A very very common question I get and have seen floating around the internet is "Why in MAC is NC yellow toned when C means cool and NW is pink toned when W means warm"
Now there is a very nice technical explanation for this that I will now give. Once you get it it actually isn't that complicated and basically boils down to the fact that MAC likes to be different compared to everyone!
As you know most companies categorize their foundations as Warm, Neutral or Cool. A few companies list their colours like shade N1, C3, W7 and so on and so forth. Now for almost every single brand a cool toned foundation will be pink toned and a warm toned foundation will be yellow toned. The reason for this is because colour wheel used by cosmetic companies divides cool and warm across Primary Red compared to the usual artist colour wheel which places the line dividing cool and warm across Primary Blue
Now what does this mean when it comes to MAC foundations? MAC uses the conventional artist's palette, placing the divide between cool and warm across Primary Blue rather than Primary Red. So on the conventional palette Yellow becomes Cool, Pink becomes Warm. Therefore when you see MAC NC foundations which means Neutral Cool they are talking about a Neutral Yellow undertone to the foundation and NW which means Neutral Warm they are talking about Neutral Pink undertone to the foundation.
A few other brands follow the artist's palette such as Ben Nye. But the vast majority of cosmetic companies use the standard beauty industry palette.
Just as a side note to this; the beauty industries palette was designed to be used on skin which can vary in tone from ivory to a deep chocolate brown, compared to the artist's palette which was designed to be used on canvas which is white.
Hope you now understand why MAC's foundations seem to be reversed when it comes to the undertone. Because they are! They use the opposite colour palette compared to other brands.
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