The seasonal sub-types - Summer
The Summer palette is soft, cool, smokey and subtle, and extends from deepest charcoal grey and blue spruce all the way to softest pinks and powder blues. If you've been given a designation within the Summer palette, let's explore what that means.
Do remember though, that your seasonal type is a guide. If you fall at one end of a palette, it doesn’t mean you can’t ever go near colours from other areas of that palette, just that this particular area is the strongest part for your own skin tone and contrast level. Sometimes a 12 or 16 season system can feel quite limiting in terms of the colours available to you, but remember that the rest of the colours within your wider palette will also work for you and will harmonise with your absolute best colours.
True/Sweetpea Summer
This is the 'classic' Summer look and often a True Summer has a real Summer 'look'; ashy mid-brown hair, grey, blue or green eyes, and relatively light skin. Their best colours are mid pinks, lots of blues from denim to sky and the beautiful blue-greys of the Summer palette.
The colours are mid-range, neither too light nor too dark, and are at the cooler end of the summer palette - the rose browns and jade greens of Soft Summers are often a little too warm for True Summers, even though they are all cool toned. Your best colours then are rose pinks, soft blues and mid greys.
Light/Pastel/Cotton Wool Ball Summer
Although Summer is, by its nature, a lighter palette than either Winter or Autumn, even within the palette there are Summers who suit the lightest colours within the palette. They often have the look of Springs, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
If the four seasons are viewed as a continuous spectrum rather than four distinct blocks of colour, the Light Summer colours sit somewhat nearer the Spring palette.
Your best colours are sky blues, primrose yellow and light pinks and greys, and where you need dark neutrals keep them soft, such as a French Navy.
Deep/Cool/Dark Summer
Deep Summer sits at the very coolest, most wintery end of the Summer palette when all four seasons are viewed as one linked spectrum. Its colours are, unsurprisingly, the darkest and brightest Summer colours, and often work best in outfits with a degree of contrast, unlike the other Summer colours which generally work in a more tonal look.
Dark Summers can often be mistaken (or mistake themselves) for Winters, with a bright or dark look about them, and it is only with a professional analysis with precision dyed drapes that the difference can be seen.
Your best colours are those deep dark Summer colours that land just on the cusp of the Winter palette, like deep grape and aubergine shades, bold pinky reds and the darkest and brighter Summer blues.
Soft/Brown Summers
The name Soft Summer can be a little misleading, as it seems that it ought to be similar to Light Summer, but actually it tends towards the Autumn 'end' of the Summer palette, which lends it some depth of colour. Although all Summer colours are still very definitely cool toned, soft Summer colours are less cool than others.
Soft Summers often look like they might be autumns, perhaps with olive coloured eyes or red glints in their hair. Your best colours are cool toned sea greens and teals, rose browns and soft navy, and you also do rose gold as well as silver when it comes to jewellery.
Let's talk about crossover colours
Once you understand seasonal types, the 'crossover' colours (those that apply to more than one season) at Kettlewell begin to make more sense. If a person sits at the 'end' of the Spring palette closest to Summer, it stands to reason that some colours will sit so close to that dividing line between Spring and Summer that the difference between them and the colour the other side of that dividing line will be indistinguishable to the human eye. If you are looking at crossover colours, consider which season the colours cross over with - if you are a light Spring, for example, those colours that work on both Springs and Summers will be your best crossover colours. Don't be afraid of trying other season crossover colours too though - if they apply to your palette, there's an excellent chance they will work on you. If you're feeling unsure, do 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.
To read about the other seasons use the links below:
