Soft Summer
Muted and blended, every color has gray folded into it.
Soft Summer is defined by mutedness rather than temperature. The coloring is gentle and blended, with medium depth and low contrast, and the palette is everything with a little gray mixed in: dusty rose, sage, soft teal, mushroom. Anything clear or vivid immediately looks like it is wearing the person.
Clarity is the dominant axis here: how muted or how vivid a color is matters more than whether it is warm or cool. (Clarity is what the 12-tone system calls this season's primary characteristic.)
Where this season sits
Every one of the twelve seasons is a position on three axes. These are the coordinates our analysis scores you against.
Is this you?
- Skin
- Neutral-cool, medium depth, often with a soft gray or rosy-beige cast.
- Hair
- Ash brown, mousy brown or dark ash blonde, rarely strongly golden.
- Eyes
- Soft, often marbled: gray-green, gray-blue, soft hazel.
- Contrast
- Low. Hair, skin and eyes blend into one another.
Soft Summer celebrities
Famous faces that share Soft Summer coloring. The point is the pattern in skin, hair and eyes, not a resemblance.
Anne Hathaway
Bella Hadid
Emma Watson
Jennifer Aniston
Photos via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY / CC BY-SA / public domain. The credit for each one is on the Soft Summer celebrities page.
The palette
The 20 colors that work hardest for Soft Summer, with hex codes so you can match them exactly.
- Dusty rose#C08497
- Soft berry#A5677A
- Muted plum#8F5F6E
- Soft mauve#B08BA5
- Dusty lilac#8E7C9E
- Dusty periwinkle#7A809E
- Slate blue#6E8CA0
- Soft teal#5C7D8A
- Muted jade#7FA398
- Sage#8FA88B
Neutrals to build on
- Soft white#EDEAE4
- Greige#C4BEB4
- Mushroom#9A938A
- Soft charcoal#6F6C68
- Soft navy#3F4A57
Metals and makeup
Best metals: Brushed silver, Matte gold, Pewter.
Lip
- Dusty rose
- Muted berry
- Soft mauve pink
Blush
- Soft rose
- Muted pink
- Rosewood
How to wear the Soft Summer palette
A styling example: three women who share Soft Summer coloring, each in a different outfit built from this palette.
More on Soft Summer
Often confused with
Watch: this season explained
Hand-picked videos on Soft Summer from working color analysts, a different teacher, the same season.
SOFT SUMMER COLOR PALETTE: Your Best Colors / 12 Seasons Color Analysis
Mikaela Carrizo · YouTube
ARE YOU A SOFT SUMMER? SOFT SUMMER FEATURES / 12 SEASONS COLOR ANALYSIS
Mikaela Carrizo · YouTube
Frequently asked
What is the Soft Summer color season?
Soft Summer is one of the twelve seasonal color types. It is moderately cool, medium in depth and strongly soft. In practice that means dusty rose, soft berry and muted plum sit comfortably on you, while the colors in the avoid list make you look tired. Clarity is the dominant axis here: how muted or how vivid a color is matters more than whether it is warm or cool. (Clarity is what the 12-tone system calls this season's primary characteristic.)
How do I know if I'm a Soft Summer?
Three checks. Neutral-cool, medium depth, often with a soft gray or rosy-beige cast. Ash brown, mousy brown or dark ash blonde, rarely strongly golden. Soft, often marbled: gray-green, gray-blue, soft hazel. Contrast is the fourth: low. hair, skin and eyes blend into one another. If two of those four describe you, Soft Summer is very likely your season, our free analysis scores all twelve and tells you how close the runners-up are.
What are the worst colors for a Soft Summer?
The clearest ones to drop are black, pure white and hot pink. The contrast is far too stark for blended, low-contrast coloring. Full explanations for each are on the colors-to-avoid page.
Am I a Soft Summer or a True Summer?
They are neighbors, which is exactly why they get confused. The deciding axis is clarity: Soft Summer is the soft one and True Summer is the bright one. We have a full side-by-side comparison if you are torn between them.
Can a Soft Summer wear black?
Not near your face. Soft Summer coloring is too gentle for true black, it drops a hard edge under the chin and pulls shadows forward. Use Soft navy (#3F4A57) instead for anything worn up top, and keep black for trousers, shoes and bags where it has no effect on your skin.
Is Soft Summer warm or cool?
Cool. Soft Summer sits clearly on the cool side of the temperature axis, which is why silver, dusty rose and the rest of the Summer palette settle the skin while orange and golden colors turn it ruddy or gray. Its dominant axis is clarity, though, so a cool color still needs the right softness to work.
Should a Soft Summer wear gold or silver?
Brushed silver, Matte gold and Pewter. Metal is one of the fastest at-home tests there is: hold silver and gold either side of your face in daylight and watch your skin rather than the jewelry, the wrong metal leaves a gray or sallow cast along the jaw.
How does Soft Summer color analysis work?
Soft Summer color analysis places your coloring on three axes, depth, temperature and clarity, and checks they match Soft Summer, which is moderately cool, medium in depth and strongly soft. You can approximate it at home with the metal, vein and contrast tests, but those disagree often. Our free analysis settles it: it scores all twelve seasons from your answers and one photo, so you see how far Soft Summer leads the neighbors it gets confused with.