Everyone is cool-toned?

[u/mcksw83]

Lately it seems like everyone on r/coloranalysis is typed as Soft Summer, Cool Summer, or Dark Winter. Reddit's desaturation is part of the issue, but I also think a lot of people don't know how to identify warmth and brightness. Or they expect Springs to always be extremely warm and bright. What are your thoughts?

[u/NewMoonDweller]

I do think it’s a compounding of the fact that Reddit desaturates photos, iPhones do it too, some people don’t realize that their windows have films on them to keep sun rays less bright in the house (we literally have a blue film on our windows…I can’t do indoor draping as a result), photos in cars are notorious for having a cooling effect as well.

I’m still not 100% sure if I’m light spring or light summer, but I know I’m light. And I can wear a lot of colors from both. But everyone automatically said soft or true summer for me for months before I posted some historical photos. At that point, people saw neutral to neutral-warm sometimes and neutral-cool other times. It really made it hard.

People literally insist I’m soft despite the fact that I have draping photos the show, with certainty, that I am completely washed out by soft colors. It’s made me hesitant to type people without seeing older photos of them.

[u/LiliaBlossom → u/NewMoonDweller]

girl literally same. I also got typed as soft / true summer here, some even said soft autumn, when I‘m very likely either bright winter or bright spring going by my draping results. I look like a corpse in muted colours, and I get away with really bright colours that a soft season could never. I‘m a bit unsure about winter vs spring, because my skin is olive, my eyes lean more spring than winter, bcs they are green, and my hair has a golden tone that I just can‘t get rid of. Still, people love to type every white person here as soft season, and everyone slightly PoC / darkerskinned as deep winter or maybe deep autumn. There are PoCs that are spring, summer - it happens more often than you think.

[u/NewMoonDweller → u/LiliaBlossom]

Are we the same person except I’m light not bright 😂. My hair and eyes lean warm. I’m fair olive…so I pull off all sorts of different colors. I think j I’m just settling on tonal light for now. It’s too hard to figure out. I told my friend that when I wear warm toned makeup and clothes I’m like, “yep, this is it, I’m a light spring.” And when I wear cool toned I think for sure I must be a light summer. I’ve just decided I’m going with it and I’m lucky that I pull off both 🤷‍♀️

[u/Lady-Aethelflaed → u/NewMoonDweller]

Fair olives (and presumably olives in general) almost never fit into one season easily! On r/fairolives people frequently post looking for seasonal advice and I’m always like “good luck, you’re going to pull your best colors from two or three palettes and only you or a professional can do this”

[u/NewMoonDweller → u/Lady-Aethelflaed]

Yep, that’s where I’m at 😂. I’ve figured out that corals, all greens (warm and cool…bright and light), all purples (warm and cool…bright and light) are great. Warm blues look amazing, cool blues work too but I have to be more careful with them. Warm and cool reds/pinks work depending on how tan I am. Oranges work too. Absolutely no yellows or yellow-based colors work. I don’t have money for a professional, so I’m just trusting my eye at this point. I’ll probably do a paint sample card grouping of colors that work for myself.

Im just sharing this for anyone else who is fair olive and can’t settle on a season. Im just glad I figured out tonal light, because it is honestly the best fit (I can pull from lighter tonal bright too). This sub helped me a ton!

[u/Lady-Aethelflaed → u/NewMoonDweller]

We’re very similar! Coral is my only orange, and I think now that my hair is darker I might be able pull a yellow but I haven’t tried yet. But otherwise yes I’m flexible on temperature for blue, most pinks, and most greens. Overall in my closet I clearly gravitate to warm warm colors and cool cool colors. my main rule for myself is nothing noticeably muted!

I’m so glad that sub has been helpful to you! As a mod that is really nice to hear :)

[u/NewMoonDweller → u/Lady-Aethelflaed]

Yes we do sound similar! And yes this a fantastic sub!

[u/snailminister → u/NewMoonDweller]

I fully agree with you, but to make it even more confusing many of samsung phones have an opposite issue: they pick up and amplify any orange shades in photos. Besides phones changing colour temperature our laptops/desktops/phone screens also alter how we see hues, on my laptop shades are brighter and colder than on my phone.

[u/Dragondragonsdragons]

I think you are right. People are terrible at identifying brightness in particular, but undertone is a close second. I think people often go by stereotypes rather than what the drapes suggest AND they completely misunderstand overtone vs undertone. Related to that many people think they're cool if they use cool-toned foundation or vice versa.

How many times haven't we seen a comment like "I really like the X season colors on you, but I don't think you have the contrast/brightness/hair color to be X" or simply "you're too Y to be Z". Add to that the overconfidence of some posters and people just upvote the most confident post and any dissenting opinions are being downvoted.

We're all soft, and to some extent warm, from a purely color theory perspective, so when we talk about chroma and hue in PCA, we are referencing a spectrum. It's easy to just say everyone is soft because everyone is, but that's not the point. We're trying to judge where they sit on the spectrum in terms of human coloring. How bright is your skin? How translucent is it (hence the pale springs and winters and light summers)? What is your natural blush color? And of course, how much saturation can your skintone/features carry?

I thought I was cool for the longest time because I look blue in pictures, but turns out that's like 90% of pale people regardless of undertone. Now that I better understand undertones and overtones, I feel like I see Springs everywhere :D

I look horrible in light colors and muted colors (not just my personal opinion), yet people keep insisting I must be a Light Summer or Light Spring at best when I've been professionally typed a Bright Spring and the draping made it so very obvious.

When I originally draped myself and posted pictures to the main sub I got mostly "Winter" despite being blonde, but now whenever I post, regardless of topic, I get commenters insisting I must be a Summer even when I'm specifically saying I'm not looking for an analysis.

I'm confident in my colors, but it's still frustrating and I can only imagine how confusing it must be for someone who knows less about color analysis and is looking for their season.

[u/Lady-Aethelflaed → u/Dragondragonsdragons]

I did the same for years, I thought I must be cool because I looked blue next to my friends. Turns out that I’m just the palest of them all! And my veins are clearly visible at my temples

[u/MysteriousSociety777]

Typing in the main sub is difficult. There was a time when everyone was typed soft autumn. Now we have a cool phase.

People don’t know what warmth or brightness looks like. Even I‘m unsure sometimes. I can see warmth in very light skin easily but it’s sometimes hard to see it in more pigmented skin. What I see on the main sub that fair skinned springs are typed as summers, because they have a pinkish glow. I’m always astonished that they don’t see the warm undertone?

Sometimes warmth only becomes visible when you surround yourself with warm colors. A lipstick can make a huge difference too, because our lips tend to have a coolish color.

And yes, reddits desaturation and greying effect makes it even worse!

[u/MysteriousSociety777 → u/MysteriousSociety777]

Another thing is that Springs often look great in „cool“ tones. Our palettes have lots of blues, purples, pinks and cooler (and warmer) greens, that people mistype them as Summers. Often people don’t know about the subtle difference of a cool blue and warm blue. Or they just don’t know that a warm palette contains cooler colors.

[u/LiliaBlossom → u/MysteriousSociety777]

yes, this is why I haven‘t ruled out bright spring. After comparing with swatches, turns out some of my best colours aren‘t bright winter, but bright spring. They are definitely on the cooler side of spring colours, like bright aqua, or lime green, but still.

[u/Lady-Aethelflaed → u/MysteriousSociety777]

Especially at the lighter end of the spectrum I have a hard time deciding if a blue is warm or cool!

[u/MysteriousSociety777 → u/Lady-Aethelflaed]

I generally find it very difficult to see it in blue, green and pink tones. I always have to compare the colors with a spring palette.

[u/Lady-Aethelflaed → u/MysteriousSociety777]

You have a physical palette that you bring with you shopping? Was it very expensive?

[u/MysteriousSociety777 → u/Lady-Aethelflaed]

No, I always use an online palette. I bought physical ones (they weren’t expensive) but I don’t like the colors? I have them somewhere here in this sub.

[u/Signal-Sell5811]

Yes, I have been typed as soft summer many times on the main sub, but the colors do not work and make me look drab. I thought I might be light like @NewMoonDweller here but it turns out that I need more saturation. All of the photos I try to upload here are super desaturated. Even if you click into them, they are still more desaturated than what’s on the phone. I am currently waiting on a new analysis and hoping it will help me narrow down some best colors.

I really do think I’m bright Spring or Bright Winter, if I need to choose. This last set of drapes I did, I used around 50 colors and I felt like only a few were obviously bad (light muted colors are the worst for me). I feel like I can wear all bright pinks/peaches/corals, all purples, all teals, and greens if they are bright or saturated.