How To Find Your Seasonal Colour Palette In 5 Easy Steps!

For a few years now, I’ve been a big advocate for using the seasonal colour palette framework for elevating my fashion style. Ever since I found out about it, all I can think about is colour palettes. Even when I’m watching tv, all I see is a character dressed in a colour that just doesn’t suit them. In person, I instantly notice whether someone is wearing the right colour lipstick for their skin and hair colour. You could say it’s consuming my life, yet I don’t feel like I can even use this knowledge to better someones life… I mean, how rude would it seem to come right out and tell someone their lipstick shade is off or their dress doesn’t suit their hair colour? I would sound so rude!

However, that’s where my blog comes in. I can help readers like you make the decision for yourselves. So, with that being said, here’s how to find your seasonal colour palette in 5 easy steps!

If you’re not very tuned-in with colours and noticing the subtle differences between them, this might be slightly tricker for you at first, but if you’re willing to learn, soon you’ll be assessing every colour in your wardrobe. Simply put, you’ll quickly learn to notice the difference in temperature within a colour and who that’s best for. After that, figuring out the hue and value will help you specify what type of colours are right for you. Let’s begin!

1. Learn To Identify Warm And Cool Toned Colours

If you ever took an art lesson in school, you might be familiar with the colour palette. Heck, if you watch those paint mixing videos on TikTok, you might have a good idea as to whether or not you’re good at identifying colours and their make up. This section of this post will help you identify whether a colour is warmer or cooler. This, I believe, is the first step to figuring out whether a colour is right for you or not. So, let’s start by comparing different temperatures in colours.

Take a look at the two colours below. Can you tell which is warmer and which is cooler?

HINT: if the red is more orange, it’s warmer. If it leans more pink, it’s cooler.

On the left is the warm-toned red and on the right in the cool-toned red. This is because we usually add yellow to make things warmer and blue to make things cooler. This is basic colour theory but it comes in very handy when it comes to choosing colours that are better suited for you.

This can come in really handy when choosing a lipstick colour, for instance. One of these types of reds will suit you better than the other. Therefore, from now on, you can always pick up the right red shade for you.

This idea also extends into other colours, such as greens, blues, oranges, purples – basically any colour. Knowing whether a shade leans more cool or warm toned will help you pick colours that flatter your versus colours that make you look washed out.

Let’s keep practising!

Have a go at guessing which colour is warmer and which is cooler. When you’re ready, scroll down to reveal the answer.

2. Examine Your Undertone

In the world of undertones, there’s more than just warm and cool toned. Most skin colours span a variety of undertones that range from red to violet to olive, etc. It’s much more complicated that just ‘warm‘, ‘cool‘ or ‘neutral‘.

When I look at my natural skin colour, i see a greeny-yellow undertone. I’m pale too, which isn’t usually a combination you’d put together. But here I am, existing and yet in 2023, I’m still struggling to find a foundation shade to match. Most assume that if I’m green or olive toned, I must have tanned skin. Surely, I’m not the only one with that issue? Maybe your skin is more violet toned or more red toned?

Likewise, I always find that eye colour is a great indicator for determining your undertone. If you find your eyes are a reddish brown, you most likely will have a red or pink undertone to your skin. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but usually, when it comes to nature, everything is balanced and complimentary. If you have greeny-blue eyes, the likelihood is your skin will learn more yellow or olive toned and therefore you’d be considered ‘warm‘.

Another great tip for identifying your undertone is by looking at the blushes you use most. If they lean cool or purple-y, you are probably within the ‘cool‘ category, and if they lean peachy-pink or orange, you’re probably ‘warm‘. This is great for identifying which side of the wheel you fall on.

3. Look Through Your Wardrobe

Next, you should take a long look through your wardrobe. There’s a few reasons why is suggest doing this. First, you can learn a LOT from someone’s wardrobe. And second, we’re going to use its a real life example of what suits you and what perhaps, doesn’t.

If you notice a colour that is frequent throughout your wardrobe, that’s a good sign that you’re naturally picking up on a colour that suits you. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always preferred cream over white, therefore my wardrobe contains a LOT of creamy shades. I never even picked up on it until recently. But subconsciously whenever I tried on a white top white and a cream top, I almost always chose the cream version. The same can be applied to you. Most likely, your subconscious prefers a certain colour for you. Therefore in theory, you should have more of this colour running throughout your wardrobe.

Likewise, I also have a lot of black. Now, as of recent, I’ve come to the realisation that I don’t actually suit black. Even when it as readily available in my wardrobe, I never, ever gravitated towards it. Once you start to realise this pattern, you’ll start shopping completely differently!

DO YOU NOTICE A RECURRING COLOUR OR SHADE?

Once you’ve found a pattern within your clothes, pull these pieces out and lay them on your bed or near a mirror. Then, without wearing makeup or fake tan, place these garments near to your face and see how your skin reacts. If your skin looks more vibrant, glowy, youthful, you can assume this shade works well for you. If that colour makes you look pale, sick, or emphasises redness, it’s most likely not suitable for you. This would be a great exercise to do if you’re looking to do a closet clean out.

Now, when I look at my wardrobe, I see a distinct pattern. I see my colour palette there in front of me. I know that whatever I want to wear will always flatter my face, skin and hair. Over time, you’ll learn to part ways with items in shopping malls simply because you know they won’t suit you. That’s the beauty of knowing your colour palette. Plus, it’ll save you a pretty penny, too.

Keep the clothes that suit you to one side and return the items that don’t suit you back to your wardrobe. Upon looking at the items remaining, what patterns do you notice? Are they all warm-toned? Are they perhaps the same colour? Make a note of this.

4. Look At Your Natural Hair Colour

By now, you must be noticing a pattern. If not, this step might help solidify it a bit more.

Grab in a mirror and stand in front of a window. Describe your hair colour in detail. Or, if you have dyed hair, look at images of you as a child. If you use words like ‘golden, rich, vibrant’, shimmery – you’re most likely on the warm side of the wheel. If you said ‘ashy, mousey, mocha, flat‘ you’re probably within the cool toned side of the wheel.

For me, my hair definitely falls under ‘mocha’ as its a muted, soft brown versus a vibrant, golden-brown.

Once you have all these new discoveries written down, it’s time tomove on to the next step. Which in my opinion, is the most fun step.

5. Take A Black and White Selfie

How will a black and white selfie help? A black and white selfie will help you identify how contrasting your features are. This is also known as the value in the colour season analysis world. As you can see from my diagram below, the value features are all relatively close together in comparison to the greyscale at the bottom. This is what we call a ‘low‘ contrast. In the colour season world, this would mean I would fall into the ‘soft’ category. If my hair, brows and eyes where at the dark end of the greyscale and my skin was at the other end, I would have a high contrast, and therefore, I couldn’t be considered ‘soft’.

You can easily do this same experiment by taking an unedited selfie in natural daylight and reducing the saturation down fully in Lightroom. Then, add this image into Instagram and use the colour picker tool to take samples of each of the factors. This will give you a good indication of how contrasting your overall look is and will help you to identify your seasonal colour palette.

What’s Your Seasonal Colour Palette?

The diagram below shows a simplified version of the seasonal colour palette. I would highly recommend googling the colour season you believe to fit into to get a more accurate representation and further help you diagnose yourself.

Hopefully these tips helped you to identify your seasonal colour palette a little more, however if you are still unsure, message me on Instagram and I’ll dop my best to guide you. Likewise, you can always pay for a professional, in-person colour season analysis, however it wont be cheap!

Comment below what colour season you believe to be!