Before we embark on our journey to define the characteristics of individuals with summer features and the accompanying colour palette, let's take a moment to capture the essence of the summer season.

Summer gracefully follows in the footsteps of spring, adorning the world with breathtaking shades of sheer delight. It's a time when the landscape bursts to life, drawing us in with vibrant colors and filling the air with fragrances that are unmistakably summer. Summer's colors are like a refreshing plunge into cool water—gentle, calming, and invigorating.

Within the Summer seasonal palette, we find three distinct categories: True Summer, Light Summer, and Soft Summer. In this blog post, we'll delve into the unique characteristics of each. Let's set off on this colourful exploration together... 🌞🌼🎨

TRUE SUMMER

This colour season reminds us of summer days after rain when the last grey clouds disperse, and the left-over haze refracts all the colours of nature into a kaleidoscope of contrasts.

These colours feel like cool water on the skin – cool, calming and refreshing.  They represent the colours of water, blues and greens of rivers, lakes and oceans.

Overall appearance:

When you look in the mirror, the first thing you notice about your colouring is its obvious cool quality.  Your skin, eyes and hair all have cool undertones of blue or beige.  There is no warmth in any of your features (no golden tones).

The colouring of your features is muted and blended rather than being in contrast with each other giving a medium level of contrast compared to Light and Soft Summer’s.

Eyes:

True Summer eyes are usually blue, grey, green or light hazel as shown in the image.  Darker ethnicities will have greyish brown eyes.  True Summer eyes are always softly greyed, making them muted in tone.  A typical characteristic of a Summer eye is its crackled glass pattern on the iris.

 Skin: 

True Summer skin is always cool with blue or beige undertones and possibly a pink tone ranging from fair to tan. Since True Summer is cool, silver looks good against it, but gold makes it look off.

Hair:

Hair can be any shade from dark blonde, light and medium brown to dark brown.  What defines True Summer hair is the absence of brightness giving an appearance of ash or muted tones.  There is no warmth in the hair with very little to no red undertones, no golden glow, and usually no natural highlights.  Redheads therefore, aren’t usually True Summers.

Contrast:  

True Summer has the highest contrast out of the three Summer Types.  Due to the combination of darker hair with lighter skin, the level of contrast between a True Summer’s features is medium.  The images below show that the hair is darker compared to the skin, but the contrast is not too strong. 

LIGHT SUMMER

Light Summer is the colour season that reminds us of mild summer mornings full of coolness and gentleness with only a hint of freshness.  The sun’s rays fall gently on the morning flowers and leaves and the sky displays muted tones with fluffy clouds floating by. 

The colours are gentle, light and only slightly refreshing reminiscent of a morning beach walk with a slight breeze on your face.

 

Overall Appearance: 

When you look in the mirror, the first thing you notice about your colouring is the low contrast between your skin, eyes and hair.  Your features are very light and have mainly cool (blue and grey) undertones, meaning silver flatters you more than gold.

If you have dark eyes or dark hair, and not a person of colour, you are most likely one of the darker seasons.  If you are a person of colour, but have very light colouring for your ethnicity, you may be a Light Summer.

Eyes:

Light Summer Eyes can be light grey, light blue, light azure or light green in tone.  There is no darkness about them, and they generally have a cool, greyish undertone.  Typical of the Summer eye, you may notice a crackled glass pattern and a soft separation between the iris and the whites of the eye.

 Skin:

Light Summer skin is either neutral or neutral-cool with beige or pinkish undertones.  It ranges from fair to medium.  You know you have neutral-cool skin if both gold and silver look good on you, but silver looks better.

Hair:

As with the other features of Light Summer, your hair is light ranging from icy light to medium ash blond or light ash brown.  Typically, the hair does not have natural highlights.  Many Light Summers were blonde as children, but hair has darkened with age.

Darker ethnicities may have a lighter shade of brown, which stands in low contrast to their other features.

Contrast:

Light Summer is a colour season of low contrast between skin, hair and eyes.  There is even a low contrast between the iris and the whites of the eye.  Looking at the images below, there is little difference in shades between the features and no dark areas anywhere.

 

SOFT SUMMER

Soft Summer is the colour season reminiscent of misty days when the heat carries the fog through the air after a cool summer rain.  Hints of autumn appear and is not far away.

The colours are gentle and mysterious containing many cold and warm tones demonstrating a collision between the seasons and just like a chameleon can show one side or another.

Eyes:

Soft Summer eyes can be grey, grey-blue, grey-green or grey-hazel. A muted brown is common for darker ethnicities.  Regardless of the colour, Soft Summer eyes are always softly greyed and no means bright.  Typical of the Summer eye, you may notice a crackled glass pattern on the iris.

Skin:

Soft Summer skin is either neutral, olive or neutral-cool with ashy undertones and possibly a pink tinge.  This means both silver and gold look good against the skin, but silver looks better.  Skin tones range from fair to tan, but are muted rather than vibrant.  Soft Summer may also have freckles.

Hair:

Soft Summer hair ranges from medium ash blonde over light to medium ash brown.  Because of the high concentration of grey pigments, Soft Summer hair is always muted and ashy, never saturated and bright.  When exposed to the sun, it can develop ash blonde highlights.

Contrast:

Depending on the hair/skin combination, the contrast level between the features is low to medium.  The images below show the hair is darker compared to the skin, but the contrast is still quite weak with no truly light or dark areas.  The colour remains around a medium value.

If you feel that you fit one of the Summer season palettes, you can confidently select one of the Summer Season Collections.

Until next time,