Color seasons / Summer

Soft Summer

Smoky, cool and quietly elegant: your colors look like a misty coastline at dusk.

Dominant: Soft (muted) first, then cool

Soft Summer is defined by softness. Every color in this palette has some grey blended into it, giving a smoky, velvety quality, and the temperature leans cool with a little room toward neutral. Picture slate water, heather on a hillside, eucalyptus leaves and rosewood. None of these colors shout, but together they have tremendous depth and sophistication, and they mix with one another almost endlessly.

In muted, cool colors, a Soft Summer's face looks harmonious and polished. Your features blend gently, which is your great strength: there are no sharp jumps between hair, skin and eyes, so colors that also blend look like they were made for you. Vivid or high-contrast colors tend to arrive first, while yours let people notice you first and the outfit second.

Soft Summer sits between True Summer and Soft Autumn, the two seasons it most resembles. Its signature is a cool-leaning, greyed softness. Soft Summers exist in every skin depth, from very fair to very deep; the season describes how gently blended color behaves near your face, not your complexion or heritage. Many Soft Summers spend years reaching for black and bright white before discovering how much richer charcoal and soft white look on them.

Signs you might be Soft Summer

• Muted, smoky drapes such as dusty rose, slate blue and sage make your face look smooth and calm, while bright colors like hot pink or orange seem to jump off you.
• The overall contrast between your hair, skin and eyes reads as low to medium and blended, with no single feature leaping forward.
• Brushed silver, pewter and soft rose gold look elegant on you; high-shine yellow gold can feel a bit loud.
• Pure white and pure black feel stark next to you, while soft white and charcoal feel easy.
• Your eyes often have a blended or soft-focus quality, such as grey-blue, grey-green, soft hazel or soft brown, and look most interesting in smoky colors.
• Colors that look dull on the hanger, such as mushroom, heather or denim, often look surprisingly rich once they are next to your face.

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

True Summer: True Summer handles clearer, cooler color like raspberry and blueberry. If those look a touch too sharp and smoky versions look richer on you, you lean Soft Summer.

Soft Autumn: Soft Autumn shares the softness but leans warm. Compare sage with olive and dusty rose with salmon: if the cooler pair looks better, you are Soft Summer.

People often cited as Soft Summer

Sarah Jessica Parker, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Mandy Moore, Kristen Stewart, Thandiwe Newton, Jennifer Aniston. Commonly used examples; not analyzed by Hue & Line.

Questions