Color Analysis

First of all, what is a color season analysis? A color season analysis takes into account your eye color, hair color and skin’s undertone to determine which colors suit your features the best. It can help understand exactly why you look washed out when you wear a certain outfit and how to avoid it in the future. It’s becoming more and more popular for social media influencers to document their experiences flying to South Korea to get a color analysis done; however, this is an expensive way to understand your colors. There are many articles online that explain which features tend to align with each season, but they aren’t always accurate or specific enough. It gets especially confusing when they bring in words like “soft” or “bright” to explain the subcategories of a season. So, we’re here to break it down for you in the most basic way possible.

Warm vs. Cool:

The first step to finding your season is determining your undertones. Neutral undertones are more red, warm undertones are more yellow and cool undertones are more blue. It is important to note that whether your skin is light or dark isn’t very relevant here. The easiest way to determine your undertones is the metal test. Skin that looks better in silver jewelry has a cool tone, while skin that looks better in gold jewelry has a warm tone. If both look nice, then you have a more neutral undertone to your skin, but most people at least slightly lean towards one undertone more than the other.

Light vs. Dark:

The next step is looking at value. Essentially, we’re looking at how light or dark in value your features are individually and how highly contrasted your features are together. A helpful tip to figure out where you fall on this spectrum is to put a black-and-white filter on a photo of yourself. If your hair, skin and eyes do not differ strongly in their shades of gray, then you’re on the light side of the spectrum, while heavy contrast, such as having a very dark gray tone on your eyes and hair but light for your skin, would put you on the dark side of the spectrum.

Bright vs. Soft:

Lastly, you want to find out how saturated in color your features are. The more gray that is added to a color, the more muted that color becomes. Bright refers to colors that are highly saturated with no gray tones, while soft refers to colors that have been desaturated and muted with gray tones. People with bright features tend to look washed out in gray, but saturated colors bring out their features nicely. In contrast, people with softer features look better in grays and other neutral colors, but brighter colors can appear overwhelming on them.

Your Season:

To find your season, you want to determine your primary color aspect. Which of the three categories do you fall on the spectrum to the most extreme? If the first thing you notice about yourself is your warm complexion, then “warm” would likely be your primary color aspect. This would bring down your options to the two warm seasons — autumn and spring — and more specifically, the two subcategories of “true autumn” and “true spring.” Then you would want to look at the level of brightness and lightness of your features. Autumn has muted and grayish tones, while spring has brighter and more saturated color tints. For a second example, if you have a more neutral undertone, then either your value or saturation would be your primary color aspect. Let’s say you have pale skin, black hair and dark brown eyes. This would place you far on the dark side of the value spectrum, making you either a “deep winter” or “deep autumn,” depending on whether your neutral undertone leans slightly more cool or warm.

If you still feel completely lost, figure out what you know you aren’t and look to the opposite side of the color wheel guide. For example, if you know your features are not dark in contrast at all and you are the opposite of the “deep” subcategory, then chances are you are either “light spring” or “light summer.”

If you use this article to find your color season, tag or DM us @theedgemag on Instagram