THE VISUAL REFERENCE

Skin Tone Color Chart

Cross your undertone with your depth and you get a color direction — no guesswork. Every swatch below is a real, named color, not a stock photo filter.

Want your exact palette instead of a general direction? Get your exact palette from a selfie — about 90 seconds.

01The Master Chart

Undertone × depth


Find your undertone along the top, your depth down the side. The cell where they meet shows a representative skin-tone swatch and the color-season family most people with that combination fall into.

CoolNeutralWarm
Fair
Summer / Winter
Light Spring / Light Summer
Light Spring
Light
Light Summer
True Spring / True Summer
True Spring
Medium
True Summer / Cool Winter
Soft Autumn / Soft Summer
True Autumn
Tan
Cool Winter
Soft Autumn
True Autumn / Deep Autumn
Deep
Deep Winter
Deep Autumn / Deep Winter
Deep Autumn

These are typical mappings, not guarantees — chroma (how bright vs. muted your coloring is) also shifts which exact season fits, which is why some cells span two families.

02Find Yourself

Find yourself on the chart


Depth is easy to judge in a mirror. Undertone takes a little more work — these three quick tests will get you most of the way there.

The vein test

Look at the veins on your inner wrist in daylight. Blue or purple suggests cool; green or olive suggests warm; a genuine mix suggests neutral.

The jewelry test

Lay gold and silver against bare skin. One sits "in" your skin, the other sits "on" it like a costume. Gold flatters warm, silver flatters cool.

The white-paper test

Hold pure white paper under your chin, then cream paper. Warm undertones look better against cream; cool undertones look better against stark white.

Want a guided version of these tests? Try the undertone quiz or the skin tone test.

03The Palettes

Best colors by undertone


Cool undertone

Blue-based, jewel-toned, and icy colors read best against pink or blue undertones.

Electric Blue
Hot Pink
Emerald
Slate Blue
Dusty Rose
Ruby
Bright Purple
Mauve

Tends to wash out

Warm Mustard
Pumpkin
Warm Camel
Rust Orange

Warm undertone

Golden, peachy, and earthy colors read best against yellow or golden undertones.

Goldenrod
Pumpkin
Copper
Amber
Coral
Warm Olive
Bronze
Rust

Tends to wash out

Bright Fuchsia
Electric Blue
Pure Black
Icy Silver

Neutral undertone

Muted, balanced colors — neither icy nor golden — work best when your undertone doesn't clearly lean either way.

Soft Moss
Misty Taupe
Grey Sage
Rosewood
Warm Moss
Deep Turquoise
Dusty Teal
Bronze

Tends to wash out

Bright Red
Cool Fuchsia
Jet Black
Bright White

These charts get you close. A photo-based analysis reads your actual undertone, depth and chroma and gives you one exact palette.

04The Distinction

Skin tone vs. undertone vs. color season


These three terms get used interchangeably, but they measure different things. Skin tone is how light or dark your skin is. Undertoneis the underlying hue — cool, warm, or neutral — independent of depth. Your color season is the full picture: undertone, depth, and chroma (how bright or muted your coloring reads), plus your hair and eye color. A chart like this one can only use the first two, which is why it points to a family of seasons rather than one exact answer.

Go deeper on best colors for skin tone, see every palette in the 12 season color chart, read the full breakdown of seasonal color analysis, or jump straight to the color analysis quiz.

05FAQ

Questions people actually ask


FROM CHART TO EXACT PALETTE

Skip the guesswork

This chart gets you a family of colors. Our AI reads your actual undertone, depth and chroma from two photos and gives you your exact 12-season palette — and the colors to avoid — in about 90 seconds.

Prefer a quiz? Start with the free color analysis quiz.

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