Cool · balanced-to-deep · clear
Coolness is the defining quality, carried at full strength. Blue-based colours and true black are yours.
Three, not thirty. A palette is a prediction about which tones lift your face, not a list of banned colours — and a long avoid-list is the fastest way to make a useful idea useless.
True Winter is coolness at full strength, at medium-to-deep value, with clear rather than muted colour. Skin reads cool or neutral, hair is usually dark with an ash cast, and eyes are cool blue, grey or dark brown. This is the season that genuinely owns true black and optic white — two things almost nobody else wears well.
Coolness is obvious; the useful tests separate you from the neighbours.
Click to choose a photo, or drop one here
Straight-on, even lighting, at arm's length gives the most comparable reading.
No photo to hand? Try one of these and see what the tool returns.
Runs in your browser. Your photo is never uploaded.
Bright Winter
Brightness. If icy pastels and vivid brights are equally strong on you, you are Bright; True Winter is best at full-strength cool rather than at the extremes.
Deep Winter
Depth. Deep Winter needs weight in every colour; True Winter can carry a clean mid-tone cool blue without being swamped.
Cool and clean; this season does not suit softening.
Cool dark brown to black, or genuine platinum. Warm tones of any kind read as brassy against skin with no warmth to meet them.
Silver, white gold and platinum in high polish. Yellow gold works against the skin every time.
Coolness is obvious; the useful tests separate you from the neighbours. True black under the chin should look intentional rather than heavy. Optic white should beat cream clearly — if cream wins, you are not in the winter family at all. A clean cool red should suit better than a dusty berry, which rules out True Summer.
Crimson, Sapphire, Deep teal, Cool fuchsia, Indigo and similar tones, with pure white, charcoal grey, black as the neutrals that carry them.
Silver, white gold and platinum in high polish. Yellow gold works against the skin every time.
Cool dark brown to black, or genuine platinum. Warm tones of any kind read as brassy against skin with no warmth to meet them.
Brightness. If icy pastels and vivid brights are equally strong on you, you are Bright; True Winter is best at full-strength cool rather than at the extremes.
Depth. Deep Winter needs weight in every colour; True Winter can carry a clean mid-tone cool blue without being swamped.
Not sure which one you are? Measure your three axes — it runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.