True Summer makeup: cool lip, blush and eye colors

True Summer or Cool Summer makeup?

Usually two names for one season. Most 12-season charts put them in the same spot, and our palette page files it under Cool Summer, so read this for either name. One system does split them. In Agile Styling’s 16 seasons, Cool Summer is a flow from True Summer toward True Winter, with more depth and brightness. If an analyst typed you that way, you can lean on the strong end of each list below.

Warmth gets the attention here because this is the coolest of our twelve palettes, and on average it leans clearly cool. Very little on the board pulls toward gold, so one warm product on the face stands out. That describes our palette, not your skin.

Where a rose turns warm

The picture above takes one rose and turns only its hue. Lightness and strength hold still, so whatever changes is temperature. Our Rose sits at 2.2 degrees on the color wheel. Every rose and berry on the True Summer board falls between Fuchsia Rose at 348.4 and Cool Watermelon at 6, just either side of the point where the circle wraps round.

The line sits just past that, and it’s more of a band. From about 7 to 16 degrees, our springs share the space with the other summers: Light Spring has Warm Pink at 10.7 and Clear Rose at 15.6, and Light Summer has Cool Coral Pink at 12.3. From there to about 27, none of our twelve boards has a color at this depth. Then come the browned roses, with Soft Autumn’s Antique Rose at 31.8 and Deep Autumn’s Rosy Clay at 44.9. A lipstick labeled rose could sit anywhere on this ladder, so the word on the tube won’t tell you.

Skin explains why this shows. Skin has a hue too, and the published Monk swatches sit between about 49 and 89 degrees. Rose is a long way from all of them. Turn it to 42 and it’s 32 degrees from Monk 6 and just 7 from Monk 8. As a rose warms, it moves toward the skin’s own direction, so it reads less like a color on your mouth and more like a tan. That’s our reading of the numbers and not a test on faces, and seasons themselves are a styling convention.

Don’t carry that 10 to other colors without checking. The angle drifts with depth and strength, which is why Deep Winter makeup draws its own line near 30, for dark and vivid reds. Each ladder only compares colors of one depth, and even then the scale isn’t perfectly even to the eye.

Three ways warmth gets in

The nude

Soul of Color lists nude alongside coral, brown and orange as too warm for this season. That’s fair for the usual beige. But a nude only has to sit close to your skin, and a cool one exists at most depths:

Below that the board runs out, since its darkest color, Marine Navy, is still lighter than the deepest skin. Monk 9 and 10 have no lip here that’s level with the skin. The lipstick finder’s darker Plum chip is the nearest stand-in. Watch the chip called Nude rose, too. At 29.3 degrees, it’s out among the browned roses, so use it as the warm comparison.

The bronzer

Blush replaces it. Soul of Color’s advice is to skip the bronzer and go for rose, dusty pink or mauve, and a bronzer is designed to look sun-warmed, which runs against our coolest palette. If you want to shape a cheek, Rose Taupe stays on the rose side and carries very little color, so it looks like a shadow and not a tan. Cocoa Mauve does the same on medium skin. On deep skin both are lighter than you are, so skip them and shape with a deeper rose blush.

The browned rose

This is the sneakiest one, because the label still says rose. Put Rose beside Antique Rose: they’re close in lightness, but the hue has turned 30 degrees toward orange and the color has gone much quieter. Warmer and greyer at once is what makes a rose look browned. It feels gentle in the tube, which is why it gets bought. Even Soft Summer, the next board over, has Rose Brown at 27, a step too warm for this one. Compare any rose you’re unsure of with a plain cool pink, side by side in daylight, and see which way it leans.

True Summer lipstick

Our data says cool rose, raspberry and berry, and Soul of Color lists berry, rose, cool pink and mauve. We differ on one thing. It warns off dark red, purple and bright pink as too dark or harsh, while our board keeps Fuchsia Rose and Plum Wine at the strong end. Sources disagree, so let your own face decide those two.

Testing it live

The lipstick finder uses a face landmark model to place one of nine fixed chips on your lips, keeping their light and shadow. None of them is a dusty or pale rose, so most colors on this page can’t be tried live. Three chips still make a real test.

Rose pink is the closest of the three to our board, then Berry, then Mauve. All three measure within about a degree of each other on hue, so flipping between them changes only depth and strength, and shows you how much color your face takes. Plum also sits close, and it’s darker than anything on the board. Then go to Coral. It’s nearly level with Rose pink on lightness, so what you see is the walk up the ladder, on your own face.

Black mascara or something softer?

Soul of Color’s answer is relaxed: grey, taupe and plum look lovely, and you can still wear black mascara and liner. Our data says navy or charcoal for liner. Pure black is far darker than anything on our board, which stops at Marine Navy. For mascara that hardly matters, since lashes are a small area and often dark already. So keep your black mascara if you like it.

Liner depends on your skin. On fair skin, black is a huge step, the hardest edge you could draw, so try Graphite Blue or Dusk Navy, or smudge Plum Wine along the lashes. On Monk 9 and 10 the same black is only a small step, and it looks soft there. Graphite Blue is lighter than the skin at those depths, and shows up more. So the softer choice flips with depth. That’s easy to check in a photo, and the choice is our judgment.

Blush and eyes

Blush. A soft rose with a blue lean is the direction. On fair skin, Cool Blush or Light Rose. On medium skin, Rose blended well. On deep skin, Deep Rose or Muted Raspberry, since a pale pink can sit on top of the skin like powder. Our data has no warm blush here, and Soul of Color’s list of rose, dusty pink, mauve and soft red agrees.

Eyes. Our direction is slate, plum and cool taupe. Soul of Color adds smoky lavender, dusty blue and sage, and warns off gold and orange tones.

Brows and base

e.l.f.’s guide lists brown-gray among natural brow colors and suggests staying close to your skin’s undertone. So pick ash over red or gold. Rose Taupe suits light brown or dark blonde hair and Cocoa Mauve suits medium brown. For dark hair, go a step past the board with any cool dark brow product, since the palette has no brow shade that deep.

Your foundation has to match your skin first, so no color on this page is a base. Soul of Color suggests cool bases in a satin or demi-matte finish and warns against anything too yellow, and L’Oréal Paris points to the C on a bottle as the cool family. The foundation shade finder helps if you’re between shades.

How much further than Soft Summer?

The two summers get swapped often. Soft Summer makeup is about going darker before you go brighter, because that palette has almost no color to spend. Here you have more room, and the risk is warmth. Across all forty colors, our True Summer board is about twice as vivid as Soft Summer’s.

So try the top bar of each pair first. If Rose makes your skin look clear and lively, stay here. If it seems to sit on top of your face and Dusty Rose looks calmer, read the other page and the True Summer and Soft Summer comparison.

One palette on three skin depths

Soul of Color pictures this season as the classic English rose, and that can make it sound as if only fair skin qualifies. Every season occurs across skin depths, and what changes with depth is how far each color reaches. Here’s the same logic three times.

If you love a warm rose, wear it, since a season is only a convention. The full palette is on the Cool Summer palette page. True Summer hair color covers brass, the same problem in a bigger area, and the Cool Summer celebrities page shows who gets typed here. The Full Color Report lists makeup shades for your own palette.

Copy every cool shade

All of these come from our True Summer board, and no brand sells these exact hexes. Treat each one as a reference to hold beside a product in daylight.

Related guides and tools

• PaletteCool SummerCool and gentle: blue-based colors with hex codes and a free scan to check them on you.
• GuideTrue Summer hair colorAsh and cool hair shades for True or Cool Summer, with a live try-on.
• GuideSoft Summer makeupDusty lips, cool blush and smoky eyes, with hex codes and a live lipstick test.
• GuideCool Summer celebritiesWho is commonly typed Cool Summer or True Summer, sourced, with the caveats on dye.