# Hair Colour by Season > Your best hair colour follows your natural colouring. Warm seasons (Spring and Autumn) suit golden, honey, copper and chestnut; cool seasons (Summer and Winter) suit ash, pearl, cool brown and black. Your subtype refines it: light subtypes stay light, deep ones stay deep, soft ones want blended tones and clear ones want shine. Dye changes the picture in the mirror, never your undertone. Source: https://colour-sense.com/en/guides/hair-color-by-season (ColourSense, Updated 2026-09-30) ## Your natural hair is part of your colouring Your hair is the largest area of colour next to your face, and it frames everything else. In colour analysis it counts as much as your skin and eyes, because it carries all three axes we work with. Its reflect, golden and coppery or ashy and silvery, shows **warmth**. Its level, from pale blonde to black, sets **depth**. Its shine and its contrast with your skin show **clarity**: clear colourings tend to have glossy hair that stands apart from the skin, while soft colourings have hair made of several close, slightly dusty tones that sit near the skin tone. Natural hair usually agrees with the undertone of your skin and eyes. That is why the colour you grew up with, or the one at your roots, is the best starting point for any change. Two working rules follow from it. Change the reflect only in the direction of your undertone: warmer if you are warm, cooler if you are cool. And move the depth by a shade or two rather than jumping across the scale, unless your subtype is known to carry it. If you are not sure which way your undertone runs, read [warm or cool undertone](https://colour-sense.com/en/guides/warm-or-cool-undertone) first. The directions below are grouped by season, then by subtype. ## Spring: golden blonde to light copper Spring hair is warm and light to medium: golden blonde, honey, strawberry blonde and light copper-brown, with a natural shine. Keep the gold. Ash toners and flat, dark shades take away the warmth and the light that make a Spring look lively. ### Light Spring [Light Spring](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/spring/light-spring) is led by lightness, so its hair stays light: buttery and light golden blonde, pale honey, a soft strawberry. Fine golden highlights suit it better than chunky ones. Dark brown overpowers the gentle warmth of the skin, and platinum or ash blonde leaves the face pale and flat. ### Warm Spring [Warm Spring](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/spring/warm-spring) is the warmest Spring and can go furthest into gold and copper: golden blonde, warm honey-brown, strawberry and golden copper. This is the Spring that wears a red most easily. Ash and blue-black both look cold beside its peachy skin. ### Bright Spring [Bright Spring](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/spring/bright-spring) has more contrast than the other Springs, so it can carry a deeper, clear warm brown or a chestnut with copper lights, as well as golden blonde. Shine matters more than the exact shade: a glossy warm brown suits it, while a dull, mousy or ashy one mutes its clear eyes. ## Summer: ash blonde to cool brown Summer hair is cool and soft: ash blonde, pearl and cool light-to-medium brown, with a silvery, dusty sheen. Keep it cool and keep it soft. Brassy gold, orange-copper and blue-black are the directions that work against a Summer. ### Light Summer [Light Summer](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/summer/light-summer) suits light ash blonde, pearl blonde and a pale, cool blonde with a hint of beige. Fine highlights in the same cool family add light without adding heat. Dark brown weighs the airy colouring down, and a yellow-gold blonde clashes with the pink in the skin. ### Cool Summer [Cool Summer](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/summer/cool-summer) is the coolest Summer: ash brown, cool medium brown and dark ash blonde. It greys well, because silver arrives in its own family. Copper, auburn and golden highlights look borrowed next to its rosy skin. ### Soft Summer [Soft Summer](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/summer/soft-summer) is the most muted: mushroom brown, dark ash blonde and soft ash-brown with a few finer, lighter strands. Its hair should look blended, never striped. A single flat dark shade hardens the face, and bright platinum streaks add a contrast the colouring does not have. ## Autumn: copper, chestnut and chocolate Autumn hair is warm and medium to deep: copper, chestnut, golden brown and auburn, with a warm shine. Its opposites are ash, platinum and blue-black, which cool down skin whose warmth is the whole point. ### Soft Autumn [Soft Autumn](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/autumn/soft-autumn) wants warmth without fire: soft golden brown, honey-brown, light copper-brown and the blended brown-blonde mixes some salons call bronde. A muted strawberry works while it stays gentle. Bright orange-red is too clear for this low-contrast colouring, and black too deep. ### Warm Autumn [Warm Autumn](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/autumn/warm-autumn) is the natural home of copper and auburn: ginger, rich copper, golden chestnut, cinnamon brown. It suits the fullest reds on the wheel, as long as they lean towards gold rather than violet. Burgundy with a purple cast, and any ash brown, drain it. ### Deep Autumn [Deep Autumn](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/autumn/deep-autumn) carries dark hair: dark chocolate, espresso brown with a warm glint, deep auburn and dark chestnut. The warmth can be a lowlight or a sheen that shows in sunlight rather than an obvious red. Blue-black and ash make it look hard; very light blonde loses the depth that anchors the face. ## Winter: cool dark brown and black Winter hair is cool and medium to deep, with a silvery shine: cool dark brown, black-brown and black. The contrast between hair and skin is part of the Winter look, so golden streaks, caramel ribbons and warm red highlights, which soften that contrast and warm it, rarely help. ### Cool Winter [Cool Winter](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/winter/cool-winter) suits cool dark brown and black, and later silver and white. It is the Winter most at ease with its grey, which often comes in clean and bright. ### Deep Winter [Deep Winter](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/winter/deep-winter) is the darkest colouring on the wheel: deep cool brown, espresso, soft black. A cool, dark wine tint that shows only in sunlight can suit it; copper and caramel cannot. ### Bright Winter [Bright Winter](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-types/winter/bright-winter) suits black and cool dark brown with a high shine, worn as one clean colour. Its eyes and skin need that clarity around them, and a muddy medium brown or dusty streaks dull the whole face. ## Highlights, lowlights or all-over colour Natural hair is never one colour. It is several close tones, lighter at the ends and around the face, darker underneath, and that variation is what makes it look alive. All-over colour, one shade from root to tip, removes it. It suits the clear subtypes best, where a single glossy shade echoes the clean contrast of the face. On soft colourings it tends to look heavy, and on everyone the regrowth line shows sooner. Highlights add light, and light near the face always shows. Their direction follows your undertone: golden, honey and caramel for Spring and Autumn; ash, pearl and beige-ash for Summer; on a Winter, a few fine cool pieces or none at all. Their placement follows clarity: fine and blended for the soft and light subtypes, fewer and crisper for the clear ones. Lowlights do the opposite and add depth back. They are the tool for deep subtypes whose hair has been lightened too far, and for anyone growing out old highlights. A gloss or toner changes the reflect without changing the level. It is the smallest change you can make and the easiest to undo: a golden gloss warms a Spring or an Autumn, and a cool one takes the brass out of a Summer or a Winter. ## Going grey Grey hair changes the picture more than any dye. It lowers the depth of your colouring and usually the contrast between your hair and skin. It does not change the undertone of your skin or eyes, so your season stays the same; what shifts is the balance within your palette. Many people move towards its lighter or softer shades and wear the darkest ones further from the face. Cool seasons tend to grey within their own family. Summer grey is a soft pewter or silver that blends with the ash tones already there. Winter grey can come in white and striking, especially on a Cool Winter, and it sits well with the clear colours the season already wears. Warm seasons often grey less evenly, towards a creamy or salt-and-pepper mix that can look flat against golden skin. Blending it with golden or beige-blonde highlights lets the grey read as light blonde, and a golden gloss warms it. If you would rather let it grow, move your clothes and make-up towards the warm, lighter shades of your palette, with ivory instead of stark white near the face. If you cover grey, choose a shade a little lighter than your old natural colour. The colour you had at twenty-five sat against a deeper, higher-contrast colouring; recreated today, it can look heavy and harsh. ## What dye changes, and what it does not Dye changes what you see in the mirror: the depth around your face, the reflect and the contrast. A copper-dyed Summer looks warmer in a photo, and a Spring who has gone ash looks cooler. That is also why hair colour misleads home tests and quizzes. If you colour your hair, judge your season from your natural roots, your eyebrows or photos taken before you started. Dye does not change the undertone of your skin or the colour of your eyes, so it cannot move you into another season. A shade that works against your undertone shows in small ways: the skin looks greyer or more sallow, the eyes lose some of their brightness, and you reach for more make-up to bring the face back. A shade that agrees with it makes the skin look clearer with nothing added. Your make-up follows the same logic; [Make-up by Season](https://colour-sense.com/en/guides/makeup-by-season) takes it family by family. If you do not know your season yet, the [free colour test](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-test) is a short quiz in your browser that estimates it. The [personal colour analysis](https://colour-sense.com/en/color-analysis) works from a few questions about your hair, eyes and skin and one to three photos taken in natural light; it determines your season and your subtype, and its PDF report includes the hair colours and make-up that go with them. ## Questions and answers ### What hair colour suits a warm skin tone? Warm undertones suit hair with a golden, honey or copper reflect. Lighter warm colourings (Spring) look best in golden blonde, strawberry blonde and light copper-brown; deeper warm colourings (Autumn) in copper, auburn, chestnut and warm chocolate. Ash toners and blue-black cool the face down. How light or dark to go depends on your depth, and how vivid on your clarity. ### What hair colour suits a cool skin tone? Cool undertones suit ash, pearl, mushroom and cool brown shades, and black for the deeper, higher-contrast colourings. Summers look best between ash blonde and cool medium brown; Winters between cool dark brown and black. Brassy gold, copper and caramel highlights tend to clash with cool skin and make it look greyer or pinker. ### Can dyeing my hair change my colour season? No. Dye changes the depth, the reflect and the contrast around your face, so it changes how your palette looks on you, but it does not change the undertone of your skin or the colour of your eyes. Your season stays the same. Dye can mislead a home test or a quiz, though, so judge your season from your natural roots or from older photos. ### Does grey hair change your colour season? Your season stays, because greying does not change the undertone of your skin or eyes. It does lower the depth and the contrast of your colouring, so many people move towards the lighter or softer shades of the same palette. Cool seasons often grey in harmony with their colouring; warm seasons may prefer to blend the grey with golden or beige-blonde highlights. ### Are highlights or all-over colour better for my season? It depends on your clarity. Soft and light subtypes, such as Soft Summer, Soft Autumn and Light Spring, look best with fine, blended highlights that keep the hair multi-tonal. Clear subtypes, such as Bright Winter and Bright Spring, can wear one glossy all-over colour. Either way, the highlights follow your undertone: golden for warm colourings, ash or pearl for cool ones.