How Rougen works

Rougen helps you find blush and lip colors that suit your natural coloring, then lets you see them on your own face before you spend a cent.

Our shade data

We keep a database of 154 real, currently sold blush and lip shades. For each one we record the brand, product, shade name, format, finish and US retail price, and we estimate its applied color as a hex value from published swatches and descriptions. Those colors are approximations: packaging, skin, lighting and your screen all change how a shade looks.

How we match shades to seasons

Every color is converted to CIELAB, a color space built around human vision. From it we read three things: warmth (hue angle), depth (lightness) and clarity (chroma). The 12 seasons sit at fixed points on those same three axes, and each shade is matched to the seasons nearest to it. The quiz places you on the same map, so your results and your shades speak the same language.

How we measure dupes

We compare colors with CIEDE2000, the industry-standard color-difference formula. A shade only counts as a dupe when it costs at most 70% of the original and the color difference is small. Finish and formula can still differ, which we flag.

The virtual try-on is private

The try-on uses Google's open-source MediaPipe face tracking, running inside your browser. Your camera feed and photos are processed on your device and never uploaded.

How we make money

Some retailer links are affiliate links: if you buy, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Commissions never change which shades we recommend; rankings come from the color maths above.