True Summer vs True Winter
True Summer
the softer one
True Winter
the brighter one
These two are close. Your own photo shows which one is you.
The deciding axis is clarity: True Summer is the softer one and True Winter is the brighter one.
Side by side
The deciding axis is clarity, everything else about these two is close.
True Summer
strongly cool, moderately light and moderately soft
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.
True Summer: Cool raspberry #C2185B
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.
True Summer and True Winter palettes
Each row pairs a color with the nearest one left in the other palette.
True Summer
True Winter
- Cool raspberry#C2185B
- Rose red#D81B60
- Soft rose#E091AE
- Dusty pink#C97B9B
- Cool berry#A85C7A
- Soft plum#7E5A82
- Cool lavender#9575CD
- Periwinkle blue#7986CB
- Cornflower#5C7CB0
- Cool blue#3F6FA8
- Cool fuchsia#C51162
- Deep magenta#880E4F
- Icy pink#F8BBD0
- Icy lilac#E1BEE7
- True red#D50000
- Deep purple#4A148C
- Vivid purple#AA00FF
- Cobalt#304FFE
- Bright sapphire#0091EA
- True blue#2962FF
Frequently asked
What is the difference between True Summer and True Winter?
The deciding axis is clarity: True Summer is the softer one and True Winter is the brighter one. True Summer is strongly cool, moderately light and moderately soft; 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 True Summer: which one am I?
Test the deciding axis in isolation. Put cool raspberry (#C2185B) 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, True Summer or True Winter?
Neither is rare. Judging by search interest, True Summer is looked up more often, but that reflects how often people are told they might be one, not how many actually are.