brand equivalents.

What this does

Every brand uses its own shade language. MAC has NC and NW. Fenty uses numbers. NARS uses light-medium-deep with subnumbers. The result: a foundation you love at Sephora becomes guesswork the moment you walk into a Boots, a Maybelline aisle, or a brand you have never tried. The Foundation Shade Translator gives you a curated cross-brand lookup — pick your current shade, see equivalents across major brands, ordered by closeness.

This is not an AI doing color theory at runtime. It is a curated mapping table built by reviewing brand swatches, undertone descriptions, and community shade comparisons. The matches favor accuracy over completeness — when a brand truly does not have an equivalent in your range, we say so instead of inventing one.

What you'll get

  • Your shade matched across 6+ major brands
  • Undertone (cool / neutral / warm) marked on every match
  • Confidence indicator — exact, close, or "best available"
  • Direct search links to each matched product

Try it with

  • MAC NC42
  • Fenty 290
  • NARS Stromboli
  • Maybelline Fit Me 220

FAQ

How accurate are the matches?

Foundation matching across brands is inherently imperfect because every brand formulates differently. We mark each match with a confidence level: exact, close, or best available.

Which brands are covered?

Launch coverage focuses on MAC, Fenty Beauty, NARS, Maybelline, NYX, and L'Oréal True Match. We expand this list based on user requests.

Why not photo-based matching?

Photo-based shade matching is notoriously unreliable across lighting conditions. Curated, brand-to-brand mapping based on swatches and undertone is more honest.

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