Bright Winter vs True Winter
Bright Winter
the warmer one
True Winter
the cooler one
These two are close. Your own photo shows which one is you.
The deciding axis is undertone: Bright Winter is the warmer one and True Winter is the cooler one.
Side by side
The deciding axis is undertone, everything else about these two is close.
Bright Winter
moderately cool, moderately deep and strongly bright
True Winter
strongly cool, moderately deep and bright
The test that settles it
Do this in daylight, with no makeup, looking at your skin rather than at the fabric.
Bright Winter: Electric red #FF1744
True Winter: True red #D50000
Hold each color under your chin in turn. The right one settles your skin, shadows under the eyes recede and the face looks rested. The wrong one pulls those shadows forward and adds a gray or sallow cast. If you cannot see a difference, you are probably between the two, which is common and covered below.
Bright Winter and True Winter palettes
Each row pairs a color with the nearest one left in the other palette.
Bright Winter
True Winter
- Electric red#FF1744
- Hot pink#F50057
- Bright rose#FF4081
- Vivid orchid#D500F9
- Electric purple#AA00FF
- Bright violet#651FFF
- Electric blue#3D5AFE
- Vivid azure#2979FF
- Bright sapphire#00B0FF
- Electric turquoise#00E5FF
- True red#D50000
- Cool fuchsia#C51162
- Icy pink#F8BBD0
- Silver gray#B0BEC5
- Vivid purple#AA00FF
- Royal violet#6200EA
- True blue#2962FF
- Cobalt#304FFE
- Bright sapphire#0091EA
- Cool turquoise#00B8D4
Frequently asked
What is the difference between Bright Winter and True Winter?
The deciding axis is undertone: Bright Winter is the warmer one and True Winter is the cooler one. Bright Winter is moderately cool, moderately deep and strongly bright; True Winter is strongly cool, moderately deep and bright. Everything else about them is close enough that the wrong call still looks acceptable, which is precisely why so many people sit between the two.
True Winter vs Bright Winter: which one am I?
Test the deciding axis in isolation. Put electric red (#FF1744) beside true red (#D50000) against your bare face in daylight, and look at the skin under your eyes and around your mouth rather than at the fabric. One of them will settle your skin and the other will pull shadows forward.
What if both palettes look fine on me?
Then you are genuinely in between, and you should take the overlap. Wear the colors that appear in both palettes as your core wardrobe, and treat each season's extremes as occasional. Being between two neighboring seasons is common and is not a failure of the system, it is what the boundaries look like from close up.
Which is more common, Bright Winter or True Winter?
Neither is rare. Judging by search interest, True Winter is looked up more often, but that reflects how often people are told they might be one, not how many actually are.