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Peach skin tone: what it is, and how it differs from pink

A peach skin tone is light skin with a warm glow. A pink skin tone is light skin with a cool, rosy cast. Pick your depth below and see both side by side, computed from the same scale our analysis uses.

By Jane MitchellCertified color analystPublished

Peach vs pink skin tone

Choose a depth, then tap the swatch that looks closer to your skin.

1. How light is your skin?

2. Tap the swatch that looks closer to your skin

Same depth (ITA° 52 and 52), same yellowness. Only the red changes: the pink swatch has more of it. The hue differs by 13.8°.

Cool end 41.5°Line 55°Warm end 69.2°

Light peach skin

The warm side of the line. Our analysis reads it as a warm undertone.

On skin alone, our analysis leans to Light Spring, Bright Spring or True Spring. Your hair and eyes decide between them.

Colors from those palettes that stand out most against this skin

  • Bright violet#651FFF
  • Vivid orchid#D500F9
  • Warm violet#7E57C2
  • True bright blue#2979FF
  • Vivid blue#00B0FF
  • Emerald#00C853
  • Warm sky blue#42A5F5
  • Bright mint#1DE9B6

Colors closest to this skin

These sit closest to the skin swatch. Worn as a top, close to the face, they can blend in.

  • Melon#FFC2A8
  • Peach#FFB68F
  • Wheat#DCC7A8
  • Peach blossom#FFCCBC
Our example face against the Light Spring palette
Example face, not yours

Peach or pink? Find out from one selfie

Get free analysis

Free for your best and worst palette. All 12 in the full report.

A halved peach on linen on the left and a pale pink peony on the right, with two blush ceramic dishes between them
An illustration made with an image model, not a photo. The swatches in the comparison above are the computed ones.

What is a peach skin tone?

Peach is a way to describe light skin that looks warm and soft, like a pink with a little yellow added. You see it on the cheeks and the forehead first. It sits between a rosy pink skin and a golden or olive one.

It is an everyday word. No lab or dermatology chart defines it. Foundation brands, makeup artists and color analysts each use it a bit differently. So we do not pretend there is one rule. We say where we put the line, and we show you the numbers.

Peach undertone skin vs pink undertone skin

The same three depths, each as a pink and a peach swatch. Both keep the same lightness and the same yellow. Only the red changes.

DepthPinkPeachHue gap
Very light#F4D0C1hue 49.5°#ECD2C1hue 61.5°11.9°
Light#E8AF97hue 49.2°#DCB497hue 63.0°13.8°
Intermediate#CE937Ahue 49.1°#C2987Ahue 62.0°12.9°

If the pink and the peach look close to each other, that is the finding. Skin does not jump from pink to peach. It moves a few degrees of hue, at any depth, and your eye reads that small move as a different warmth. Peach skin is on the warm side of that move. Pink skin is on the cool side, where we also cover pink and red undertones.

Where we put the line between peach and pink, and why

Our analysis reads skin hue on a scale from 41.5° (fully cool) to 69.2° (fully warm). That scale was fitted on hundreds of labelled face photos. We put the line at the middle of it, 55°.

Our analysis turns that hue into a temperature from -1 (fully cool) to +1 (fully warm). We call a skin pink when it reads below -0.2. We call it peach when it reads above +0.2. The middle fifth is in between, the skin people call peachy pink.

This is our choice, made so the page can show numbers. Another site could draw it somewhere else and still be right, because the words have no standard. What does not change is the direction: more yellow against the red is peach, more red against the yellow is pink.

How to tell if your skin is peach or pink

  1. Stand by a window in daylight with a bare face. Indoor bulbs make skin look warmer than it is.
  2. Look at your jaw, not your cheeks. The cheeks flush, the jaw is calmer.
  3. Hold a gold item and a silver item under your chin. Gold looking better points to peach. Silver looking better points to pink. The gold or silver test walks through it.
  4. Check the wrist veins. Green points to peach, blue or purple to pink. The vein test explains it.
  5. If two of the three agree, you have your answer. If they split, you are likely in the middle band.

Redness is not undertone. A flush from heat or sun sits on top of the undertone and fades. That is why the jaw and a calm day give a better read. More on all four tests on the undertone page.

What this comparison cannot tell you

  • It cannot give your color season. Your season needs three things: undertone, depth and clarity. A swatch gives undertone and part of depth. Hair and eyes decide the rest, so each swatch leans to three seasons, never one.
  • It covers three depths, from very light to intermediate. Peach and pink are words mostly used for lighter skin.
  • A screen changes colors. The same swatch looks warmer on one phone and cooler on another.
  • Your eye judges against the room, and a mirror in warm light makes pink skin look peach. Our analysis corrects each photo for the light first. How it works and how often it is right.

How we made the swatches

Each swatch is a color we computed, not a photo. For each depth we picked a lightness and a yellowness typical of skin in a photo, the same ones as on our skin tone chart. We then set the hue to a point on the warm side of the line for peach and on the cool side for pink, and read the numbers back from the finished color. The skin color names page has more everyday words for skin, and the fair skin page covers the lightest two depths.

How this is different from other color analysis tools

  1. 01

    Your photo stays on your device

    Many photo apps upload your selfie and read it on their server (see our comparison). Ours measures it in your browser. There is no upload.

  2. 02

    The result is free

    Your season and palette, with no account and no email. At least one app in our comparison takes payment before you see any result.

  3. 03

    A close call says so

    Every result names the runner-up season and how close the call was. Borderline is a result we print.

  4. 04

    We publish our accuracy

    We tuned the method on faces that experts had labelled by season, then tested it on 410 celebrity photos we collected. The results, misses included.

How the photo analysis works, step by step

Questions

What is a peach skin tone?

Peach is light skin with a soft warm glow, a pink that has a little yellow in it. It is an everyday word, not a standard. We count a skin as peach when its color sits on the warm side of the middle of the range our analysis reads, which is the same side as a warm undertone.

What is peach undertone skin?

It is skin whose undertone has some yellow or gold in it on top of the pink, so the overall look is warm and soft. Most people who say peach undertone mean a warm or warm-leaning neutral undertone. Gold jewelry usually looks better on it than silver.

What is the difference between peach and pink skin?

Mostly the amount of red against the amount of yellow. At the same depth, pink skin has more red in it, and peach skin has less red for the same yellow. In our swatches the two differ by about 14 degrees of hue at the same depth, which is why they can look close side by side. Pink is the cool side. Peach is the warm side.

Is a peach skin tone warm or cool?

Warm, or at least warm-leaning. Peach has yellow in it, and yellow is what separates a warm undertone from a cool one. If your skin sits right in the middle, between peach and pink, you are probably neutral. The undertone guide has the at-home checks.

Is a pink undertone cool or warm?

Cool. Skin described as pink or red shows a blue-based flush, which is the cool family. We cover pink and red undertones on the cool undertone page, so this page keeps to peach.

What colors look good on peach skin?

It depends on your depth, hair and eyes. On skin alone, a light peach swatch leans to Light Spring, Bright Spring, True Spring, and a light pink swatch leans to Light Summer, True Summer, Soft Summer. Tap a swatch above to see the palette colors from those seasons, and use the free analysis to add your hair and eyes.

Can my skin be both peach and pink?

Yes, and most people are somewhere in between. Our line leaves a middle band, about a fifth of the range, where skin reads neither clearly pink nor clearly peach. People often say peachy pink for it. That band is where the vein test and the gold or silver test are most useful.

Why does my skin look pink if my undertone is warm?

Redness sits on the surface and changes with heat, sun, exercise and mood. Undertone is the color underneath and does not change. A warm undertone can still flush pink. Check a calm area such as the jaw, in daylight, with no makeup. If redness is constant and it bothers you, a doctor can tell you what it is.

What you can do on this page

This page has an interactive peach versus pink comparison: a visitor picks a depth (very light, light or intermediate) and sees a computed pink swatch and a computed peach swatch side by side, each with its hex code, hue angle and the temperature our analysis reads. A tap on one swatch shows the three color seasons it leans to on skin alone and palette colors from those seasons, ranked by how much they stand out against the skin. The page then offers the free photo analysis, which measures undertone, depth and clarity from one selfie in the browser, with no upload and no account.

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