How to tell which colors look good on you
Colors that suit you make your skin look even and rested, your eyes look clear and your features look defined. Colors that don’t can do the opposite: they deepen shadows under the eyes and around the mouth, make skin look grey, yellow or red, or draw attention to the clothing instead of your face.
Professional color analysts test this with draping: they hold fabrics under the client’s chin in daylight and compare them in pairs. This page does the same with your selfie. Each pair isolates one quality:
- Undertone pairs (peach vs rose pink, tomato red vs raspberry, camel vs taupe) ask whether warm or cool color flatters you.
- Value pairs (powder blue vs navy, light grey vs charcoal) ask whether light or deep color suits you better.
- Chroma pairs (cobalt vs dusty blue, fuchsia vs mauve, kelly green vs sage) ask whether you need clear, saturated color or soft, muted color.
Getting a fair comparison
- Take the selfie facing a window in daylight, without makeup or filters, hair pulled back.
- Use the zoom and drape sliders so the color sits right under your jawline, like fabric at the neckline.
- Look at your face, not the color. Ask which side makes your skin look smoother and your eyes brighter.
- If you can’t decide, choose “About the same”; that is useful information too.
- Sides switch between pairs, so there is no pattern to follow.
Warm, cool, light, deep, bright or soft?
Your choices combine into three scores, which are matched against the 12 seasons. Warm and light leads toward Spring; cool and light toward Summer; warm and soft or deep toward Autumn; cool, deep or bright toward Winter. The soft seasons (Soft Summer, Soft Autumn) suit people whose best colors are muted, and the bright seasons (Bright Spring, Bright Winter) suit people who light up in clear, saturated color.
For a second opinion, take the color analysis quiz. It asks about your veins, jewelry, hair, eyes and contrast, and can read colors from your selfie. When the drape test and the quiz agree, you can be fairly confident in the result.
Colors that flatter almost everyone
Some shades sit near the middle of all three scales, so they are easy wins while you work out your season: soft teal, true red with neither an orange nor a blue lean, medium periwinkle, eggplant, soft white rather than stark white, and medium grey-blue denim. They are rarely anyone’s very best colors, but they rarely clash.