The Different Types of Springs

The Spring palette is warm, light, bright and fresh. But it also contains everything from autumnal Corn Yellow to crisp Bright Navy and palest Peachy Pink. Knowing your seasonal sub-type means knowing which colours from your wider palette will best work for you, and give you guidance on the best way for you to combine colours to feel your most authentic, confident self.

Let’s explore the sub-types within the Spring palette, and discover how knowing your sub-type can open up even more amazing colours for you.

Do remember that your seasonal type is a guide. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever go near colours from other areas of the Spring palette, just that this particular area is the very best part for your own skin tone and contrast level. Remember that all of the colours within your wider seasonal palette will also work for you, and will harmonise with your sub-type ‘wow’ colours.

True Spring

This is our classic Spring palette. The True Spring person (and their palette) has an even balance of Spring’s warm, bright and light characteristics.

True Springs often (although definitely not always!) look like the ‘classic’ Spring - they can have warm golden blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and their skintone has a real glow about it when harmonised with their best colours. Their skintone can be deeper (especially in non-caucasian skins), but there is still an overall feeling of lightness, warmth and brightness to their look.

Because you sit right in the middle of the Spring palette - there is no ‘leaning’ towards any of the other three seasons, by being deeper, brighter, warmer or cooler - the best colours for these True Springs really are, very simply, the colours of the Spring palette! Cheating on your palette by shopping from colours in another palette is never going to work as well for you as one of the other types of Springs, who can push into their neighbouring season. The flip side is that you look the best in the widest range of Spring colours, as you really do sit bang in the middle of this palette! This means that it isn’t often helpful to add a tonal direction to the shopping filter on the Shop by Colour page, as adding in colours from other seasons rarely helps you - simply choose from the full Spring palette and you’ll never go far wrong!

You still have your own very best core of colours though. They are, unsurprisingly, the most definitively Spring colours. They can be any shade, from yellow and green through to blue, red and neutrals, but they share that equal balance of warmth, lightness and brightness that you also hold.

When it comes to colour combining, you often do colour blocking incredibly well - either pairing a neutral and a bright, or two or more brights within your outfit. If your outfits feel a little flat, adding in some more contrast between colours or levels of light and dark within your outfit can make you feel your bright and cheery Spring self!

As a side note - if you have been given the designation of ‘Paintbox Spring’ under the House of Colour system, it’s very likely that this is the best part of the Spring palette for you.

Warm Spring

Also known as a Golden Spring, the most noticeable characteristic of Warm Springs is the warmth in their skin, hair and eye colour, although they still retain those key light and bright traits too.

Warm Springs often (again, not always) have a noticeable warmth to their hair, either very golden to strawberry or bright red, through to the warmest browns. Eye colour is often green, turquoise-blue or light hazel, and whatever their skin colour, they have a real golden warmth to their skintone when wearing the right colours.

Warm Spring falls at the very warmest, most yellow toned end of the Spring palette, and if you viewed all four seasonal palettes as one continuous spectrum of colour, then Warm Spring’s colours would fall nearer to Autumn than to Winter or Summer.

Warm Spring’s best colours are usually warm greens, yellows, orangey reds, very peachy (yellowed) pinks and every shade of brown from dark tan to palest beige.

While most Springs suit contrast when combining colours, your tendency to sit towards the Autumn end of the Spring palette can mean that you prefer a slightly more tonal look, so if the bold, bright contrast of Spring feels a little much, try wearing your colours in a more layered, tonal way. Be led by what feels best!

The dominant tonal direction for this seasonal sub-type is Warm, so you can visit Shop by Colour and filter for the Warm dominant tonal direction for more colours which you might love (if you want to read more about how tonal directions relate to seasons, this post is a great starting point).

Bright Spring

Also known as a Blue Spring or Clear Spring, the most dominant characteristic of Bright Springs is the clarity and brightness of their look, more than the warmth or lightness of Spring (which they also hold, but to a lesser degree).

Bright Springs very often look like they might be Winters, with a barely-warm and -light appearance (although they still hold Spring’s traits of warmth and lightness to some degree). Hair is often darker than most Springs, and there is almost always high contrast between the skin, hair and eye colour.

Bright Spring falls at the coolest, least yellow toned end of the Spring palette, and if you viewed all four seasons as one continuous spectrum of colour, then Bright Spring’s colours would fall nearer to Winter than Summer or Autumn.

Bright Spring’s best colours are usually clear, bright blues, sharp yellows, almost-neon pinks, and true reds.

You will almost certainly look your best with a good degree of contrast within your outfit - mix light and dark tones, as well as unexpected colour combinations, for a high contrast look that will highlight the contrast and brightness within your own features.

The dominant tonal direction for this seasonal sub-type is Clear, so you can visit Shop by Colour and filter for the Clear dominant tonal direction for more colours which you might love (if you want to read more about how tonal directions relate to seasons, this post is a great starting point).

Light Spring

Also known as a Pastel or Light Blue Spring, the most dominant characteristic of these Springs is the lightness of their look. They still retain Spring’s warmth and brightness, but lightness is the most predominant trait.

Light Springs often look like classic Summers, with ash blonde hair and blue eyes, and a porcelain complexion. They can have a range of skin tones, but are usually fair for their ethnicity, with relatively light hair and eyes.

Similarly to Bright Springs, Light Springs also sit at the less warm end of their palette, but this time if you were to view all four seasons as a continuous spectrum of colour, instead of sitting towards the cool Winter palette, Light Springs sit towards the cool, light and soft Summer palette. This means that although all of Light Spring’s colours have at least some degree of warmth (yellowness), they are beginning to acquire the lightness and softness of Summer.

Light Spring’s best colours feature plenty of tints (colours with white added, which makes them lighter and fresher). Dove Grey is often the best neutral, and pale pinks, mint greens and light aquas are the best colours.

Since colour combining is very often about reflecting our own features, you may well find that sticking to a lighter, softer, more tonal look, with maybe just a dash of a particularly light or dark or bright colour, works better for you than going all out with light to dark and bright to neutral contrast throughout your outfit.

The dominant tonal direction for this seasonal sub-type is Light, so you can visit Shop by Colour and filter for the Light dominant tonal direction for more colours which you might love (if you want to read more about how tonal directions relate to seasons, this post is a great starting point).

To read about the other seasons, use the links below:

This is the first of four blog posts, exploring the different ‘types’ of each season. When discussing each season I will try to use the most commonly understood terms of each type, but please do contact us if you feel we’ve missed out a term that would help colour analysis clients understand their season.

When a client has a personal colour analysis, the time when they were given one of four designations – Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter – and sent on their way is long gone. Whether you’re pastel, clear, deep, soft, mellow, golden or dark, the chances are that you were given some other descriptive terms alongside your seasonal classification. Under some systems, you may have received no season name at all, but simply have been classified as two descriptive words (cool and clear, for instance). However it is described, the fact is that the time of being simply one of four seasons is over. Most systems are now what is called ’12 season’, which means that you can be slotted into one of 12 ‘boxes’ by your analyst.

This process means that your analyst can more easily show you the very best palette of colours for you, but can also mean that you leave your analyses not entirely clear on what exactly you are.

The time has come, you’ll be pleased to hear, to clear up any confusion that may be lingering since your colour analysis.

Each week I’ll be looking at one season and discussing the different types within that season and how it might affect the kinds of colours you choose to wear.

Do remember though, that your seasonal type is a guide. If you fall at one end of, say, the Summer palette, it doesn’t mean you can’t ever touch colours from other areas of the Summer palette you may have been given, just that this particular area is the strongest part of the palette for your personal skin tone and contrast level.

This week, we’ll be looking at Spring colours.

True/Golden/Warm Spring

This is perhaps the most ‘standard’ Spring palette – the colours are warm, bright and have a clear yellow undertone. Golden Springs are often (although not exclusively) the ones who ‘look’ like they are going to be a Spring – strawberry blonde, bright red or golden yellow hair colour and clear blue, green or light brown eyes. Their fair peaches and cream skintone glows with their best colours.

A True Spring falls at the very warmest, most golden end of the wider Spring palette, and if you viewed the entire colour range of all four seasons as one big spectrum of colour, then True Spring’s colours would fall nearer to Autumn’s than to Winter’s or Summer’s.

True Spring’s best colours are usually warm greens, yellows, orangey reds, very peachy pinks and every shade of light brown from tan to palest beige.

Your best Kettlewell colours: paprika, deep salmon, coral, coral red, geranium, buttercup, soft gold, yellow ochre, new lime, lime, mallard, soft teal, corn yellow, tomato, seaspray, beige, sand, light sand, nut brown, chocolate, tan, gold lace.

Light/Pastel Spring

This is the Spring palette with some of the intensity and saturation removed. Tints (ie base Spring colours that have had white added to make them lighter and clearer) feature heavily in the Light Spring palette - the colours never get too dark and heavy. The darkest of the Spring browns can often be too gloomy, with bright navy and dove grey making for better neutrals.

Light Springs often have very light clear eye colour, such as pale grey, blue or green, and hair that can look ashier than the golden tones of True Spring.

Again, if we were to put Light Spring's colours onto one big spectrum of all four seasons, its colours would fall towards the Summer end of the Spring palette.

Light Spring's best colours are (unsurprisingly!) the lightest Spring colours. Pale peach, light dove grey, palest mint green and aqua.

Your best Kettlewell colours: salmon, mellow rose, peach, cream, beige, soft white, sand, light sand, vanilla, primrose, corn yellow, new lime, apple, spearmint, pastel jade, light aqua, bluebell, cornflower, heliotrope, wisteria, pebble grey, soft white lace, warm grey, light grey lace, light teal marl, cobalt blue marl, periwinkle, breton blue, lapis blue, light navy.

Bright/Clear/Blue Spring

Containing the most saturated and boldest of Spring's colours, people who fall into the Bright Spring category are often some of the trickiest to analyse - they can look like Winters, with piercingly bright eye colours, and often relatively dark hair with little or no warmth.

Bright Spring falls at the Winter end of the Spring palette, making it easy to see why the colours get clearer, brighter and less warm than those of True Spring.

Bright Spring's best colours are the bright blues and true reds, dove greys and more acidic yellows.

Your best Kettlewell colours: watermelon, pink coral, poppy, true red, shocking pink, cream, soft white, acid yellow, leaf, aquamarine, aqua, turquoise, azure, chinese blue, cobalt blue, oxford blue, bright navy, royal blue, midnight blue, iris, lobelia, purple, bright purple, violet, dove grey, soft grey, light grey marl.

A note on Paintbox Springs

There is one designation that doesn't fall neatly into any of the above categories. A Paintbox Spring is a classification used by House of Colour to denote someone who suits all of the strongest and brightest Spring colours, both those at the warmest and cooler end of the palette. Falling somewhere between Bright and True in its warmth level, Paintbox Springs need saturation and contrast in their outfits to look their best.

Paintbox Spring's best colours: watermelon, geranium, poppy, true red, tomato, buttercup, lime, leaf, aquamarine, aqua, cobalt blue, bright navy, royal blue, bright purple, violet.

A note on crossover colours

Once the Spring colours are explained, and you start to see why certain groups of colours go together and lean towards one or other season within the Spring palette, it is easier to understand why crossover colours happen.

Once you begin to consider all four seasons as a spectrum, rather than four distinct blocks, it is easy to see that where for instance, Spring meets Summer, there will be a few colours that sit so close to the dividing line as to be indistinguishable to the human eye from virtually identical colours that sit just the other side of the seasonal 'line'. And where three (or even four, in the case of true red and one or two other colours) seasons meet, we can find a multi-season colour that genuinely works on more than two seasons.

When considering crossover colours, look first at those that fall at 'your' end of the palette (so if you are a Light Spring, consider colours that are Spring/Summer crossovers), but don't totally ignore colours that crossover with other seasons if you think they'll work. Your own colour analyst can advise you if you are still feeling unsure, or give Kettlewell a call.

Crossover colours can be a tricky subject to get your head around, but once you begin to look at the entire spectrum of colours rather than each season in isolation, it starts to make perfect sense.