What color season am I?

Read three properties, not a name

Guessing at a season name is where most people go wrong. Sort yourself by the three underlying properties instead, in this order — each one narrows twelve down fast.

Value

Are you at your best in light colors or deep ones?

Chroma

Do clear bright colors suit you, or grayed muted ones?

Temperature

Gold or silver at the wrist — which looks cleaner?

Temperature is the last question, not the first. It is the property people most often get wrong, and it is far easier to judge once value and chroma have already ruled most of the palettes out.

The twelve

Already know your season? Men’s color analysis and women’s color analysis take it into a wardrobe, and suit colors by season lists the exact tailoring neutrals for all twelve. Outfit color combinations shows how a season assembles into complete looks, occasion by occasion.

Where people go wrong

• Judging one color at a time instead of two side by side — the eye needs a comparison to see a difference
• Choosing colors you like over colors that suit you
• Assuming dark hair means Winter — depth of hair is not the same as depth of coloring
• Trusting one photo taken in the wrong light (see below — it matters more than anything else)

How to take the photo

Chroma can only read what the camera captured. A photo shot in the wrong light, or through a filter, bakes in a color cast that outweighs the subtle shifts the read depends on — so this one step changes the result more than anything else you can do. It takes about five minutes.

The same skin in three lights — why light decides the read

Neutral daylight

True color — this is what Chroma should see

Warm lamp

Everything shifts gold — you would read warmer than you are

Blue shade / cool LED

Everything grays out — you would read cooler and more muted

The white-paper check, at a glance

Reads whiteLight is neutral — shoot

Reads yellowLamp light — turn it off or move

Reads blueDeep shade — step toward the light

1. Use indirect daylightFace a window with natural light, or step into open shade outside; an overcast sky is ideal. Avoid direct sun, which casts warm and throws hard shadows, and avoid golden hour, which turns everything orange.
2. Turn off every other lightLamps and ceiling bulbs each add their own tint — incandescent runs yellow, most LEDs run cool — and mixed light is the hardest of all to correct. Daylight only.
3. Drape white under your chinHold a plain sheet of white paper, a white towel, or a white shirt so it covers your shoulders and chest. It blocks color bouncing up from your clothing, and it gives the camera a true white to balance against.
4. Bare face, hair backTake off makeup and pull your hair away from your face. You are reading skin — not products, not hair color.
5. No filters, no beauty modeSwitch off beauty, HDR and auto-enhance, and apply no filter. Those features quietly adjust the exact tones you are trying to measure.
6. Check the white, then shoot a fewLook at the paper in each shot. If it reads truly white, the light is neutral and the photo can be trusted. If it looks yellow or blue, move and retake.