The four Seasonal Colour Palettes

Spring                     Summer                   Autumn                    Winter

Are you confused about Colour?

If you find the seasonal colour palettes confusing, you’re not alone.

Since the 70’s the information about what colours suit you and what the colours are, has gone through many changes.

In this blog I want to outline what the four seasons are and what most colour systems are based upon.

The Four Seasons

As you may or may not know the four seasonal colour palettes are Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

They are just like the four seasons in nature.The temperature value may be different though.

Winter is classified as cool

Summer is classified as cool

Spring is classified as warm

And Autumn is classified as warm. There are two warm seasons and two cool seasons.

Warm and cool Colours

A warm colour or tone is yellow or red based. A cool tone is blue or grey based. Are all blues and greys cool? No they are not. Are all yellow and red tones warm? No they are not.

This is why it’s important the colour consultant spends much time learning about the temperature of each colour. Is the colour warm or cool?

Is this easy? No this is not. The reason being there are over 16 million colours. With time and experience one can learn what category any colour belongs.

What is a Winter Colour?

The Winter Colours are Deep, Strong, Dominant. Black and pure white are the bookends with all the primary power colours featuring.

Primary, red, green, blue, yellow. Don’t forget a pure Orange, a deep Chocolate brown. The darker greys and deeper vibrant pinks are there as well. Very dark navy's, electric blues and ink navy's. 

Originally Beige featured and the icy pale versions of colour, were in the Winter Colours, but I question their right to belong.

What is a Summer Colour?

Summer Colours are cool as well as the winter colours, but are much more muted and subtle than their deeper counterparts.

Summer colours are pastel, muted, soft, but there is the strength of a chocolate brown and a maroon or burgundy. I like to include all cool beiges, soft cool taupes, very soft cool greys, silver and rose gold as well as grey khakis.

There is no orange in the Summer palette, but the cool corals and watermelon pinks belong very nicely.

What is a Spring Colour?

Spring colours are exactly what the season suggests. They are bright and airy. Buttercup yellows and light teals. Lots of warm caramel browns and beige's.

Bright reds with peaches and creams and apricots. Don’t forget the lime greens. Often these colours are confused with Summer Colours because of their value. But Spring Colours appear brighter and more yellow based.

Spring Colours aren’t quiet as strong as Autumn colours obviously.

What is an Autumn Colour.

Again Autumn is another Deep season, meaning these colours are very strong.

They appear to be much heavier than the Spring Colours. Deep warm Browns, olive greens, pumpkins, deep creams. Rich warm purples and deep teal blues. The yellows of the Autumn season are very orangey yellow and the reds are very bright yellow reds.

Still confused about Colour?

So if you’re still confused about your colours, don’t be. Have a personal one on one colour analysis in my studio in Ramsgate Sydney or for an accurate online analysis with lots of moving forward steps try my online colour analysis for an instant result.

Ros at Your Colours and style.  “Be beautiful in your colours”

Your Image Overhaul for 2024.

New year New you

You’ve heard this sentiment a thousand times before but what better time to take a look at your Image than January of every new year.

Are you totally happy with the way you look or do you think there may be a few little tweeks you can do to improve what you see in the mirror?

Let’s face it none of us are getting any younger, and as I cater to the mature woman those usually over 50 or 60 and beyond,  I see lot's of changes that can be made for the better.

So do you think you can handle another checklist for 2024 and see if there are one or two things you can do to improve your look, feel better about yourself and set yourself up to win?

So here is my New Year checklist and if you find something that stands out to you, I’m happy to give you some guidance about the change(s) that you can make, to achieve your ultimate new look.

The best place to start for a top to toe transformation is at the top, obviously.

So how’s your hair? Did you know that I recommend a change of hair cut, style, colour to nearly all my clients?

And did you know a new doo can literally alter your appearance, make you look 10 years younger, make you look more attractive and in general change your image completely?

Note how this Russian stylist has made all the difference with this lovely hairstyle and colour and of course having the client wear the right colours for her underskin tone.

So if you need some colour, cut, style advice all you need to do is send a pic of your head. That is a head shot. You know from the neck up. I’ll send you a few pics for you to take to your hairdresser.

Next step is the face.

Oh yes and the make up in the right colours is a real game changer. If you’ve noticed some really bad looking make up on celebrities for example, I can guarantee they are in the wrong seasonal colours make up.

Remember Colours make up is in the seasonal make up colours. So it takes all the guess work out of choosing the right colour make up.

The next step is wearing your seasonal colours.

Even if you’ve had your colours done with me and are pretty good with your colours, I’m certain I can help you fine tune that wardrobe even more. At least add some more pizazz and scope and inject some things you’ve not thought of before. Always start with your colours.

This lovely client, was wearing just the wrong colours on the left and switching to the right colours in her wardrobe changed the way she looked completely. Note the difference in body shape as well.

If you feel you’re not sure about your colours or if someone has not done your colours correctly, please have them checked until you’re happy. There are some interesting information around colours these days.

Lastly putting the whole thing together, can add that final bit of flair to your style.

Having an outside opinion is always a powerful thing to do and especially with a colour specialist so what are you waiting for?

Get your colours right check out the check list and contact me if you need any help.

Ros Your Colours and style.

Step by step Colour analysis

Colour analysis has gone through many changes over the last decades. 

Some changes are not so good because the colour drapes some consultants are using are a bit dubious and you would have to say open to interpretation. Many colours are added to certain seasons that do not belong.

So let's just go back to basics and highlight a few simple but good and accurate steps to follow a logical path to do a colour analysis and come up with an accurate and good result. 

Tester drapes

What is a good way to compile a set of drapes, to determine skin tone and value?

We start with a warm shade usually peach and then a cool shade usually pink to denote a cool shade, as the first part of the analysis.

Then there is one of each shade in each season. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter yellows, and blues, greens whites and reds. There are 22 drapes in all.

The analysis begins by determining the underskin tone. 

Is your underkin tone warm or cool?

This is done by the very first part of the colour analysis.

A warm cloth is draped over the client wearing no make up and covered hair.

The hair is covered so as not to confuse warm or cool as the hair may throw warm or cool tones.

This cloth is usually a very predictable warm colour like peach.

A cool cloth is a very definite cool pink. These two drapes are a real decider when it comes to determining underskin tone

What you're looking for at this stage is the cloth that enhances the skin tone and face.

For example which cloth makes the skin appear more even without changing the natural skin colour.

Other things to look for are eye brightness, clarity in eye whiteness. Note if the face turns more red, or dark or pigmented.

Skin imperfections become more obvious with the wrong shade. Teeth will look more yellow with the wrong shade. Shadow will appear under the chin with the wrong shade.

Dark shadows around eyes and under the eyes are more noticeable with the wrong colour.

Once you have made a clear decision about warm or cool, you can then eliminate all warm or all cool shades respectively. 

Warm colours are in the Autumn and Spring palettes. Cool colours are in the Winter and Summer Palettes. 

The next step is determining the value. By value I mean depth of shades. 

The stronger shades are in the (cool) Winter palette and the (warm) Autumn palette.

                  Winter blue                                Autumn blue

If you've eliminated all warm colours then obviously you're left with Winter and Summer colours only.

 Summer blue

If you eliminate the Deep value of Winter colours then you're left with the softer more muted shades of the Summer palette.

Just a note here. You can see that doing your own colour analysis is not that simple.

In fact over the years I've seen lots of clients that are just plain confused and have no idea what season they are, no matter how hard they try to work their own colours out.

The most important reason for this is because there are over 16million colours and in fact there are an infinite number of colours. Also because it's only experience that helps you to slot those colours into their categories.

Without some pretty in depth experience you're going to find it difficult to determine what is a warm or cool colour and then what is a Winter, Summer, Autumn and Spring colour.

You can have a guess but it's only a true experienced colour consultant who can really identify all the colours correctly.

As much as it's a lot of fun trying to guess or work out your colours, I strongly suggest investing in a one time colour analysis and get your colours right to start with.

For more expert information please contact us.

You may try the online colour analysis for an accurate colour analysis or of course attend my workshops or one on one colour and style analysis.