Color seasons / Summer

Light Summer

Soft, airy and cool: your colors look like a seaside sky at the end of June.

Dominant: Light first, then cool

Light Summer is the lightest of the cool seasons. Its colors are pale to medium-light, with a cool, slightly misty quality, like sea air softening everything on the horizon. Powder blue, lavender, rose pink, sea glass and soft periwinkle live here. They are gentle but full of character, and they keep a quiet clarity that separates them from the dustier Summer palettes.

In these colors, your skin looks fresh and even, and your features come into soft, clear focus. Very dark colors tend to cast shadows on a Light Summer, and very warm ones can make the skin look slightly yellow or ruddy in contrast. The goal is harmony: colors at your own lightness, cool enough to agree with your undertone, and soft enough to feel restful.

Light Summer neighbors Light Spring on the light side and True Summer on the cool side. Its signature is coolness with lightness, and a delicate, watercolor quality. Light Summers come in every skin depth; a deep-skinned Light Summer simply carries the same relationship between light, cool colors and their face as a fair-skinned one does. If you have ever been told you look best in soft blues and roses, this may be your home.

Signs you might be Light Summer

• Pale, cool drapes such as powder blue, lavender and soft rose make your skin look calm and even, while black or dark brown near the face feels heavy and casts shadows.
• Silver, white gold and platinum look natural on you; bright yellow gold can feel a little loud or brassy.
• Soft white and light grey look fresher on you than cream or camel, which can make your skin look slightly sallow.
• Orange and mustard seem to sit apart from you, as if lit by a warmer lamp than the one lighting your face.
• The contrast between your hair, skin and eyes reads as low to medium, with an overall impression of gentleness.
• Your eyes often look clearer and more luminous in cool blues, aquas and soft greens than in warm browns or rust.

A taste of the palette

Your free result includes your full 16 colors and 6 neutrals. Pro adds a deeper 60-color palette, metals, makeup and hair direction.

How to tell it from the seasons next door

Light Spring: Light Spring shares the lightness but is warm. Hold peach next to powder pink: if powder pink looks calm and peach makes you look a little ruddy, you are Light Summer.

True Summer: True Summer can go deeper and cooler, wearing raspberry and blueberry easily. If medium-depth cool colors feel slightly heavy and you are happiest in the pale end, you lean Light Summer.

People often cited as Light Summer

Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon, Elle Fanning, Cate Blanchett, Naomi Watts, Kirsten Dunst. Commonly used examples; not analyzed by Hue & Line.

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