Cool Summer Color Palette: The Complete Guide

Cool summer is the summer season that lives closest to winter. It keeps the summer family's coolness and softness, but it has more depth and more clarity than its sisters: the pinks are rosier, the blues are deeper, the contrast is a notch higher. The cool summer color palette looks like a lake at dusk, when the water goes from powder blue to slate to deep navy and the sky behind it turns rose and lavender. If silver has always suited you better than gold, if a raspberry lip looks like it was made for you while a coral one looks borrowed, and if pure black almost works but never quite does, this is probably your season.

This guide explains what cool summer means in color terms and why it is not simply another word for true summer. It gives you a feature-by-feature description with five at-home tests, the full palette by color family, the colors to avoid and why, and a practical section on exactly how bright and how dark a cool summer can go before tipping into winter. Then it translates all of it into a wardrobe, a makeup bag and a hair color, and covers the cases most guides leave out: cool summer men, cool summers with dark hair or deeper skin, and the cool summer versus cool winter question that trips up more people than any other.

What is a cool summer?

Cool summer is one of the 17 seasons used in modern seasonal color analysis. It describes people whose natural coloring, meaning skin, hair and eyes together, is primarily cool and secondarily soft, sitting at the deeper and clearer end of the summer family.

Coolness is the defining trait. Your undertone is blue or pink with no gold in it at all, which is why the cool summer color palette contains almost no yellow, no orange and no warm brown. Softness comes second: your colors are gentler than a winter's and your features are blended rather than sharp, but you are not as muted as a soft summer and not as delicate as a light summer. Compared with the rest of the summer family, a cool summer can carry a little more depth, a little more brightness and a little more contrast, because that is what winter's influence brings.

The easiest way to picture it is as a position on the seasonal flow. The summer family runs from light summer, which borders spring, through the center of the family, to cool summer, which borders winter. A cool summer stands with one foot on the winter line: cool enough to wear a clear raspberry and a real navy, still summer enough that black and optic white are a step too far.

Is cool summer the same as true summer?

This is the question that comes up most, and the honest answer is: it depends which system you are using.

In the classic 12-season system, "cool summer" and "true summer" are two names for the same season, the pure cool summer at the center of the family. If you were analyzed under a 12-season system and told you are a true summer, you may also see your palette labelled cool summer, and nothing has changed.

In the 16-season and 17-season systems, including the one MySwatches uses, they are two distinct palettes. True summer is the center of the summer family: softer, lighter and more delicate. Cool summer is the sub-season that flows from summer toward winter, so winter's influence starts to show: the colors are a touch deeper, brighter and bolder, and stronger color combinations become possible. Think of true summer as a still, misty morning and cool summer as the same landscape an hour before nightfall, with the same coolness but more depth and more definition.

Why does the distinction matter? Because a cool summer dressed in a true summer palette will look a little faded, as if the volume had been turned down one notch too far, and a true summer dressed in a cool summer palette will look slightly overpowered. The palettes overlap heavily, so neither mistake is a disaster. But if you have ever felt that "summer" colors were almost right and just a little too gentle, cool summer is the answer to that feeling. This guide is about that deeper, clearer summer.

Where cool summer sits on the color wheel

Every season is defined by where it falls on three scales: hue, value and chroma. The cool summer color palette is defined mostly by the first.

Hue (temperature): how warm or cool you are. You are decisively cool. There is blue or pink under the skin and no visible gold anywhere. Of the three summer sub-seasons, cool summer is the most strongly cool, which is why it can share a few colors with cool winter and almost none with any autumn.
Value (depth): how light or dark you are. You are medium to medium-deep. Cool summers range from ash blonde to cool dark brown, and even the fairer ones tend to have more depth in the eyes or hair than a light summer would.
Chroma (saturation): how bright or muted you are. You sit in the middle, leaning soft. Your colors are clearer than a soft summer's and softer than a winter's. This is the scale that separates you from cool winter, and it is the one the saturation ladder section below is built around.

If you take one thing from this section, take this: cool summer is cool first, soft second, and a little deeper and clearer than the summer stereotype. The pastel-only summer palette in most people's heads is not yours. Yours has navy, raspberry, plum and spruce in it.

Cool summer characteristics: how to know if you are one

Here is what cool summer coloring looks like, feature by feature, followed by five tests you can do at home in daylight.

Skin

Cool, with pink, rosy or blue undertones, and no golden or peachy cast. The cool summer skin tone runs from very fair through medium to deeper olive and brown tones; what unites it is the undertone, not the depth. Fair cool summers often flush pink easily and look "porcelain" or "English rose". Deeper cool summers have a cool, slightly ashy or blue-toned brown skin that looks grey next to gold and comes alive next to silver. A tell-tale detail: cool summer skin looks clean and even next to a cool rose pink, and slightly sallow next to a peach. Veins on the inner wrist usually read blue or blue-green.

Eyes

Blue, grey-blue, grey, cool green, blue-green, soft hazel with grey rather than gold flecks, or a cool medium to dark brown. Cool summer eyes are usually a little clearer and a little more defined than a soft summer's, with a distinct darker ring around the iris and sometimes a "spokes" or "sunburst" pattern in a cool grey. In deeper skin tones, cool summer brown eyes are a matte, cool brown, never amber or warm chocolate.

Hair

Ash blonde, dark ash blonde, light to medium ash brown, cool medium brown, and, in cool summers with more depth, a cool dark brown or a soft black-brown. There is no gold, red or honey in natural cool summer hair. It looks "mousy" or "dishwater" in dim light and takes on cool beige or ash highlights in the sun rather than golden ones. Naturally greying cool summer hair goes to a clean silver rather than a yellow-white, and many cool summers look better grey than they ever did dyed. Cool summer dark hair is more common than most guides admit, especially in people of East Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Latin American heritage.

Contrast

Medium. This is one of the things that separates cool summer from the rest of the summer family. In a black and white photo, a cool summer shows a visible difference between hair and skin, or between eyes and skin, but not the stark light-against-dark contrast of a winter. The features are defined without being dramatic.

Five tests to do at home

Do these in natural daylight, without makeup, in front of a mirror.

The silver and gold test. Hold silver jewelry against your face, then gold. On a cool summer the difference is not subtle: silver makes the skin look clear and the eyes look brighter, and gold makes the skin look yellowish and a little tired. If both look equally fine, you are likely a neutral season such as soft summer or soft autumn. If silver clearly wins, you are in the cool half of the wheel, and the next tests decide between summer and winter.

The black and navy test. Drape pure black near your face, then a deep navy. A cool summer looks acceptable in black, and this is exactly what makes the season confusing, but looks noticeably better in navy: the skin is calmer, the shadows under the eyes soften, the eyes come forward. If black looks sharper and more alive on you than navy does, you are a cool winter.

The white test. Optic white against your face, then a soft white with a cool cast. On a cool summer the optic white is a little too strong, and the face looks slightly dull beside it, while the soft white lets the face lead. On a cool winter the optic white wins.

The fuchsia test. This is the best single test for cool summer versus cool winter. Hold a vivid, saturated fuchsia near your face, then a clear rose pink or a raspberry. If the fuchsia lights you up and the rose looks a bit flat, you are a winter. If the fuchsia is "too much" and the raspberry looks perfect, you are a cool summer.

The rose and peach test. For summer versus autumn. Hold a cool rose pink near your face, then a peach. On a cool summer the rose looks natural and the peach looks like it belongs to someone else; the skin under the peach goes slightly yellow. If both look fine, you are on the neutral border, and more likely a soft summer than a cool one.

If you want to skip the guesswork, the free MySwatches palette quiz walks you through this with your own photos and tells you which of the 17 seasons matches. Take the free palette quiz

Cool summer color palette swatches

Here are the cool summer color palette swatches, organized by how you actually get dressed: neutrals first, because they will be most of your closet, then the colors you build around them. One thing you will notice straight away is how lopsided the palette is. Cool summer covers roughly half of the color wheel, the blue and pink half, and almost none of the other half. There are no complementary pairs in it. That is not a limitation; it is what makes the palette so easy to combine.

Cool summer neutrals

Cool summer neutrals are greys, navies and cool rose-browns. Think of pewter, wet slate, a grey dove's breast and the pinkish brown of cocoa powder.

• Lights: soft white, cool white (a white with a faint blue or pink cast, not optic white), pale silver grey, light dove grey, cool stone, rose-beige, pale rose-taupe.
• Mids: medium grey, pewter, cool greige, slate, steel grey, rose-brown, cocoa with a pink cast, cool taupe, medium denim blue.
• Darks: navy, deep navy, charcoal, blue-charcoal, deep slate, blackened plum, blackberry, deep cocoa.

Your version of black is navy first and charcoal second, and unlike the other summers you can go to a true, deep navy rather than a dusty one. Your version of white is soft white or cool white. The brown question is worth a note: brown is a warm word and most browns in stores are warm. Cool summer browns are few and specific, rose-brown, cocoa and cool taupe, and if a brown looks like caramel, tan, camel or leather, it is not yours.

Cool summer colors by family

• Cool summer pinks: rose pink, cool pink, carnation, powder pink, orchid, raspberry, soft fuchsia (the summer version, with a little grey in it), watermelon pink, rose quartz, cool bubblegum. Pinks are the heart of the palette and the family where cool summer goes brightest.
• Reds: raspberry red, watermelon red, cool cranberry, blue-based cherry, burgundy, wine, soft blue-red. Cool summer is the only summer with a red that reads as red rather than as dark pink, and it is always a blue-based red with a touch of softness.
• Purples: lavender, periwinkle, wisteria, amethyst, soft violet, blue-violet, orchid, grape, plum, soft aubergine. Purple is arguably the most flattering family of all on a cool summer.
• Blues: powder blue, sky blue (the cool kind), cornflower, periwinkle, French blue, cobalt softened, lake blue, medium denim, steel blue, sapphire toned down, navy. This is the largest family, and a cool summer can wear a clearer, deeper blue than any other summer.
• Cool summer greens: mint, spearmint, cool sea green, jade, blue-green, soft emerald, spruce, pine, teal, cool turquoise. Every cool summer green is blue-based. If a green has yellow in it, it is not yours.
• Yellows and oranges: a very pale, icy lemon is the only yellow in the palette, and there is no orange at all.

The through-line of the cool summer color palette is that every color looks like it has blue in it and a thin veil of grey over it. Not so much grey that the color goes dusty, which would be soft summer, and not so little that it looks like it came from the tube, which would be winter. A cool summer color is clean but calm.

Sister palettes, and what you can borrow

Cool summer has one direct neighbor on the winter side and the rest of the summer family on the other, and you can borrow carefully from both.

From cool winter, the deeper and brighter side: a softened royal blue, a slightly muted magenta, a deep emerald, a true navy, a blackened purple. These share your coolness. Pick the least saturated version of each, and wear them in one piece rather than head to toe.

From true summer, the center of the family: soft cornflower, moonlit mauve, a gentler lavender, powder pink. These share your temperature and softness. Pick the ones with the most depth, and keep them for layers rather than the piece nearest your face if you find them faded on you.

From soft summer, the muted cousin: slate blue, dusty rose, greyed teal. These work if you keep them on the cooler, clearer end. Anything with a hint of warmth in it, such as a warm sage or an oyster white, will look flat on you.

The rule for borrowing from winter is to soften; the rule for borrowing from the rest of summer is to deepen. If a winter color looks loud on the hanger, or a summer color looks washed out on the hanger, put it back.

Cool summer colors to avoid, and why

Every cool summer has a list of worst colors, and it is mostly the warm half of the wheel plus the two stark extremes.

• Orange, coral, terracotta, rust: warm and, in the case of orange and coral, bright. They make cool summer skin look sallow and slightly grey.
• Warm reds, tomato red, orange-red: your reds are blue-based. A warm red fights your undertone and makes any redness in your skin look worse.
• Gold, mustard, marigold, warm yellow: the whole warm yellow family. They pull yellow into your skin.
• Camel, tan, caramel, warm brown, cognac: the classic autumn neutrals. On a cool summer they look muddy and make the face look older.
• Olive, khaki, lime, chartreuse, grass green: the yellow-based greens. Your greens are blue-based.
• Cream, beige, ivory with a yellow cast: they look dingy on cool skin. Your light neutral is soft white.
• Pure black near the face: not the disaster it is for a soft summer, but still too heavy. It adds shadows and flattens the face. Navy does everything black does and looks better.
• Optic white: too stark. It makes you look dull by comparison.
• Neon anything, and full-strength saturated cool colors: electric blue, hot magenta, neon violet. Cool, but too bright. See the saturation ladder below.

None of these is forbidden. If you love one, wear it away from your face, in trousers, a skirt, shoes or a bag, and keep your best colors at the neckline. A cool summer in navy trousers and a raspberry top can carry a camel coat over the arm or a black bag without any harm.

The saturation ladder: how bright can a cool summer go?

Because cool summer borders winter, the question that defines the season is not "which colors" but "how much". The hue is easy: blue-based. The hard part is knowing where on the brightness scale to stop. Here is a way to find your ceiling.

Take one hue and picture it as a ladder from palest to most saturated. For blue: powder blue, then periwinkle, then French blue, then cobalt, then electric blue. For pink: powder pink, then rose pink, then raspberry, then fuchsia, then hot magenta. For purple: lavender, then wisteria, then amethyst, then royal purple, then neon violet.

A light summer peaks on the first rung. A true summer peaks on the second. A cool summer peaks on the third and can usually reach the fourth in one piece, worn away from the face or balanced with a neutral. A cool winter lives on the fourth and fifth rungs and looks best there. So, in practice:

• Your sweet spot: the third rung. French blue, raspberry, amethyst, soft emerald, watermelon. These are the cool summer colors that make people say you look well.
• Your ceiling: the fourth rung, in small doses. A softened cobalt dress at an evening event, a magenta scarf, a royal purple bag. You can carry them; you cannot live in them.
• Off the ladder: the fifth rung. Electric, neon and fluorescent versions of your own colors. These belong to bright winter and will wear you.

The same logic works for depth. Cool summer can go to navy, charcoal, burgundy and blackened plum, which is deeper than any other summer, but stops just short of black. If you want a quick check, hold your darkest navy and a black side by side under your chin. The navy should look like it belongs to your face and the black should look like it belongs to the shirt.

Cool summer versus the seasons it gets confused with

Getting the season right is what makes the palette work, and cool summer has look-alikes on both sides.

Cool summer vs cool winter

This is the border that matters most, and it is the mistake analysts make most often with cool summers who have dark hair. Both seasons are decisively cool and both can wear navy, raspberry and cool pink. The difference is chroma and contrast. A cool winter has high contrast between hair, skin and eyes, and looks best in black, optic white and fully saturated jewel tones. A cool summer has medium contrast and looks best when those same colors are turned down one notch: navy instead of black, soft white instead of optic white, raspberry instead of fuchsia, French blue instead of royal blue. If bright, saturated colors make you look more alive and muted ones make you look faded, you are a cool winter. If saturated colors make you look like the color is doing all the work, you are a cool summer. The fuchsia test and the black and navy test above settle it.

Cool summer vs soft summer

Both are summers, both wear rose, mauve and slate, and both are often just called "a summer". The difference is temperature and clarity. Soft summer is neutral-cool and muted; its dominant trait is softness, and it can borrow warm-leaning colors like sage, oyster and rose-brown. Cool summer is decisively cool and clearer; its dominant trait is coolness, and those warm-leaning colors look flat on it. A soft summer glows in dusty rose; a cool summer glows in a clear rose pink. If you look better in silver than gold by a mile rather than a little, and you can wear a clean raspberry without it looking loud, you are a cool summer. If gold and silver are almost a tie and a raspberry feels a bit much, you are a soft summer.

Cool summer vs light summer

Light summer is lighter and slightly warmer, bordering spring rather than winter. Its dominant trait is lightness: fair skin, light hair, light eyes, and a palette of pastels. Cool summer has more depth and a stronger cool emphasis. A light summer looks wonderful in baby blue and pale pink and slightly overwhelmed in navy and raspberry; a cool summer looks a little washed out in pastels and comes alive in the deeper end of the palette. If your hair is medium or dark and your best colors are the mid-tones rather than the pastels, you are a cool summer.

Cool summer vs true summer

Covered in full above. In short: same temperature, same family, but cool summer is a notch deeper and clearer, with winter's influence showing at the edges. If "summer" colors always felt almost right and slightly too gentle, you are the cooler, deeper one.

Cool summer vs deep winter and bright winter

These come up for cool summers with very dark hair or deeper skin. Deep winter is neutral-cool and very dark with high contrast; it wears black, black-brown and deep, rich jewel tones. Bright winter is cool and highly saturated; it wears icy white and neon-clear colors. A cool summer is neither that dark nor that bright, however dark the hair is. If black-brown and emerald at full strength look effortless on you, you are a deep winter. If icy brights make you glow, you are a bright winter. If both feel like a costume and a navy with a raspberry feels like you, you are a cool summer.

Building a cool summer wardrobe

How to combine your colors

Because the cool summer palette is half a color wheel with no complementary pairs, almost everything in it goes with everything else. The guiding principle for cool summer outfits is medium contrast: more definition than a soft summer would wear, less than a winter. Cool summer color palette clothing works best when it looks crisp but never harsh.

• Best: tonal outfits that move up and down one family. Powder blue with French blue and navy. Rose pink with raspberry and burgundy. Lavender with amethyst and plum.
• Best: analogous pairs, meaning neighbors on the wheel. Blue with periwinkle. Pink with lavender. Teal with French blue. Raspberry with plum.
• Good: one dark neutral plus one clear accent. Navy with raspberry. Charcoal with rose pink. Deep slate with mint.
• Good, and unique to cool summer among the summers: a light neutral with a deep color. Soft white with navy. Silver grey with burgundy. This medium-contrast pairing looks crisp on a cool summer and heavy on the other summers.
• Avoid: black with optic white, and anything warm anywhere near the face.

A quick check before you leave the house: squint at the mirror. You should see a clear outfit with a clear face in the middle of it. If the outfit is sharper than the face, drop the contrast one notch. If the face disappears into the outfit, raise it.

A cool summer capsule wardrobe

These fifteen pieces cover most of life and combine in almost any order, because every one is in the cool summer color palette.

• A navy blazer and a charcoal blazer.
• Navy trousers and medium grey trousers.
• Medium-wash or cool dark-wash jeans, and a soft white shirt.
• A soft white t-shirt and a silver grey t-shirt.
• A raspberry knit and a French blue knit.
• A lavender or periwinkle shirt.
• A rose pink blouse.
• A navy dress, the cool summer answer to the little black dress, and a raspberry or plum dress for evenings.
• A soft emerald or teal piece for color.
• A charcoal or navy coat, or a cool grey trench.
• Shoes and bag in navy, cool grey or rose-brown, with one black pair for the days you need it.

Cool summer dresses deserve a note. A dress is a large block of color next to the face, so it is the piece where choosing wrong costs you the most. Navy, raspberry, French blue, plum and lavender are the safest dress colors, and a cool floral print in those shades on a navy or soft white ground is the safest pattern.

Denim

Denim is a gift to cool summers, because indigo is a cool blue. Medium wash, cool dark wash, faded blue and grey-wash all work. Even a fairly dark indigo works on a cool summer, which is not true of every summer. Skip yellow-toned "dirty" washes, bleached white denim and black denim near the face.

Patterns and prints

The best prints for a cool summer use only cool summer colors at medium contrast: florals on a navy or soft white ground, cool stripes (navy and soft white is the classic), watercolor florals, small geometrics in blue and pink, tonal paisley, gingham in blue or pink. Cool summer can wear a slightly crisper print than the other summers, including a clean stripe or a small check. What to skip is anything with black and white together, anything with warm tones in the print, and very large, high-contrast blocks.

Metals and cool summer jewelry

Cool summer is the season where the silver rule is closest to absolute.

• Best metals: silver, white gold, platinum, polished or brushed. Unlike soft summer, a cool summer can wear a brighter, more polished silver.
• Also fine: pewter, gunmetal, a pink-toned rose gold in small pieces, and a very pale white-gold-toned "champagne" metal.
• Avoid: yellow gold, especially bright or orange-toned gold, and copper and bronze. If you have a gold piece you love, wear it away from the face or mix it with silver so the silver dominates.

Stones and materials for cool summer jewelry: sapphire, amethyst, tanzanite, aquamarine, rose quartz, pink tourmaline, moonstone, blue topaz, white or grey pearls, cool jade, lapis, opal. Diamonds and clear crystal suit you well. Skip amber, citrine, tiger's eye, coral and yellow-toned pearls.

Glasses: frames in navy, slate, silver, clear, cool grey, plum or a cool blue-grey tortoiseshell. A black frame is wearable on a cool summer, but a navy one will make the eyes look clearer.

For work

A cool summer's professional wardrobe is one of the easiest of any season to build, because navy and grey are the two most common suiting colors in existence. Build it on navy, charcoal and medium grey for suits and trousers, with soft white, pale blue, lavender and rose pink for shirts and blouses. Accent with raspberry, plum, French blue or teal. A navy suit with a soft white shirt looks as serious as a black one on anyone, and on you it looks better.

Weddings and occasions

• As a bride: soft white, cool white, pale silver, blush and pale rose all work. Optic white is borderline; ivory and champagne can look yellow. A pale blue-white is a beautiful cool summer choice.
• As a guest: raspberry, French blue, lavender, plum, soft emerald, rose pink, and burgundy or navy for winter weddings.
• For the groom or a suit: navy, charcoal, cool medium grey, with a soft white or pale blue shirt and a tie in raspberry, plum, silver or French blue.

Cool summer for men

Cool summer is a very common season in men and, unusually, a lucky one, because the default men's wardrobe is already halfway there. A cool summer man has ash or cool brown hair, cool skin with a pink or blue cast, and blue, grey or cool brown eyes, and his beard, if he has one, grows in ash or grey rather than red. The fixes are small. Swap black for navy and charcoal. Swap optic white for soft white and pale blue. Keep denim in a medium or cool dark wash. For color, French blue, raspberry, plum, teal, lavender and cool pink are the easy wins: a French blue shirt with navy chinos, a raspberry knit over a soft white tee, a plum tie on a grey suit. Metals should be silver or gunmetal, and a navy or clear frame beats black glasses. The one rule that surprises most cool summer men is that a pink shirt is not a risk. A cool rose pink is one of the most flattering things a cool summer man can wear.

How to use your palette in the store

Cool summer looks easy to shop for, because blue and pink are everywhere. The catch is that the wrong blue and the wrong pink are also everywhere. The "navy" that turns out to be a warm ink black. The "rose" that is really a coral. The periwinkle that is a shade too electric. Store lighting is usually warm, which makes every cool color look a little warmer than it is, and memory is not a reliable judge of where a color sits on the saturation ladder.

That is exactly what the MySwatches Personal Swatch Card is for. It is a transparent, credit-card-sized card printed with your cool summer color palette, so you hold it directly against the fabric and see at once whether the color belongs. Because the card is see-through, you are comparing the actual dye to the actual shade rather than a photo to a memory. It is waterproof, scratch resistant, and lives in your wallet. See the Cool Summer card

Cool summer makeup

The mistake most cool summers make with makeup is warmth. The bronzer, the peach blush, the golden highlighter and the "nude" lipstick that is really a warm beige are all sold as universal, and on a cool summer every one of them turns the skin slightly yellow. The second mistake is going too soft: chalky pastel shadows and a barely-there pink lip can look faded on a season with this much depth. Cool summer makeup should be cool, clean and a little more defined than you might expect from a summer.

Foundation and base

Cool or neutral-cool, with a pink or rosy base rather than a golden one, matched in daylight. Avoid anything labelled warm, golden or honey. Skip bronzer entirely, or use a cool, greyish taupe contour very lightly. Highlighter should be a pearl, icy pink or silvery champagne with a satin or soft shimmer finish; a cool summer can take a little more shimmer than a soft summer, but not a gold one.

Blush

Cool pink, rose, raspberry, cool berry, soft plum, orchid. A cool summer can wear a clearer, brighter blush than the other summers, so a true rose pink that would look loud on a soft summer looks fresh on you. Avoid peach, coral, apricot and anything with orange in it.

Lips and cool summer lipstick colors

Your best cool summer lipstick colors are rose pink, raspberry, watermelon, cool berry, orchid, plum, cool mauve and a rosy "my lips but better" nude. For a bold lip, cool summer is the one summer that can wear a real red: choose a blue-based, slightly softened red, a raspberry red or a watermelon red rather than a warm or orange red, and it will look like it was made for you. Burgundy and wine work for evening. Satin, cream and sheer finishes all suit you; a cool summer can also wear a clean matte better than the softer summers. Avoid warm nudes, brick, terracotta and coral.

Eyes and the cool summer makeup palette

• Shadows: cool taupe, dove grey, silver, lavender, periwinkle, slate, navy, plum, cool mauve, soft charcoal, rose-brown, and a cool grey-brown. A cool summer eyeshadow quad of cool taupe, lavender, plum and navy covers day and evening. Avoid warm browns, bronze, gold and copper.
• Liner: navy, charcoal, plum, slate, and soft black. Cool summer is the summer that can wear black liner best, but a navy liner will make blue and grey eyes look clearer than black ever does.
• Mascara: black or black-brown. Unlike the other summers, a true black mascara is fine on a cool summer.
• Brows: cool taupe, ash brown, or a cool dark brown for deeper cool summers, filled softly. Avoid warm brown pencils, which turn reddish on ash brows.

Cool summer nail colors

Rose pink, raspberry, cool berry, plum, lavender, periwinkle, navy, cool grey, sheer pink, soft white, burgundy. Cool summer nails can be a little bolder than the other summers, and a clear raspberry or a deep navy both look polished. Skip coral, orange-red, warm nudes, gold shimmer and yellow-toned whites.

The MySwatches Personal Makeup Card takes the same cool summer palette and translates it into lipstick, blush and eyeshadow shades, so you can hold it up to a tester and know.

Cool summer hair color

Your natural hair is already in your palette, which is why the best cool summer hair color stays close to nature: ash-toned and cool, with no gold, red or brass anywhere, and with a little more depth allowed than the other summers can take.

• Best: ash blonde, dark ash blonde, cool beige blonde, light ash brown, cool medium brown, cool dark brown, and, for cool summers with the most depth, a soft cool black-brown.
• Good for a change: a cool "cold brew" or espresso brunette, an ash bronde, a silver blonde, a smoky lilac or blue-grey gloss, or a cool burgundy or plum tint for something bolder. These are the cool summer hair color ideas that work because they add depth or interest without adding warmth.
• Avoid: golden blonde, honey, caramel and butterscotch (warm), copper, auburn and warm red (warm and saturated), warm chocolate and mahogany (red-based), and a stark platinum white, which is too light and too bright for your depth. Jet black is closer to wearable on a cool summer than on any other summer, but it still adds more contrast than your face has, and a cool dark brown will look richer.

If you highlight, ask for cool, ash or beige-toned pieces blended through the lengths, and ask your colorist for "no warmth" with a cool or violet-based toner. A purple shampoo between visits keeps brass away. For cool summer blonde hair, "ash" and "beige" are the two words to use; for brunettes, "cool ash brown, no red, no gold".

Cool summers have one real advantage: they go grey beautifully. Your hair is already cool and low in warm pigment, so incoming grey reads as clean silver rather than yellow, and a fully silver cool summer often looks more striking than a dyed one. Silver hair also moves your natural contrast up slightly, which means the deeper end of your palette, navy, plum and raspberry, tends to look even better once you go grey.

Cool summer celebrities and examples

Nobody has draped these people in person, and celebrity typing from photos is never certain, so treat these cool summer examples as a visual reference rather than a verdict. Because 12-season and 16-season systems label the season differently, many of these names appear in true summer lists as well. The names that come up most often in cool summer discussions:

• Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales: the classic reference. Cool dark brown hair, cool, rosy skin and medium contrast, and famously at her best in navy, French blue, raspberry and soft white, all of which she wears constantly.
• Kate Moss: ash blonde over cool skin, with grey-green eyes, and at her most striking in cool greys, blues and soft whites.
• Zoe Saldaña: a frequent example of a deeper cool summer, with cool brown skin and dark hair that look best in cool, soft mid-tones rather than in black or in warm earth tones.
• Naomi Watts: cool blonde hair, blue eyes and a rosy complexion that reads clean in periwinkle and rose pink.
• Sophia Bush: cool medium-dark hair and blue-grey eyes with medium contrast, often cited as a cool summer who can carry navy and plum.
• Emily Deschanel: ash brown hair and cool blue eyes, a common cool summer example.
• Prince William and Ryan Reynolds: the two most common cool summer men. Ash hair going grey, cool skin and blue or grey eyes, and both look sharper in navy than in black.
• Rihanna: the contested one. She is typed cool summer, soft summer and cool winter in different places, because her coloring sits close to more than one border. If you have had two analysts disagree about you, she is proof that it happens at every level.

What they have in common is not a hair color or a skin tone. It is a decisively cool undertone with medium contrast: they look clean and rested in blue-based colors, a little tired in gold and camel, and just slightly overpowered in black.

Beyond the closet

Once you know your palette, it tends to spread. Cool summers often find that the colors that flatter their face are the ones they want to live with: a navy front door, a powder blue bedroom, grey-blue walls, a raspberry armchair, silver and glass accents, pale grey oak floors. It is not a coincidence. Colors that harmonize with you are easier on the eye, yours and everyone else's, and a room in your palette photographs you well too. The cool summer palette also happens to be one of the most popular interior palettes in existence, so the paint charts are on your side.

Frequently asked questions about cool summer

What defines a cool summer?

A decisively cool undertone (blue or pink, never gold), medium to medium-deep coloring and medium contrast, with colors that are clearer and deeper than the rest of the summer family but softer than winter's. Cool summer is the summer season that borders winter.

What colors look best on a cool summer?

The cool summer best colors are the blue-based mid-tones: French blue, periwinkle, raspberry, rose pink, lavender, amethyst, plum, soft emerald and teal, on a base of navy, charcoal, soft white and cool grey. If you only ever bought those, you would never wear anything wrong.

What colors should a cool summer avoid?

Orange, coral, warm reds, gold, mustard, camel, warm browns, olive and lime, cream and beige, plus pure black and optic white near the face and any neon or fully saturated color. In one sentence: if a color is warm, or so bright it glows, it is probably not yours.

Can a cool summer wear black?

Better than any other summer, but still not as well as navy. Black near the face adds shadows and makes a cool summer look slightly flat; navy and charcoal give the same seriousness and make the skin look clearer. Black trousers, shoes and bags are fine, and a black top with a soft white or rose collar or scarf is wearable. If you have a black dress you love, add a raspberry lip and silver at the neckline and it will work.

Can a cool summer wear navy?

Yes, and it is your best dark neutral by a distance. Unlike soft summer, which needs a dusty navy, a cool summer can wear a true, deep navy and look sharper for it.

Can a cool summer wear gold?

Not well near the face. Cool summer is the summer season where silver wins most clearly. A pale, cool-toned white gold or a pink rose gold is fine; a yellow or orange-toned gold will make the skin look sallow. Wear gold away from the face or mixed with silver.

What is the difference between cool summer and cool winter?

Chroma and contrast. Both are decisively cool, but cool winter is higher in contrast and can wear black, optic white and fully saturated jewel tones. Cool summer is medium in contrast and wears the same colors turned down one notch: navy for black, soft white for optic white, raspberry for fuchsia. The fuchsia test settles it: if vivid fuchsia lights you up, you are a winter; if raspberry looks better, you are a cool summer.

What is the difference between cool summer and soft summer?

Temperature and clarity. Soft summer is neutral-cool and muted, and can borrow warm-leaning colors like sage and oyster. Cool summer is decisively cool and clearer, and those colors look flat on it. A soft summer glows in dusty rose; a cool summer glows in a clear rose pink.

Is cool summer the same as true summer?

In the 12-season system, yes, they are two names for the same season. In 16 and 17-season systems, including the one MySwatches uses, they are two distinct palettes: true summer is the softer, lighter center of the family, and cool summer is the deeper, clearer sub-season that flows toward winter. The full explanation is in the section near the top of this guide.

What is the difference between cool summer and light summer?

Depth. Light summer is light, delicate and pastel-based, bordering spring. Cool summer is medium to medium-deep, bordering winter, and looks best in the mid-tones and darks of the palette rather than the pastels.

What is the best lipstick color for a cool summer?

Rose pink, raspberry, watermelon, cool berry and plum. For drama, a blue-based raspberry red or watermelon red, which cool summer can wear better than any other summer.

What hair colors suit a cool summer?

Ash blonde, cool beige blonde, light and medium ash brown, cool dark brown and, for deeper cool summers, a soft cool black-brown. Avoid golden, honey, caramel, copper, warm chocolate and stark platinum.

How does cool summer color analysis work?

Cool summer color analysis looks at three things: hue, value and chroma. Hue is temperature, and it is the defining trait: cool summer is decisively cool, with blue or pink undertones and no gold. Value is depth, and cool summer sits in the medium to medium-deep range with medium contrast. Chroma is saturation, and cool summer sits in the middle, clearer than soft summer and softer than winter. Because the hard part is the saturation ceiling rather than the hue, the most useful home tests are the ones that compare intensity side by side: black against navy, optic white against soft white, and fuchsia against raspberry.

Is cool summer a rare season?

No. Cool summer is one of the most common seasons, particularly among people of Northern and Eastern European heritage, and it is more common in dark-haired people and deeper skin tones than most guides suggest. Because it borders winter, it is also one of the most frequently misdiagnosed, usually as cool winter when the hair is dark, or as soft summer when the analysis was done under warm lighting.

Does my color season change as I get older?

Your season is set mostly by your undertone, which does not change. What can shift is which specific colors flatter you most, especially once hair greys. Most cool summers stay cool summer for life and find that silver hair, which is already in their palette, makes the deeper colors look even better.

Find your season, then carry it with you

If this guide sounded like a description of you, the next step is to confirm it. The free MySwatches palette quiz uses your own photos to place you in one of the 17 seasons. Take the free palette quiz

And once you know, the Cool Summer Personal Swatch Card puts the whole cool summer color palette from this guide in your wallet, transparent so you can hold it up to any fabric, waterproof and scratch resistant so it lasts. No more guessing where a blue sits on the ladder under warm store lights. See the Cool Summer card