Color analysis works by scoring your natural colouring on undertone, depth, and clarity, then matching you to the colour season whose palette fits. Your skin, eyes, and hair sit somewhere on three scales, and clothing and makeup that echo those qualities make you look healthy and awake, while colours that fight them make you look tired or washed out.
The three things an analysis measures
Undertone (warm to cool). Warm colouring has a golden, yellow, or peachy cast; cool colouring has a pink, blue, or rosy cast. Some people are neutral, sitting between the two. Undertone is the single most important axis, and the hardest to judge in a mirror because surface redness and tan can disguise it.
Depth (light to deep). This is the overall lightness of your colouring taken together — pale blonde and fair skin is light; dark brown hair and deep skin is deep. Depth decides whether soft pastels or rich darks look balanced on you.
Clarity (bright to muted). Some people suit clear, saturated colour; others suit slightly greyed, blended colour. A useful proxy is contrast: if your hair, skin, and eyes are very different in lightness, you usually lean bright; if they blend together, you lean muted.
How those measurements become a “season”
The four classic seasons combine undertone and the light/deep–bright/muted qualities:
- Spring — warm and bright
- Summer — cool and soft
- Autumn — warm and muted
- Winter — cool and bright
Each of the four is then split three ways depending on which quality is strongest, giving the 12-season system: Light, True, and Bright Spring; Light, True, and Soft Summer; Soft, True, and Deep Autumn; Bright, True, and Deep Winter.
How a photo-based analysis does it
A tool like the free color analysis on this site works in your browser:
- A face-landmark model locates your forehead, cheeks, chin, irises, and hairline.
- It samples the colour of each region and throws away outliers — shine, shadow, stray hairs.
- It estimates the light you were photographed in (your eye whites should be neutral) and corrects for any colour cast.
- It scores your corrected skin, eye, and hair colour against the target profile of each of the 12 seasons and returns the closest match, plus the ones you are near.
No photo is uploaded — the work happens on your device. The weakest link is always the photo itself, which is why taking it well matters more than anything else.
What you do with the result
Your season comes with a palette: the colours to wear near your face, your best neutrals, your statement shades, and the colours to avoid. It also points your makeup — whether gold or silver suits you, whether your reds lean coral or berry. Browse all twelve on the color seasons page.