The Twelve Seasons of Colour Analysis, Explained

Four seasons, three qualities

Colour analysis sorts natural colouring, the colour of your skin, hair and eyes taken together, into seasons. Each season stands for a family of colours that harmonise with that colouring, and each is described by three qualities.

• Warmth: whether the undertone is warm (golden, peachy) or cool (pink, bluish).
• Depth: whether the colouring is light or deep overall.
• Clarity: whether it is clear and bright or soft and muted. Clarity also covers contrast, how sharply hair, skin and eyes stand apart.

Each of the four seasons is one combination of the three:

Season	Warmth	Depth	Clarity
Spring	warm	light to medium	clear
Summer	cool	light to medium	soft
Autumn	warm	medium to deep	soft
Winter	cool	medium to deep	clear

Spring is peach, coral, warm gold and fresh green. Summer is powder blue, dusty rose, lavender and cool grey. Autumn is burnt sienna, amber, olive and chocolate. Winter is ink, cherry, icy turquoise and snow white.

Why four seasons became twelve

Four seasons work well for people whose colouring matches one season on all three qualities. Plenty of colouring does not work that way. Someone can be very light, only slightly warm and fairly clear; someone else can be strikingly soft, with warmth that is hard to pin down. In a four-season system both end up squeezed into a group that fits them on one quality and misses on another, and the palette they are given is half right.

The twelve-season system keeps the four seasons and divides each into three subtypes. The question it adds is simple: of your three qualities, which one leads? That is the quality your palette has to respect first, and the one your subtype is named after.

How the subtypes are named

Each subtype is named after its dominant quality, and takes its secondary quality from its season.

Every season has one subtype named after its temperature, the purest form of the season: Warm Spring, Cool Summer, Warm Autumn and Cool Winter. Its other two subtypes are named after the season's other two qualities:

• Spring is light and clear, so its other subtypes are Light Spring and Bright Spring.
• Summer is light and soft: Light Summer and Soft Summer.
• Autumn is soft and deep: Soft Autumn and Deep Autumn.
• Winter is deep and clear: Deep Winter and Bright Winter.

So a Light Spring is light first and warm second: the lightness sets how pale the colours are, and Spring's warmth keeps them golden rather than rosy. A Deep Winter is deep first and cool second. A Soft Autumn is soft first and warm second.

Across the twelve this gives a tidy pattern. Four subtypes are led by temperature, and the other eight come in pairs: two light, two deep, two bright and two soft. Each pair has one warm and one cool member.

The twelve at a glance

Subtype	Also called	Dominant	Secondary	Colours it is known for
Light Spring		light	warm	cream, peach, pale apricot, soft spring green
Warm Spring	True Spring	warm	clear	warm gold, coral, marigold, fresh green
Bright Spring	Clear Spring	clear	warm	vivid coral, turquoise, warm gold, clear green
Light Summer		light	cool	powder blue, dusty rose, lavender, pale lilac
Cool Summer	True Summer	cool	soft	cool blue, raspberry, plum, slate blue
Soft Summer		soft	cool	dusty rose, sage, mauve, muted cocoa
Soft Autumn		soft	warm	camel, taupe, dusty olive, soft peach-beige
Warm Autumn	True Autumn	warm	soft	amber, copper, terracotta, olive
Deep Autumn	Dark Autumn	deep	warm	chocolate, burgundy, burnt sienna, olive
Deep Winter	Dark Winter	deep	cool	ink, deep emerald, crimson, black
Cool Winter	True Winter	cool	clear	true red, ink blue, cold pine, snow white
Bright Winter	Clear Winter	clear	cool	vivid magenta, electric blue, black, snow white

The third quality, the one in neither column, sits in the middle of the season's range. A Warm Autumn is medium in depth, deeper than a Soft Autumn and lighter than a Deep Autumn.

The wheel and its neighbours

Laid out in a circle, the twelve subtypes run from one to the next with no hard edges: Light Spring, Warm Spring, Bright Spring, Bright Winter, Cool Winter, Deep Winter, Deep Autumn, Warm Autumn, Soft Autumn, Soft Summer, Cool Summer, Light Summer, and back to Light Spring. Two more links cross the circle: Warm Spring to Warm Autumn, and Cool Summer to Cool Winter.

The neighbours are the subtypes people confuse, and there are two kinds.

Across a season border, same dominant quality, opposite warmth. Light Spring and Light Summer are both led by lightness. Bright Spring and Bright Winter are both led by clarity. Soft Autumn and Soft Summer are both led by softness, and Deep Autumn and Deep Winter by depth. Each pair looks alike at first glance, and warmth is what separates them. Because warmth is the weaker quality in all eight, it is also the hardest to read. Our guide to warm or cool undertone is the place to start with these.

Same warmth, different depth and clarity. Warm Spring and Warm Autumn are equally warm: Warm Spring is lighter and clearer (warm gold, coral), Warm Autumn deeper and softer (amber, copper, olive). Cool Summer and Cool Winter are equally cool: Cool Summer is softer and lighter (slate blue, plum), Cool Winter clearer and deeper (true red, ink). Here warmth will not help, and the comparison to make is a clear colour against a softened version of it.

Inside each season, the subtype named after temperature sits between its two siblings. Warm Autumn borders both Soft Autumn and Deep Autumn, and Cool Winter borders both Deep Winter and Bright Winter.

Each subtype page on this site has a section that tells it apart from its neighbours.

True, Clear and Dark: the other names

Different books and courses use different words for the same subtypes. On this site we name every subtype after its dominant quality, and these are the equivalents you will meet elsewhere:

• True is the subtype named after temperature: True Spring is Warm Spring, True Summer is Cool Summer, True Autumn is Warm Autumn, True Winter is Cool Winter.
• Clear is Bright: Clear Spring is Bright Spring, and Clear Winter is Bright Winter.
• Dark is Deep: Dark Autumn is Deep Autumn, and Dark Winter is Deep Winter.

Light Spring, Light Summer, Soft Summer and Soft Autumn usually keep their names everywhere. If a quiz elsewhere called you a True Winter and this site calls you a Cool Winter, you have been given the same answer twice.

Where you sit on the wheel

Finding your place follows the logic of the system. Start with warmth, which puts you in the warm seasons (Spring and Autumn) or the cool ones (Summer and Winter). Then look at depth and clarity, which choose the season. Finally ask which of your three qualities is the strongest; that one names your subtype. Our step-by-step guide to finding your colour season at home walks through it with nothing more than daylight and a few pieces of fabric.

The free colour test is a short quiz that runs in your browser and estimates your season. The personal colour analysis works from a few questions about your hair, eyes and skin plus one to three photos taken in natural light, determines your season and your subtype within it, and sends a PDF report by e-mail with your recommended colours by name, the colours to avoid, wardrobe and style, accessories and metal tones, make-up and hair colours, and personal tips.