The Color Seasons (and Sub-Types)
Find your palette and never look bad in pictures again
How to find your color season at home
Five ways to narrow down your season — the first four are at-home tests, the fifth is a definitive face scan.
Look at the underside of your wrist in natural light. Greenish veins = warm undertone. Blue or purple = cool undertone. Mixed or unclear = neutral, lean on other tests.
Hold yellow gold against your skin, then silver. Whichever brightens your face is your temperature. Gold flatters = warm. Silver flatters = cool. Both work = neutral.
Drape pure white near your face, then warm cream. Pure white flattering = cool. Warm cream flattering = warm. The one that grays you out tells you which you're not.
Tan easily, golden = warm. Burn first, tan slowly or cool = cool. The way your skin reacts to sun is a strong undertone signal.
These at-home tests narrow it down but rarely give you a definitive answer (or your sub-season). The Glowprint app scans your face in 30 seconds and gives you your exact sub-season with a confidence rating, plus YOUR specific best lipstick hex codes, celebrity lookalikes, and personalized glow-up plan.
What is color season analysis?
Color season analysis sorts your natural coloring (skin undertone, hair, and eyes) into one of 4 seasonal palettes: Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter. Wearing colors from your season makes you look brighter and more rested. Wearing colors from the wrong season can make you look washed out or tired.
The science: your skin has either a warm (yellow-orange) or cool (pink-blue) undertone. Your features are either light or deep, and either bright (high contrast) or muted (soft). The combination places you in 1 of 4 seasons (and 1 of 12 sub-types).
How the system was developed
Color analysis isn't new. The framework has been refined for over a century.
Swiss painter Johannes Itten observed that students gravitated to color palettes that flattered their natural coloring. He grouped the palettes into four seasonal categories based on temperature and brightness.
Carole Jackson popularized the 4-season system in her book Color Me Beautiful, which sold over 18 million copies. Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter became the standard framework.
Color analysts refined the system to 12 sub-seasons (3 per main season) capturing more nuance — Light Spring vs True Spring vs Bright Spring, Soft Summer vs True Summer vs Light Summer, and so on. Each sub-season is defined by three axes: hue (warm/cool), value (light/deep), and chroma (bright/muted).
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is at-home color season analysis?
At-home tests get you to the right main season about 60-70% of the time but rarely give you the right sub-season. The vein and jewelry tests are good for warm/cool but don't tell you light vs deep or bright vs muted. A face scan rules out the wrong sub-seasons specifically.
Can my color season change?
Your underlying coloring stays mostly constant — bone structure, skin undertone, eye color. Hair color changes (graying, dyeing) can shift your apparent season slightly but your true season usually stays the same.
What if I'm in between two seasons?
True 'borderline' people are rare. Most who feel between seasons are actually one of the muted middle seasons (Soft Summer, Soft Autumn) where both adjacent palettes feel mostly okay but neither feels great. The face scan settles this in 30 seconds.
Why are there 12 sub-seasons instead of 4?
The original 4 seasons capture broad strokes but miss nuance. A True Spring and a Light Spring both wear warm colors but very different versions — clear vs softened. The 12-season system captures hue + value + chroma so you get a precise palette.
Do I have to follow my season's palette strictly?
No. Color analysis is a reference, not a rule. Most people stay 80% in their palette and break out for occasional accents — and that's fine. The point is knowing what flatters you so you stop wasting closet space on colors that don't.
Is color analysis the same in different cultures?
The framework works across all skin tones, but the most common seasons differ regionally. East Asian populations tilt heavily Winter and Autumn; Northern European populations have more Summers and Springs; Black and Brown populations are typically Deep Autumn or Deep Winter, with rare Bright Springs. The face scan is calibrated across all of these.