You are perfect

You are made up of a unique combination of colours.

Your hair, skin and eyes will share colour qualities with each other and nature will have built you that way.

It is impossible for a human to have disharmonious natural colouring. 

You are perfect!

Sometimes this colouring is surprising and unexpected which means we cannot accurately identify what palette will best suit a person just by looking at them.

But since all colours are built from varying combinations of the same three dimensions – hue, chroma and value – that also applies to the colours that naturally appear in your body as well.

Once we have figured out which combination of hue, chroma and value are present in a person, we can match them to colours that share that combination.

This is a person’s most flattering natural palette. 

Let’s explore this concept further. 

Before we get started, if you haven't already read about the building blocks of colour, I recommend having a look now. This section will make a lot more sense. 

Also, please note that a truly accurate assessment cannot be determined from a picture. Photography can do unpredictable things to colours, even without filters. Most importantly, static pictures don’t respond in real time to changes in light or the influence of surrounding colours, unlike live human beings. Any celebrity analysis on this website is an educated guess and intended as a learning tool only.

Finally, please keep in mind that although I have used women in this demonstration, that is simply because it is very difficult to find examples of men wearing a wide range of colours to compare and contrast.

Apologies to any gents reading this - I guarantee the principles of Personal Colour Analysis apply equally to you.

Here we go!

Warm, Cool or Neutral

This is the hue.

Everyone is either warm, cool or neutral, which is a mix of the two.

Most people are neutral but even then, they will always lean more strongly towards either warm or cool. 

We call warm people Autumns or Springs and cool people Winters or Summers.

However, this is only one third of the story.

Let’s explore further – and don’t forget, race, ethnicity and natural pigmentation aren’t always indicative of season, as the following examples will show.

Here are examples of people with colouring dominated by warmth.

And here are some people dominated by coolness:

Bright or Soft

Dark or Light

We can divide our warm and cool friends further by considering what other qualities of colour are at play - the chroma (bright or soft) and value (light or dark).

Remember, it can be useful to think of “light” as fresh and airy, and “dark” as rich and dense.

In addition to being warm, some people are also bright and light:

So fresh and sunny!

These people are our SPRINGS.

While others are warm, soft and dark:

Ohhhh, look at that depth and smoulder!

These people are our AUTUMNS.

Onto our cool group.

Sometimes cool people are also bright and dark:

Very glamourous!

Meet our WINTERS.

And sometimes cool people are also light and soft:

Like sky and water!

These gorgeous people are called SUMMERS.

Nearly there!

I’ve given three examples of each season.

There’s a reason for that.

Not all Springs, Autumns, Winters or Summers share the qualities of hue (warm/cool/ neutral), chroma (bright/soft) and value (light/dark) in equal proportions.

The combination matters. 

Let’s go back to Springs again.

This group is identified by being warm, bright and light.

The hue of some Springs is 100% warm with chroma (brightness) and value (lightness) presenting more moderately but playing an equally important role in creating the colour dimension of the person.

Other Springs are really high on the brightness scale with more mixed amounts of lightness and warmth.

A third type of Spring presents as super light with warmth and brightness contributing in less extreme amounts. 

The same pattern applies to other seasons.

Every palette has one dimension of colour presenting at the far end of its scale, balanced by more mixed or moderate amounts of the other two.

The varying combinations of a season’s colour dimensions will determine its three sub-groups.

Time to meet our 12 beautiful palettes!

Bright Spring

Brightness + warmth and lightness

True Spring

Warmth + brightness and lightness

Light Spring

Lightness + warmth and brightness

Light Summer

Lightness + coolness and softness

True Summer

Coolness + lightness and softness

Soft Summer

Softness + coolness and lightness

Soft Autumn

Softness + warmth and darkness

True Autumn

Warmth + darkness and softness

Dark Autumn

Darkness + warmth and softness

Dark Winter

Darkness + coolness and brightness

True Winter

Coolness + brightness and darkness

Bright Winter

Brightness + coolness and darkness

Ah, the miraculous diversity of human beauty!

Yes, these people have access to super stylists but that's not the whole reason they look so great here.

There are plenty of pictures around where these genetically blessed people are wearing discordant colours and end up looking washed out, overdone, muddy or a little strange.

It's much nicer to see them working with, instead of against, their natural colouring.

Real people enhanced by intelligent styling.