Light Summer color palette: pale, cool colors to try on live

Same problem as Light Spring, opposite fix

Pale coloring has one recurring problem, and two seasons were invented to handle it. Too much darkness overwhelms a light face, so both Light Spring and Light Summer stop well short of black, and both wear mostly pale colors. They differ in what those pale colors are doing. Light Spring adds gold. Light Summer adds blue and pink. You can see the pattern in the discs above: each pair sits at about the same lightness, and one disc warms up while the other cools down.

The numbers show it plainly. This board and the Light Spring board are the two lightest of the twelve, and only a little apart. In warmth they split clearly: this one leans cool, Light Spring warm. Both palettes have a dark share of 0%. All of that was computed from our two boards, and it describes the colors, not people. Lightness is the shared problem. Temperature is the fix.

Why black feels heavy

If you stopped wearing black because it made you look ill, this palette offers an explanation. Black is about the furthest thing from a pale, cool face, so it takes all the attention and it exaggerates any shadow around the eyes and mouth. Chocolate has a similar weight and adds warmth too, which is why our avoid list names both.

Soul of Color says much the same, listing black, dark brown, burgundy, deep olive and maroon as colors that overwhelm this season. Our rule of thumb is easy to remember. If it would look at home in a Deep Winter wardrobe, try it on a mannequin first. If you still want something dark near your face, Soft Navy is the one to try, and a silvery scarf can sit between a black coat and your skin.

You have more dark room than you think

It’s easy to stop at “wear pastels”, and that undersells this season. There is a difference between the twins that doesn’t involve temperature. Our Light Summer board goes down to Soft Navy, and Light Spring stops at a lighter soft cocoa, so your range from light to dark is wider too.

In practice that gives you navy, plum and a good slate blue. Soft Navy looks close to a real navy trouser or blazer, and it’s a far better base than black. Soft Plum is lovely in a knit, and Soft Raspberry will carry a whole evening. Staying only pale can look a bit like a nightgown, and it’s an easy mistake to make here. A navy jacket over a Powder Blue shirt looks more grown up than two pastels, and it doesn’t cost you any softness.

Why so many pale colors look pink or lilac

This is a small science aside that happens to suit you. If you add white to a color, it doesn’t only get paler. It can also shift in hue, a perceptual quirk called the Abney effect. As white goes in, red drifts slightly toward magenta and blue slightly toward violet. It was measured with colored lights and is weaker on a screen, and likely in cloth, so don’t over-read it. Still, it may be one reason so many tints read as pink and lilac, and it fits with how Lavender Mist, Ice Lilac and Powder Blue feel as a family.

Pastels in the strict sense are colors with high value and low to medium saturation, and that describes a lot of this board. But not all of it. On average it’s clearly stronger than Soft Summer. So Clear Periwinkle, Cool Pink, Aqua and Soft Fuchsia are all fair game. 10% of the board counts as vivid, and a little of that keeps pale outfits from going sleepy.

Silver first, and when rose gold works

Polished silver, white gold or platinum first. That’s the short answer, and it fits how bright these metals are against a pale face. Rose gold can work if it’s pale, since less copper means less red: in the common 18-karat alloys, rose gold has slightly more copper than pink gold, and red gold has the most. So look for pink gold if a jeweler carries it. Yellow gold is where people get in trouble, because it adds exactly the warmth this palette removes. A thin yellow chain won’t hurt you, but the cooler metal will look more like it belongs.

Are you sure you’re a Light Summer?

Light Spring

The obvious alternative, and easy to mix up, particularly in photos, since warm indoor light adds gold to everything. Compare Powder Blue with Light Aqua, or Soft White with Warm Ivory, at a window. If the warmer version leaves you looking clearer, go read the Light Spring page.

Cool Summer

Cool Summer is clearly darker on average and has a real mid-range. If Soft Navy feels too pale to do much and Lilac feels babyish, you may belong there. Soul of Color adds one useful note here: its True Summers often have medium to dark brown hair, and blonde tends to wash them out.

Soft Summer

Soft Summer is greyer and quieter. If the Aqua and Cool Pink here feel loud, compare them with their dustier versions there.

Who this coloring describes

The usual picture is fair, neutral-cool skin, ash-blonde or light ash-brown hair, and light eyes in blue, grey or green. That’s what Soul of Color describes, and it’s worth noticing how specific it is. Published descriptions lean strongly toward fair people, partly because Color Me Beautiful, the book that spread the idea, focused mostly on white readers. You’ll rarely see this one shown on medium or deep skin, which may say more about who got photographed than about who it suits. Season systems are a set of conventions, and lightness is relative to the rest of your coloring. Whether you match isn’t a matter of fitting a list. Try the season test, which reads your own face and shows your colors beside your photo.

Celebrities commonly typed as Light Summer

Soul of Color’s list includes Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jodie Foster, Margot Robbie, Meryl Streep, Michelle Pfeiffer, Naomi Watts, Reese Witherspoon, Rosamund Pike and Sharon Stone, plus Daniel Craig, Jude Law and Ryan Gosling. Billie Eilish, Dakota Fanning and Yvonne Strahovski appear with a note that they’re sometimes analyzed as Light Spring. The site says none of its typings are verified.

The same page includes the best warning we’ve seen about this particular list. It says most famous Light Summer women have highlighted or dyed blonde hair over natural roots around level 6 to 8, which is dark blonde or light brown. In other words, many of these typings rest on a hair color that doesn’t grow on the person’s head. It’s a reasonable caution for anyone comparing themselves with a screen star. If your hair is mousy and you look nothing like the pictures, you can still be this season.

Cream, beige and the other traps

Plenty of people get told they suit “soft neutrals” and head straight for cream and beige. On this coloring those are often the first things to go wrong, since most of them are yellow-based. Our board’s version of beige is Rose Beige, which has a pink cast, and its version of cream is Cool Ivory. Compare them with a bought cream sweater at a window and you’ll see the difference right away. The same goes for tan raincoats and camel coats, both sold as safe, and both better replaced with Dove Grey or Soft Slate. In the cold months, a soft grey coat with a Lilac or Soft Teal scarf looks far more like you than a black one, and it photographs better too.

Makeup, briefly

Sheer cool rose, soft raspberry or blue-pink on the lips. A cool baby pink on the cheeks. Dove grey, soft plum and powder blue on the eyes, and a charcoal-brown liner where you’d otherwise use black. Sheer is the key word. Light coloring doesn’t need much pigment, and a heavy matte lip can have the same effect as a black top.

What else to skip, and how to shop

Three avoid-list colors are all about yellow. Orange can leave pink skin ruddy, Mustard turns it sallow, and Rust sits apart from you entirely. In a store, the question isn’t “is this pale?” but “is it pale and blue-based?” Many pale colors on sale, like butter, peach and ecru, are warm, and they’ll look fine on the hanger and yellow on you. Hold anything off-white against Soft White and look for a yellow cast. Spring is your best buying season, since the pale colors arrive then, and fine knits in Dove Grey and Soft Slate tend to be available all year.

A first set: soft navy trousers, a dove grey coat, a soft white shirt, a powder blue knit, a rose pink top, a soft teal dress and a lilac scarf. The rest of the summers are on the summer palette page, every season is on the hub, and a palette narrowed to you is what the Full Color Report describes.

Related guides and tools

• PaletteSummer paletteThe three Summer seasons compared, with hex codes for clothes or design.
• GuideColors for pale skinSwatches for cool, warm and neutral pale skin, and what drains each one.
• PaletteCool SummerCool and gentle: blue-based colors with hex codes and a free scan to check them on you.
• PaletteLight SpringPale and warm: clear colors with hex codes and a free scan to check them on you.
• ToolWhat season am I?Three axes narrow down your season, then color pairs beside your photo settle it.
• GuideSeason palettesAll 12 palettes with hex codes, each one ready to copy and take shopping.