SEASONAL COLOUR ANALYSIS
What is Colour Analysis?
Seasonal colour analysis is a system for identifying the colours that best complement an individual's natural colouring, enhancing their appearance by making them look vibrant, balanced, and harmonious. It’s based on the idea that everyone’s natural colouring (skin tone, eye colour, and hair colour) aligns with certain colours found in nature. Seasonal colour analysis classifies people into "seasons"—Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter—each with distinct colour palettes.
Key Aspects of Seasonal Colour Analysis
The method is grounded in three main characteristics:
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Temperature: Determines if someone’s undertones are warm (yellow undertones) or cool (blue undertones).
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Value: Describes whether a person’s colouring is light or dark (the relative lightness or darkness of features like hair, eyes and skintone).
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Intensity/Chroma: Refers to the intensity or clarity of colours that suit someone—either soft and muted or bright and vibrant.
The 16–23 Palette Colour Analysis System
The International Image Institute’s colour analysis method expands on the traditional four seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter to recognise the nuances that exist within human colouring.
Rather than simply placing everyone into one of four broad categories, the system assesses three key dimensions of colour — temperature, value and intensity — through a three-stage analysis process.
First, we determine whether your colouring is warm, cool or neutral. We then establish your home season before exploring your most harmonious sub-season or flow palette.
There are 16 seasonal palettes, 6 True Flow palettes and 1 Universal palette, creating a total of 23 possible palette outcomes.
Spring — 4 Sub-Season Possibilities
Spring colouring is warm and generally characterised by freshness, clarity and brightness, but the balance of these characteristics varies between the four Spring palettes.
1. True Spring — Warm, clear and fresh colours such as coral, peach and grass green.
2. Light Spring — Light, fresh and more neutral-warm colours such as pale coral and light aqua.
3. Bright Spring — Vivid, high-intensity colours with a more neutral-warm temperature, such as azure blue and hot pink.
4. Warm Spring — Strongly warm, saturated colours with a toasted quality, such as fire red and lime green.
Summer — 4 Sub-Season Possibilities
Summer belongs to the cool side of the seasonal spectrum and is generally characterised by softer, cooler colour dimensions.
5. True Summer — Cool, soft and refined colours such as rose and French blue.
6. Light Summer — Very light, more neutral-cool colours such as light cornflower blue and melon pink.
7. Muted Summer — Soft, low-intensity, neutral-cool colours with greater neutrality, such as soft teal and taupe grey.
8. Cool Summer — Intensely cool colours with greater clarity and depth than True Summer, while remaining softer than Winter, such as navy and bubblegum pink.
Autumn — 4 Sub-Season Possibilities
Autumn sits on the warm side of the spectrum and is characterised by rich, earthy and grounded colour dimensions.
9. True Autumn — Warm, rich and earthy colours such as olive, rust and burnt orange.
10. Muted Autumn — Soft, low-intensity and more neutral-warm colours such as teal and rosewood.
11. Deep Autumn — Dark, rich and more neutral-warm colours such as dark pine, burgundy and brown-black.
12. Warm Autumn — Strongly warm, saturated and earthy colours such as pumpkin and burnt sienna.
Winter — 4 Sub-Season Possibilities
Winter belongs to the cool side of the spectrum and is characterised by greater depth, clarity and intensity.
13. True Winter — Fully cool, intense colours such as ruby red, sapphire blue, black and stark white.
14. Bright Winter — Vivid, high-intensity, more neutral-cool colours such as electric purple, hot pink and clear red.
15. Deep Winter — Dark, intense and more neutral-cool colours such as deep plum, burgundy and dark navy.
16. Cool Winter — Extremely cool, clear colours that sit between the dimensions of Winter and Summer, such as jade, bubblegum pink and royal blue.
The 6 True Flow Palettes
Not everyone sits most harmoniously within one of the 16 seasonal palettes.
In rarer cases, a person may sit directly between two home seasons, with neither season dominating. These are the True Flow palettes.
Rather than being defined primarily by a home season, these palettes are centred around one dominant colour dimension — Warm, Cool, Bright, Muted, Light or Deep.
17. True Warm — Yellow-based colours flowing between Spring and Autumn.
18. True Cool — Blue-based colours flowing between Summer and Winter.
19. True Bright — Clear, highly saturated colours flowing between Spring and Winter.
20. True Muted — Soft, lower-intensity colours flowing between Summer and Autumn.
21. True Light — Light and delicate colours flowing between Spring and Summer.
22. True Deep — Dark, rich and intense colours flowing between Autumn and Winter.
The Universal Palette
23. Universal is the rarest outcome within the system.
Rather than leaning noticeably warm or cool, light or deep, bright or muted, Universal colouring sits close to the centre of the colour dimensions, with a neutral temperature and medium value and intensity.
This allows the individual to harmonise with a carefully balanced selection of colours that do not pull strongly towards any one seasonal direction.
Why Use a 16–23 Palette System?
This expanded approach recognises that human colouring doesn’t always fit perfectly into one of the four home seasons. By assessing temperature, value and intensity, we can identify not only your season, but more precisely where you sit within the wider spectrum of colour.
Finding your most harmonious palette can help guide your choices in clothing, makeup, hair colour and accessories. The right colours can brighten the complexion, minimise the appearance of shadows and bring greater definition to your natural features.
The 16–23 Palette System allows us to recognise the nuances in individual colouring and find the palette that creates the most natural harmony for you.
For more information on the International Image Institutes System I use Click Here
The Original Four Seasons Explained
Each season represents a unique combination of these characteristics:
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Spring: Warm, light, and bright. Spring people look best in warm and fresh colours, like peach, coral, light greens, and golden yellows.
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Summer: Cool, light, and soft. Summer people are complemented by soft, cool, and muted colours, like pastel pinks, lavender, light blues, and rose browns.
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Autumn: Warm, dark, and muted. Autumn people shine in earthy, rich, warm colors, like olive green, rust, burnt orange, and warm browns.
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Winter: Cool, dark, and bright. Winter people look striking in cool, high-contrast, and intense colours, like black, white, true red, and jewel tones.
Expanded Seasonal & Tonal Systems
The four basic seasons can be further divided, leading to 12, 16, or even up to seasonal subtypes of 23. This accounts for the diversity in individual colouring, allowing for a more accurate colour palette that may better suit someone’s unique mix of temperature, intensity and value.
