Color Analysis Quiz: Find Your Color Season

Seasonal color analysis groups people by the colors that harmonize with their skin, hair and eyes. Colors that share your own qualities make your skin look even and your eyes clear. Colors that fight them can make you look tired, sallow or flushed.

The system borrows the names of the four seasons because each season's colors have a recognisable mood: fresh and warm for Spring, soft and cool for Summer, earthy and warm for Autumn, crisp and cool for Winter.

Each of the four families splits into three seasons, named after the trait that matters most. Here is each one in a line, with a link to its full palette.

Undertone

The warm (golden, peachy) or cool (pink, blue) cast under your skin. It does not change with a tan.

Value

How light or deep your overall coloring is, from very fair skin and pale hair to deep skin and black hair.

Chroma

How clear or soft your coloring looks. Bright, glassy eyes suggest high chroma; blended, greyed features suggest low.

Contrast

The difference in depth between your hair, skin and eyes. High contrast often points to Winter or a bright season.

Common mistakes

• Confusing a tan with undertone. A golden tan sits on top of your undertone; judge the inside of your arm instead.
• Answering for dyed hair. Your season is based on the hair color you grew, not the one you bought.
• Testing under artificial light. Warm bulbs make everyone look golden and cool LEDs make everyone look pink.
• Judging a color by how much you like it. A favorite color is not the same as a flattering one.

Every answer moves you along three scales: temperature (warm to cool), value (light to deep) and chroma (bright to soft). Gold jewelry nudges you warm; burning easily nudges you cool and light; blending features nudge you soft.

We add up each scale and divide by the highest total that scale could reach, so every score lands between −1 and +1. That gives you a point in a three-dimensional color space.

Each of the 12 seasons has its own target point. Soft Autumn, for example, sits slightly warm, mid-depth and very soft. Your result is the season whose target is closest to your point, and the runner-up is the next closest. If the two are nearly tied, the result page says so and links you to the comparison between them.

• Take the quiz by a window during the day, ideally with indirect light rather than harsh sun.
• Remove makeup and tinted moisturiser, or picture your bare face.
• Pull dyed hair back, or answer from photos taken before you colored it.
• For questions about colors, hold real fabric under your chin and look at your skin, not the fabric.
• Ask a friend. Other people often see contrast and undertone more clearly than we see our own.

Your result page shows your season, a short summary and your runner-up. From there, your full season guide gives you everything you need to shop and get dressed:

• A 30-color palette with names and hex codes, plus a downloadable image for your phone
• Your best neutrals, to replace black, white and navy
• Colors to avoid near your face, and why
• Lip, blush and eye shades, and the metals that suit you
• Hair colors to try and to avoid
• Outfit combinations, patterns and a capsule wardrobe plan

A quiz can only be as accurate as the answers you give, and judging your own coloring is hard. Treat your result as a strong starting point, not a final verdict.

Lighting is the biggest source of error. The same face can read as warm under a lamp and cool under an overcast sky, which is why we ask you to answer in daylight.

If your result feels wrong, read your runner-up season too. Then drape-test both: hold clothing in each palette's key colors under your chin in daylight and see which makes your skin look smoother and your eyes clearer. A professional draping in person is the most reliable option if you want certainty.

4 seasons

Warm or cool, light or deep. Simple, but people within one season can look very different.

12 seasons

Adds chroma and a dominant trait, giving three seasons per family. This is the system this quiz uses.

16 seasons

Some analysts add in-between types. Systems differ, so compare descriptions rather than names.

Season names vary between analysts. Deep is also called Dark, Bright is also called Clear, Soft is also called Muted, and the temperature-led seasons are often called True. The palettes behind the names are broadly the same.