Soft Autumn Color Palette

The Soft Autumn color palette

30 colours in four groups and 5 neutrals, each written out with its hex code — tap any code to copy it, or take a whole group at once. The same palette is available as a Soft Autumn palette card (PNG) sized for a phone screen, to take shopping.

Soft Autumn core and accent colors

The eight core colours are the clothes colours: caramel and toffee, moss, olive and sage, clay, oat and a dusty terracotta. They are the colours of autumn with the saturation turned down — earthy, warm, and all sitting at a medium depth. That combination is what the season is. A Soft Autumn face has a golden or olive cast and low contrast, and a colour that is warm but quiet sits beside it instead of in front of it.

Accents are where the palette carries more colour without leaving the rule. Soft salmon, warm rose and soft terracotta are the Soft Autumn answer to coral, pink and orange; muted teal, muted turquoise and dusty aqua are the answer to turquoise and jade. Honey is the version of yellow that works, and soft plum-brown is what purple becomes when it is warmed and greyed. Blue-greens matter more here than people expect: a greyed teal is often the most flattering colour a Soft Autumn owns, because it is the one cool-looking colour that still has warmth in it.

The lightest and deepest Soft Autumn shades

The lightest shades — buttermilk, peach beige, pale sage, pale jade — are for shirts, summer knitwear and linen. They are soft rather than pastel: every one has a little warmth and a little grey in it, which is why they do not wash the face out the way baby pink or icy blue does. The deepest shades — soft chocolate, olive brown, deep moss, muted spruce, plum brown — are the Soft Autumn version of dark, and the ones to use when an outfit seems to need black.

Soft Autumn neutrals

• Warm cream#F0E6D6
• Stone beige#C9B79C
• Mushroom#A08E77
• Warm grey#7E786E
• Bark#5B4B3A

Five neutrals carry the wardrobe. Warm cream replaces optic white; bark replaces black; stone beige, mushroom and warm grey are the everyday middle. The grey on this palette is a warm grey, with a brown cast — cool, blue-leaning greys read flat on a Soft Autumn in the same way camel reads yellow on a Soft Summer.

What makes a Soft Autumn: warm or cool, light or deep, soft or bright

Soft Autumn is warmth without richness: a golden cast to the skin, medium-depth hair, and low contrast across the face. It shares its muting with Soft Summer and its warmth with True Autumn, which is why it is the season most often reached by elimination. Earthy colours with the saturation pulled down are the point.

The test on this page reads three things from your photo and turns each into a number between minus one and plus one. Warm–cool comes mainly from the hue angle of your skin in CIE Lab — a colour space built to match how people see colour — with your hair counting for about a third of it. Light–deep is skin lightness and hair lightness together, with hair weighted slightly more. Soft–bright is the saturation of your irises and the lightness gap between your hair and your skin, half each.

It calls you Soft Autumn when three conditions hold. Warm–cool reads on the warm side. Soft–bright reads on the soft side. And soft–bright is further from zero than light–deep, with at least one of them past 0.3 — meaning the muting in your colouring is a stronger signal than its depth. In practice that is hair close to your skin in lightness, and irises with little saturation in them: soft hazel, olive, muted brown, grey-green.

The rule also tells you where the borders are. A warm–cool value close to zero sits on the line with Soft Summer, which is decided by the same axis. A light–deep value that nearly matches the softness sits on the line with Deep Autumn if it is negative. And if neither axis gets past 0.3, the test calls you True Autumn — or True Spring if your light–deep value is zero or above. The three bars on your result show which neighbour is closest.

The same season is sometimes published as Muted Autumn, in systems that name the subtypes by their defining quality. It is the same place on the three axes.

Soft Autumn skin, eyes and hair

These are examples, not a checklist. Soft Autumn exists at every skin depth, from fair to deep; what makes it is the relationship — a golden or olive cast, hair that sits close to the skin in lightness, and eyes without much saturation. That is also why the season cannot be read from ethnicity or from a skin-tone chart: two people with the same skin can be different seasons because their hair and eyes are.

Am I a Soft Autumn? A drape test you can do at home

Test muting first, then temperature — in that order, because temperature is easier to misread on a muted face.

1. 1

   Stand facing a window in daylight, with no coloured walls behind you and no makeup. Tie your hair back or cover it with a white towel so it does not vote.

2. 2

   Test muting first. Hold a clear, saturated colour under your chin — a bright turquoise or a hot pink — and look at your face, not the fabric. Then swap it for the greyed version: muted turquoise, or warm rose.

3. 3

   On a Soft Autumn the bright colour wins the picture and the face goes quiet; the muted one brings the features back. If the bright colour looks better, you are not muted — True Autumn is the next season to check.

4. 4

   Then test temperature: a camel or toffee against a cool rose taupe. If toffee warms the face and the taupe makes it look grey and tired, you are warm — Soft Autumn. If the taupe looks calm and toffee makes the skin look yellow, look at Soft Summer. Temperature is tested second because it is easier to misread on a muted face.

• A clean bright colour should look better than you do in it. If so, you are muted.
• Camel against grey-taupe in daylight: if camel warms the face and grey-taupe deadens it, you are warm.
• Look for a golden or olive undertone at the jaw rather than a pink one at the cheek — cheeks are misleading on everyone.

Soft Autumn vs Soft Summer, True Autumn and Deep Autumn

Soft Autumn vs Soft Summer is the most common mix-up in the whole system. On this test the two are decided by exactly the same axis — softness — and separated only by temperature, so everything else about them looks alike: low contrast, greyed colour, faces that are overwhelmed by brights. The difference is the cast of the skin and hair, golden or olive on a Soft Autumn and ashy or rosy on a Soft Summer. Camel against rose taupe decides it faster than pink against peach, because those are the neutrals you will actually build a wardrobe on. Light decides it too: shade, a north-facing window or a blue-lit screen pulls the skin hue away from yellow and can turn a Soft Autumn into a Soft Summer. The Soft Summer color palette is written from the other side of the same line.

Soft Autumn vs True Autumn is a question of how much saturation you can carry. True Autumn is what the test calls a warm face when neither depth nor clarity is strong and depth is on the dark side of zero — the centre of the warm family. Rust, mustard and pumpkin at full strength look like True Autumn's own colours. On a Soft Autumn the same colours are the loudest thing in the room, and the greyed versions — soft brick, honey, soft terracotta — look like the person rather than the outfit. This is the comparison behind searches for Soft Autumn versus Warm Autumn: Warm Autumn is another name for True Autumn.

Soft Autumn vs Deep Autumn shares the warmth and differs in weight. Deep Autumn is called when depth is the strongest signal — usually dark hair — and it can carry oxblood, pine and near-black browns that would sit heavily on a Soft Autumn. A Soft Autumn with dark-dyed hair is the classic case that reads as Deep; the palette that works follows the hair colour you have now. The quick test is caramel against dark chocolate under the chin: caramel wins on a Soft Autumn, chocolate on a Deep Autumn.

Soft Autumn colors to avoid, and what to wear instead

The three colours that fight a Soft Autumn hardest are below. Three, not thirty — a palette is a prediction about which tones lift the face, not a list of banned colours, so every one of them has a version that does the same job.

• Black#1C1C1C
• Hot pink#FF2E63
• Bright turquoise#00A6A6

Soft Autumn outfits and clothing

Eight combinations built only from the palette, shown in the proportions you would wear them — the largest block is the main garment, the smallest is the accessory.

• Caramel and moss

  • Caramel#C08552
  • Moss#A3B18A
  • Warm cream#F0E6D6

  A caramel coat over a moss knit, with a warm cream scarf. The autumn default.

• Olive and clay

  • Olive#8A9A5B
  • Clay#D0A98F
  • Oat#E0C9A6

  Olive trousers, a clay shirt, oat shoes or bag.

• Teal and mushroom

  • Muted teal#5F8A7C
  • Mushroom#A08E77
  • Caramel#C08552

  A muted teal dress or knit, mushroom outer layer, caramel leather.

• Terracotta weekend

  • Soft terracotta#B7765A
  • Stone beige#C9B79C
  • Bark#5B4B3A

  A soft terracotta top, stone beige jeans, bark boots.

• Warm grey workday

  • Warm grey#7E786E
  • Warm cream#F0E6D6
  • Soft brick#A8644F

  Warm grey suiting, a warm cream shirt, one soft brick accent.

• Rose and bark

  • Warm rose#C28A80
  • Bark#5B4B3A
  • Honey#C9A45C

  A warm rose blouse over bark trousers, honey-toned jewellery or bag.

• Sage and chocolate

  • Sage green#7C8B7A
  • Soft chocolate#6F5242
  • Buttermilk#EADFB4

  A sage cardigan, soft chocolate trousers, a buttermilk tee underneath.

• Spruce evening

  • Muted spruce#4E6661
  • Bronze#8C6D46
  • Dusty blush#D9A9A4

  A muted spruce dress, bronze jewellery, a dusty blush wrap.

Low-contrast, soft-edged patterns work: a blurred check in olive and oat, a small paisley in terracotta and moss, tweed, a watercolour floral in warm rose and sage. A crisp black-and-white stripe or a saturated tropical print does what black does — it puts the loudest thing in the outfit directly under the face. Texture carries this palette more than pattern: suede, brushed wool, linen, corduroy and matte knits make muted colour look deliberate, where high shine makes it look faded. Denim follows the same rule — mid-wash and slightly warm rather than dark indigo or bright white.

Soft Autumn capsule wardrobe

• Caramel wool coat
• Moss crew-neck knit
• Oat wide-leg trousers
• Bark leather boots
• Soft terracotta blouse
• Warm grey blazer
• Warm cream shirt
• Mid-wash denim
• Muted teal dress
• Olive brown chinos
• Brushed gold or bronze jewellery
• Mushroom suede bag

Soft Autumn color palette for men

The palette works for men without translation. A warm grey, olive brown or khaki suit replaces navy and black and looks noticeably more considered against a Soft Autumn face. Shirts in warm cream, pale sage and buttermilk rather than stark white; knitwear in moss, oat, olive and caramel. Ties and pocket squares carry the accents — soft terracotta, muted teal, soft brick. A caramel or mushroom overcoat is the natural outer layer, and brown suede shoes do what black leather does in other wardrobes. The habit to drop is navy and white: a crisp navy blazer with a white shirt is a clear, cool, high-contrast combination, and Soft Autumn colouring is warm, muted and low-contrast.

Soft Autumn makeup

Warm, earthy and quiet.

Shade is decided by your season; where the colour goes is decided by your eye shape.

Soft Autumn nail colors

• Soft terracotta#B7765A
• Warm nude#E8BC9F
• Olive#8A9A5B
• Mushroom#A08E77
• Soft brick#A8644F
• Dusty blush#D9A9A4

The best hair colors for a Soft Autumn

Warm mid-brown, bronze, soft auburn and honey. Ash tones drop the warmth the season runs on; very dark shades manufacture contrast the face cannot support.

Babylights and soft balayage suit the season when the contrast stays small — pieces a shade or two lighter than the base, in honey or bronze. Wide, high-contrast stripes of blonde over brown add exactly what the face does not have.

Going grey shifts a Soft Autumn more than it shifts most seasons. Grey hair is cool, and on this test hair is a third of the warm–cool reading, so some Soft Autumns start reading as Soft Summer as they grey. That is not the season changing so much as the palette that works following the hair you now have; warm grey and soft beige blending tends to look better than covering grey with a flat dark brown.

Hair colors that fight a Soft Autumn

Ash blonde, platinum and cool ash brown take out the warmth the season runs on, and the skin reads grey next to them. Blue-black and very dark cool browns manufacture contrast a Soft Autumn face cannot carry. Bright copper and orange-red are warm enough but too clear — the muted version, soft auburn, is the one that works.

Soft Autumn jewelry: gold or silver?

Brushed and antiqued gold, bronze, copper. Polished yellow gold is slightly too bright; silver reads cold.

Brushed gold, antiqued gold, bronze and copper are the natural metals. The finish matters as much as the metal: matte and brushed surfaces match muted colouring, where mirror-polished yellow gold is a little too bright.

Can a Soft Autumn wear silver? A soft, oxidised silver or pewter can work as a secondary metal, and mixed metals with a gold lead are easy. Bright polished silver is the one to skip near the face. Stones follow the palette: tiger's eye, smoky quartz, amber, jade, peridot in its softer greens and champagne pearls, rather than sapphire or ruby.

Glasses frames work the same way: warm tortoiseshell, olive, honey horn or dark brown rather than black. Colour is decided here; the frame shape is decided by your face shape.

Soft Autumn celebrities, and why this page does not list them

Soft Autumn celebrity lists are some of the most contradictory on the internet, and this page does not add another. A colour season is read from how skin, hair and eyes relate in neutral daylight. A celebrity photo is taken under studio light, colour-graded afterwards, and of someone whose hair colour and makeup were chosen by a stylist — often a warmer, softer look one year and a cooler, sharper one the next. The same actress appears as Soft Autumn on one site and Soft Summer on another because the lists are typing photographs.

The measurement worth having is your own, from a photo taken facing a window. That is what the test at the top of this page reads.

Can your Soft Autumn color season change?

Your measured result can change even when your colouring has not. A tan darkens the skin, which moves you along the light–deep axis; if that depth ends up further from zero than the softness, the test will call it Deep Autumn. Warmth is the more stable property, so a tanned Soft Autumn stays in the warm family.

Hair dye moves the result more than anything else, because hair is part of all three axes. An ash dye cools the warm–cool reading and can tip the result to Soft Summer. A much darker dye raises the depth and the hair–skin contrast at once, which can push it toward Deep Autumn or True Autumn. The system is usually taught as describing natural colouring, but the colours that flatter you follow what you actually look like now.

Age tends to lower both contrast and warmth — hair greys and lightens — which is why some Soft Autumns find the Soft Summer palette easier later on.

Why selfie tests give Soft Autumns different results

Soft Autumn and Soft Summer are separated by temperature alone on this test, so the colour of the light in your photo matters more here than almost anywhere else. Cold light — shade, an overcast north-facing window, a blue-lit screen in a dark room — pulls the skin hue away from yellow and can turn a Soft Autumn result into Soft Summer. A warm indoor bulb does the opposite and exaggerates the warmth.

The test looks for the whites of your eyes and uses them as a neutral reference to correct for the colour of the light. If they are visible, the result says it was corrected; if not, it says so, and that result is worth checking against its neighbour rather than taking at face value. The full explanation of the correction is on the color analysis page.

References

1. 1.Fink, B., Grammer, K., & Matts, P. J. (2006). Visible skin color distribution plays a role in the perception of age, attractiveness, and health in female faces. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27(6), 433–442. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2006.08.007.
2. 2.Chardon, A., Cretois, I., & Hourseau, C. (1991). Skin colour typology and suntanning pathways. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 13(4), 191–208. PMID 19291061.