Warm or cool undertones

The three tests, and what each is actually worth

Undertone is the colour underneath your skin colour rather than the colour of it, which is why two people of the same depth can need opposite palettes. All three tests below are attempts to see it without instruments, and all three are indirect. They are worth doing in the order given, because they get less arguable as you go down.

The gold-and-silver test is the strongest of them for one structural reason: it is a comparison rather than a judgement. You are not asked what colour something is, only which of two things looks better next to your face, and people are far better at the second question than the first.

• Veins at the inner wrist: blue or purple reads cool, green reads warm, and a mix reads neutral. Do it in daylight, because the test is really about how light scatters through skin and indoor light changes the answer.
• Gold against silver, both held flat against bare skin at the jaw, no makeup: whichever makes the skin look even rather than sallow is your half. 6 of the twelve palettes wear gold and 6 wear silver, so this one question halves the field.
• Sun: skin that tans readily and rarely burns leans warm; skin that burns first and tans slowly leans cool. This is the weakest of the three and the one most confounded by depth rather than tone.
• Any test that disagrees with the other two is the one to drop. A single reading here is a coin flip with an opinion attached.

What the answer buys you

The undertone answer does not name a season. It removes most of them: 5 of the twelve palettes are warm-toned, 4 are cool-toned, and 3 sit between, which is where anyone whose three tests disagreed most likely belongs.

Neutral is a real answer rather than a failed one. Soft Summer, Soft Autumn and Bright Winter exist precisely because a large share of people do not read decisively either way, and being told to force a side is how people end up in a palette that never quite works.

• Warm: Light Spring (warm, light skin tones), True Spring (warm, clear skin tones), Bright Spring (warm skin tones with high contrast), True Autumn (warm, rich skin tones) and Deep Autumn (deep, warm skin tones).
• Cool: Light Summer (cool, light skin tones), True Summer (cool, soft skin tones), Deep Winter (deep, cool skin tones) and True Winter (cool, clear skin tones).
• Neutral: Soft Summer (neutral-cool, muted skin tones), Soft Autumn (neutral-warm, muted skin tones) and Bright Winter (bright, high-contrast skin tones).

The colours that turn on the answer

Every one of the 24 colour words a shop actually uses was scored against the warm palettes and against the cool ones, and the number below is the gap between the best it manages on each side. A large gap means the undertone answer decides whether you should buy it. A small gap means it does not, whatever anyone tells you.

17 colours open a gap of ten points or more, and 13 of the 24 do better warm than cool. That asymmetry is a property of these particular palettes rather than a fact about colour.

• Mustard (#D4A017): 81 at best on True Autumn, 25 on Light Summer. Leans warm by 56.
• Camel (#C19A6B): 95 at best on True Spring, 46 on True Summer. Leans warm by 49.
• Terracotta (#C36A4E): 79 at best on True Autumn, 32 on True Winter. Leans warm by 47.
• Coral (#F4735A): 92 at best on Bright Spring, 52 on True Summer. Leans warm by 40.
• Chocolate brown (#4A2C1A): 91 at best on Deep Autumn, 53 on Deep Winter. Leans warm by 38.
• Olive green (#6B6B3A): 87 at best on True Autumn, 48 on True Winter. Leans warm by 38.
• Rust (#B7410E): 88 at best on True Autumn, 53 on True Winter. Leans warm by 34.
• Mauve (#9A7B8C): 58 at best on True Spring, 90 on True Summer. Leans cool by 32.
• Navy (#1B2A4A): 62 at best on Bright Spring, 92 on Deep Winter. Leans cool by 30.
• Cobalt blue (#0047AB): 64 at best on Bright Spring, 92 on True Winter. Leans cool by 28.
• Beige (#D9C6A8): 97 at best on Light Spring, 73 on True Summer. Leans warm by 23.
• Charcoal (#36393D): 71 at best on Deep Autumn, 92 on Deep Winter. Leans cool by 21.
• Grey (#9A9A9A): 69 at best on Light Spring, 88 on Light Summer. Leans cool by 19.
• Emerald green (#00875A): 71 at best on True Autumn, 84 on True Winter. Leans cool by 13.
• Black (#111111): 81 at best on Deep Autumn, 93 on Deep Winter. Leans cool by 12.
• Cream (#F2E8D5): 97 at best on Light Spring, 85 on Light Summer. Leans warm by 12.
• White (#FAFAFA): 87 at best on Light Spring, 98 on True Winter. Leans cool by 11.

The colours that do not care

These land within 3 points of each other on both sides, so they are safe to buy before you have settled the question. Most of them are neutrals, which is the useful part: a wardrobe is mostly neutrals and only occasionally a colour.

• Teal (#1F7A78): 83 warm against 82 cool.
• Forest green (#22432E): 86 warm against 87 cool.

Why a photo beats all three

Each test above reads one weak signal through skin, in whatever light you happened to be standing in, and asks you to judge your own face, which is the thing people are worst at judging. A reading taken from a photograph samples your actual skin colour and compares it against every palette by measured distance, in the same arithmetic that scores a garment later.

That is the difference worth being honest about. These tests will get you to the right half most of the time. They will not tell you which of the 5 warm palettes is yours, because that turns on depth and clarity, and neither of those is visible at a wrist.