True Winter color palette

Lip

• True red
• Cool fuchsia
• Deep magenta

Blush

• Cool pink
• Bright rose
• Berry

What colors are in the True Winter color palette?

20 wearable colors, listed at the top of this page with their hex codes, plus 5 neutrals to build a wardrobe around. You do not need all of them, most people live in six or seven, and the neutrals do the heavy lifting.

What is the True Winter color season?

True Winter is one of the twelve seasonal color types. It is strongly cool, moderately deep and bright. In practice that means true red, cool fuchsia and vivid purple sit comfortably on you, while the colors in the avoid list make you look tired. Temperature is the dominant axis here: get the warm-versus-cool call right and everything else follows. (Undertone is what the 12-tone system calls this season's primary characteristic.)

How do I know if I'm a True Winter?

Three checks. Cool with a blue, pink or olive-cool cast; clear rather than muted. Cool dark brown to black, or genuinely ash platinum. Cool blue, icy gray, cool green or dark cool brown, with a clear white sclera. Contrast is the fourth: high, driven by both depth and coolness. If two of those four describe you, True Winter 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 True Winter?

The clearest ones to drop are orange, camel and sage. The warmest hue on the wheel, the direct opposite of this palette. Full explanations for each are on the colors-to-avoid page.

Am I a True Winter or a Deep Winter?

They are neighbors, which is exactly why they get confused. The deciding axis is undertone: True Winter is the cooler one and Deep Winter is the warmer one. We have a full side-by-side comparison if you are torn between them.

Can a True Winter wear black?

Yes, this is one of the few seasons that genuinely can. True Winter coloring is cool and deep enough to meet true black head-on, and black next to the face will look crisp rather than draining. It is arguably your strongest neutral.

Is True Winter warm or cool?

Cool. True Winter sits clearly on the cool side of the temperature axis, which is why silver, true red and the rest of the Winter palette settle the skin while orange and golden colors turn it ruddy or gray. Temperature is also its dominant axis, so coolness matters more here than depth or clarity.

Should a True Winter wear gold or silver?

Silver, Platinum and White gold. 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 True Winter color analysis work?

True Winter color analysis places your coloring on three axes, depth, temperature and clarity, and checks they match True Winter, which is strongly cool, moderately deep and bright. 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 True Winter leads the neighbors it gets confused with.

What is the best color for a True Winter to wear near the face?

True red (#D50000) is the safest high-impact choice. Anything worn near the face, collars, scarves, knitwear, has the strongest effect on how your skin reads, so spend the palette there first and worry about trousers later.

Can I use the True Winter hex codes for makeup or hair dye?

Use them for clothing and accessories, where a screen color maps reasonably well to fabric. For makeup and hair, use the dedicated pages, pigment on skin behaves differently from dye on cloth, and the recommended shades there account for that.