Personal colour analysis sorts human skin into a small number of palettes based on three measurable traits — undertone, value, and chroma. The 12-season system is the most widely-used modern version. This article explains the system and links to the hex codes for every season.
The three axes
Three independent measurements describe any colour or any human skin tone.
Undertone (warm or cool). A warm undertone has yellow, peach, or golden cast. A cool undertone has blue, pink, or violet cast. Warm seasons are Spring and Autumn; cool seasons are Summer and Winter. This is the first and most important split.
Value (light or dark). Light values cluster in the upper half of the lightness scale; dark values in the lower. Light Spring and Light Summer share light values; Dark Autumn and Dark Winter share dark values.
Chroma (bright or soft). High chroma is vivid and saturated. Low chroma is muted and greyed. Bright Spring and Bright Winter share high chroma; Soft Summer and Soft Autumn share low chroma.
Every person falls somewhere on each axis. The 12-season system divides each base season (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) into three variants depending on which secondary trait dominates after undertone.
The twelve seasons
Each season has a published palette of roughly twelve hex codes. The palettes are designed so that any two pieces from the same season coordinate without effort — they share the underlying three-trait signature.
Spring (warm)
- Light Spring — warm, light, medium chroma. Peach, soft yellow, mint, sky blue.
- True Spring (Warm Spring) — warm, medium, bright. Coral, apricot, warm yellow, turquoise.
- Bright Spring (Clear Spring) — warm-neutral, electric, medium. Hot coral, lime, royal blue.
Summer (cool)
- Light Summer — cool, light, soft. Powder pink, baby blue, soft lavender.
- True Summer (Cool Summer) — cool, medium, medium chroma. Rose pink, powder blue, soft navy.
- Soft Summer — cool, muted, medium. Dusty rose, soft teal, slate blue.
Autumn (warm)
- Soft Autumn (Soft Fall) — warm, soft, medium. Camel, sage, soft terracotta.
- True Autumn (Warm Autumn) — warm, medium-deep, medium chroma. Pumpkin, rust, olive, mustard.
- Dark Autumn (Deep Autumn, Deep Fall) — warm, dark, medium chroma. Oxblood, forest green, espresso.
Winter (cool)
- Bright Winter (Clear Winter) — cool-neutral, electric, full range. True red, royal blue, emerald, pure white, true black.
- True Winter (Cool Winter) — cool, medium-deep, clear chroma. True red, magenta, royal purple, icy blue.
- Dark Winter (Deep Winter) — cool, dark, medium chroma. Burgundy, navy, forest green, deep plum.
How to find your season
Three steps narrow the field.
Step one. Determine your undertone. Look at the veins on the inside of your wrist in natural daylight. Blue or blue-violet veins indicate a cool undertone (Summer or Winter). Green or olive veins indicate a warm undertone (Spring or Autumn). If you cannot tell, the test is inconclusive and you fall in the neutral zone — drape tests will resolve it.
Step two. Determine your value range. Compare yourself against pure white and pure black. If pure white is fine but pure black overwhelms, you are light. If pure black is fine but pure white is stark, you are dark. If both are tolerable, you are medium. Light values point to Light Spring or Light Summer. Dark values point to Dark Autumn or Dark Winter.
Step three. Determine your chroma preference. Test bright fuchsia against dusty rose, or hot coral against muted terracotta. The colour that lifts your face is your chroma direction. Bright responses point to Bright Spring or Bright Winter. Soft responses point to Soft Summer or Soft Autumn.
The three answers together name your season. Refine with drape tests against the candidate palette and its two or three neighbours on the flow chart.
Why the system works
The 12-season method works because human skin has a real physiological palette. Skin contains melanin (which is warm), haemoglobin (cool red), and carotene (warm yellow). Hair colour and eye colour are largely correlated with skin tone through shared genetic factors. The combination produces a small number of distinct types that match the seasonal palettes.
The flow-chart structure also reflects real biology. Adjacent seasons share genuine boundary cases — a fair person with cool undertones and medium value might land in Cool Summer or in Light Summer, and the drape test settles it.
The system is not a rigid taxonomy. It is a tool for narrowing wardrobe and brand-colour decisions from infinite possibilities to a handful of internally-coherent options.
Using your season in product and brand work
If you know your personal season, you can apply the same palette to product or brand systems with three caveats.
Accessibility math is unaffected by season. WCAG 2.1 AA contrast requirements still apply regardless of palette. Some seasonal palettes need deeper text variants to hit 4.5:1 against the surface neutral. See colour accessibility for the maths.
Internal coherence is the dividend. Within a season, any two palette colours coordinate by construction. This eliminates the constant colour-matching effort that ad-hoc palette work requires.
Cross-season pairings rarely work. Combining a Soft Summer with a Warm Autumn produces an internally inconsistent palette that reads as confused. The 12-season system gives the most value when used as a constraint, not as a starting menu.
Tools and references
- The colour finder at /find accepts any hex code and reports HSL coordinates, which you can use to test candidates against any season’s three-trait signature.
- The accessibility article covers contrast maths for any palette.
- Every linked season article above includes twelve representative hex codes, programmatic conditions for adding new colours, and brand/product application notes.
The 12-season system is a constraint, not a cage. The point is to make colour decisions easier, not to limit creativity. Find your season, learn the palette, and use it as the structural backbone of every colour choice that follows.