To tell your undertone — the fixed colour beneath your skin — weigh several signals: gold vs silver jewellery, pure white against your face, and how easily you tan. Surface tone changes with sun, sleep, and temperature; undertone does not. Getting it right is the biggest single step toward your color season, and the free color analysis measures it directly from a photo — but you can also estimate it yourself.
The quick tests (use several, not one)
The white test. Hold a piece of pure bright-white paper or fabric next to your bare face in daylight. If your skin looks healthy and clear, you likely lean cool. If it looks sallow or grey and a cream or ivory sheet looks better, you likely lean warm.
The jewellery test. Against clean skin, does gold or silver make you look more awake? Gold flatters warm skin; silver flatters cool skin. If both look fine, that points to neutral.
The tan test. Do you tan easily and rarely burn? That leans warm. Do you burn, go pink, and struggle to hold a tan? That leans cool.
The vein test. On the inside of your wrist in natural light, green-looking veins suggest warm, blue or purple suggest cool. This one is unreliable on its own — treat it as a tie-breaker.
Reading the result
- Warm: golden, peach, or yellow cast. Suits camel, olive, coral, warm red, cream, bronze. This is the direction of Spring and Autumn.
- Cool: pink, rosy, or blue cast. Suits navy, grey, raspberry, blue-red, pure white, silver. This is the direction of Summer and Winter.
- Neutral: signals conflict. Wear muted or medium versions of both temperatures and avoid the most golden and the most icy colours.
Why undertone alone is not your season
Undertone puts you on the warm or cool half of the wheel. Two more things — how light or deep your colouring is, and how bright or muted it is — decide which season on that half is yours. A warm person who is light and bright is a Spring; a warm person who is deep and muted is an Autumn. See 4 seasons vs 12 seasons for how the full system fits together, or skip ahead and run the analysis.