Warm Autumn Color Palette: The Complete Guide

Warm autumn is the autumn that borders spring. It is the warmest season in the whole system, and it keeps autumn's earthiness while borrowing a little of spring's light and clarity: the rust is a touch brighter, the gold is a touch cleaner, the greens have more yellow in them. The warm autumn color palette looks like a maple in full turn on a sunny October afternoon, copper and gold and pumpkin with the light coming through. If gold has always beaten silver by a mile, if orange, the color everyone else avoids, makes people say you look well, and if pure black and icy pastels both make you look like you have not slept, this is very likely your season.

This guide explains what warm autumn means in color terms and why it is not simply another name for true autumn. It gives you a feature-by-feature description with five at-home tests, the full palette by color family with hex codes, the colors to avoid and why, and a section on orange, the color this season gets to wear when nobody else can. Then it covers how warm autumn differs from true autumn, soft autumn, deep autumn and warm spring, and translates all of it into a wardrobe, a makeup bag and a hair color. It also covers the cases most guides skip: warm autumn men, warm autumn with red hair, warm autumn with deeper skin, and how to bring the palette into your home.

What is a warm autumn?

Warm autumn is one of the 17 seasons used in modern seasonal color analysis, and the warm autumn color season describes people whose natural coloring, meaning skin, hair and eyes together, is primarily warm and secondarily soft, sitting at the warmest and slightly brighter end of the autumn family.

Warmth is the defining trait. Your undertone is golden, peach or copper, with no pink or blue in it, and every color in the palette carries yellow. Softness comes second: your colors are richer than a spring's and your features are blended rather than sharp, but you are not as muted as a soft autumn and not as dark as a deep autumn. Because warm autumn flows toward spring, it picks up a little of spring's clarity and light, which is why a warm autumn can wear a clean golden yellow or a warm turquoise that would look loud on the rest of the autumn family.

The easiest way to picture it is as a position on the seasonal flow. The autumn family runs from deep autumn, which borders winter, through the center of the family, to warm autumn, which borders spring. A warm autumn stands with one foot on the spring line: warm enough to wear a real orange and a bright copper, still autumn enough that a clear coral or a bright aqua is a step too far.

One clarification, because the People Also Ask box on Google keeps phrasing it this way: warm autumn is a season, not just an undertone. Plenty of people have a warm undertone and are not warm autumns. A warm undertone with light, clear coloring is a warm spring; a warm undertone with dark hair and eyes is a deep autumn; a warm undertone that reads soft and greyed is a soft autumn. Warm autumn is the specific combination of warm undertone, medium depth and medium-rich saturation, and the tests below are built to confirm that combination rather than the undertone alone.

Is warm autumn the same as true autumn?

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

In the 16-season and 17-season systems, including the one MySwatches uses, they are two distinct palettes. True autumn is the center of the autumn family: rich, earthy and balanced. Warm autumn is the sub-season that flows from autumn toward spring, so spring's influence starts to show: the colors are a touch warmer, lighter and clearer, and the palette gains a few golden and turquoise shades that the center of the family cannot carry. Think of true autumn as a forest floor in October and warm autumn as the same forest with the sun on it.

Why does the distinction matter? Because a warm autumn dressed in the center-of-family palette will look a little heavy and a little dull, as if someone had turned the light down, and a true autumn dressed in warm autumn colors will look slightly overpowered by the brightest golds and turquoises. The palettes overlap heavily, so neither mistake is a disaster. But if you have ever felt that "autumn" colors were almost right and just a little too dark or too muddy on you, warm autumn is the answer to that feeling. This guide is about that warmer, sunnier autumn.

Where warm autumn sits on the color wheel

Every season is defined by where it falls on three scales: hue, value and chroma. The warm autumn color palette is defined almost entirely by the first.

Hue (temperature): how warm or cool you are. You are as warm as the system goes. Gold, peach and copper under the skin, and no blue anywhere. Of all 17 seasons, warm autumn and warm spring are the two furthest from cool, which is why the two are sometimes confused and why the warm autumn color wheel is essentially the yellow-to-red half of the spectrum with the cool half missing.
Value (depth): how light or dark you are. You are medium. Hair from golden blonde and copper through medium warm brown, skin from ivory to golden tan and warm deep brown, eyes usually medium in depth. Nothing about you is very light or very dark.
Chroma (saturation): how bright or muted you are. You are medium, leaning rich. Your colors are cleaner than a soft autumn's and earthier than a spring's. They look rich because they are warm and full, not because they are bright.

If you take one thing from this section, take this: warm autumn is warm first, and everything else is medium. If you are unsure, start from the warmth. The color that makes your skin look golden and healthy is yours; the one that makes it look pink or grey is not, however pretty it is on the hanger.

Warm autumn characteristics: how to know if you are one

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

Skin

Warm, with golden, peach, apricot or copper undertones and no pink. The warm autumn skin tone ranges from warm ivory and peach through golden beige and golden tan to warm caramel, bronze and deep golden brown. Freckles are common at every depth, and fair warm autumns often have the kind of skin that goes golden rather than red in the sun. Warm autumn skin has a signature reaction to color: it glows next to camel, rust and warm gold, looks slightly grey next to icy pastels and cool pinks, and looks sallow next to pure black and optic white. Wrist veins usually read green or olive rather than blue.

Eyes

Warm hazel, golden brown, amber, warm green, olive green, topaz, and a warm medium brown in deeper skin tones. Warm autumn eyes almost always carry visible gold: gold flecks, a golden ring around the pupil, or the kind of hazel that reads green in one light and gold in another. Bright blue eyes are rare in the season and usually point to a warm spring instead; a warm, greyish teal-blue does occur.

Hair

This is the season where red hair lives. Copper, auburn, strawberry blonde, golden red, chestnut with red lights, golden brown, honey blonde, dark golden blonde, and a warm medium brown that goes copper in the sun. Even warm autumns who think of their hair as "brown" will find it turns visibly gold or red at the ends in summer. What you almost never see on a natural warm autumn is ash anything, platinum, or a cool dark brown. If your hair has ever been described as having "red in it", this is a strong sign.

Contrast

Low to medium. In a black and white photo, hair, skin and eyes sit within a fairly narrow tonal range, with the hair usually a little darker than the skin and the eyes somewhere in between. This is more contrast than a soft autumn has and less than a deep autumn has. It is why a warm autumn looks balanced in camel with rust, and swallowed by black with white.

Five tests to do at home

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

The gold and silver test. Hold gold jewelry against your face, then silver. On a warm autumn this is the least subtle test in the whole system: gold makes the skin look warm, even and alive, and silver makes it look grey and a little tired, sometimes with a greenish cast. If silver is even close to a tie, you are not a warm autumn.

The white and cream test. Optic white against your face, then a warm cream or a soft ivory. On a warm autumn the optic white looks harsh and slightly blue, and the face goes sallow beside it. The cream makes the face come forward and look rested.

The black and brown test. Drape pure black near your face, then a warm chocolate or a dark camel. Black should make you look drawn and add shadows. The brown should make your skin look calmer and your eyes look richer. If black actually looks good on you, you are a deep autumn or a winter.

The clear and earthy test, for warm autumn versus warm spring. Hold a clear, bright orange or a clear coral near your face, then a rust or a pumpkin. A warm spring glows in the clear version and looks a little heavy in the earthy one. A warm autumn looks slightly overpowered by the clear version and comes alive in the rust. If the earthy piece wins, you are a warm autumn.

The mustard test, for warm autumn versus the other autumns. Hold a full-strength golden mustard near your face. A warm autumn glows in it. A soft autumn looks a little loud in it and needs a softer, greyed version. A deep autumn looks a little washed out in it and needs a darker curry. If full-strength mustard is simply right, you are a warm autumn.

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

Warm autumn color palette swatches

Here are the warm autumn 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. You will notice that the palette is one half of the color wheel, the yellow, orange, red and yellow-green half, and that the blues and purples are few, specific and always warmed.

Warm autumn neutrals

Warm autumn neutrals are the golden browns and warm creams you would find in a wheat field, a leather saddle and a jar of honey.

• Lights: warm cream, ivory, buttermilk, warm sand, oatmeal, light camel, golden beige, warm khaki.
• Mids: camel, caramel, cognac, tan, golden brown, warm taupe, bronze, olive, khaki green, warm mocha.
• Darks: chocolate, coffee, warm dark brown, deep olive, dark bronze, warm charcoal with a brown cast.

Your version of black is chocolate or a dark warm brown, and your version of white is cream or ivory. Switch those two anchors and half the work is done. Camel is the single most useful neutral a warm autumn owns: it does for you what black does for a winter, and a camel coat over almost anything in this palette will look more expensive than a black one ever will on you.

Warm autumn colors by family

• Oranges: rust, pumpkin, burnt orange, terracotta, copper, warm tangerine, persimmon, spice, paprika. See the orange question below, because this is your family and nobody else's.
• Reds: tomato red, warm brick, poppy toned down, warm cranberry, rust red, chili, mahogany. Warm autumn reds always have orange in them, never blue.
• Warm autumn pinks: warm coral, salmon, apricot pink, terracotta rose, warm peach, deep melon. There is no cool or pastel pink in the palette; your pink is a coral that has been warmed and slightly deepened.
• Yellows and golds: mustard, golden yellow, saffron, ochre, old gold, honey, amber, butterscotch, curry. Warm autumn wears more yellow than any other autumn, and a clean golden yellow near the face is one of your best colors.
• Warm autumn greens: olive, moss, avocado, warm khaki, chartreuse toned down, warm lime, fern, bronze green, yellow-green, warm forest. Every warm autumn green has yellow in it; a blue-based green is not yours.
• Warm autumn blues: warm turquoise, teal, warm aqua, peacock, petrol, dark teal. This is the smallest family in the palette, and every blue in it has enough green to read warm. A true blue is not yours.
• Purples: warm aubergine, brown-plum, warm mulberry. Rare, always warmed with brown, and used as darks rather than accents.

The through-line of the warm autumn color palette is that every color looks like it has been mixed with a drop of gold. If a color looks pink, blue, grey or icy, it is not yours. If it looks like it could have come out of a spice market or a pile of fallen leaves, it almost certainly is.

Twelve warm autumn colors with hex codes

People ask for warm autumn color palette hex codes to build mood boards and capsule wardrobe plans. These twelve are approximate reference points for the signature colors, not an official palette, and screens vary. Use them to recognize the family, not to match fabric.

• Rust: #B7472A
• Pumpkin: #D2691E
• Terracotta: #C4643B
• Copper: #B87333
• Mustard: #D4A017
• Golden yellow: #E3B04B
• Olive: #6B6B2E
• Moss green: #7A8B3A
• Warm turquoise: #2E9E8F
• Tomato red: #C63D2F
• Camel: #C19A6B
• Warm cream: #F5E9D0

Sister palettes, and what you can borrow

Warm autumn has one direct neighbor on the spring side and the rest of the autumn family on the other, and you can borrow carefully from both.

From warm spring, the lighter and clearer side: a clear golden yellow, a warm apricot, a bright turquoise, a clean coral. These share your warmth. Pick the version with the most depth, and wear it in one piece with an autumn neutral so it does not lighten your whole look.

From true autumn, the center of the family: a rich pumpkin, a deep olive, a warm brick, a golden brown. These share your temperature and earthiness. Pick the clearest version and skip anything that reads muddy on you.

From soft autumn, the muted cousin: a warm sage, a soft apricot, a dusty terracotta. These work if you keep them warm and use them as supporting colors, because a fully muted palette will make a warm autumn look flat.

From deep autumn, the darker cousin: a dark chocolate, a forest green, a burgundy with brown in it. These work as your darkest darks, worn with camel or cream for contrast rather than head to toe.

The rule for borrowing from spring is to deepen; the rule for borrowing from the rest of autumn is to brighten. If a spring color looks candy-bright on the hanger, or an autumn color looks muddy on the hanger, put it back.

Warm autumn colors to avoid, and why

Every warm autumn has a list of worst colors, and it is almost exactly the cool half of the wheel plus the two stark extremes. The PAA phrasing, "worst colors for a warm autumn undertone", gets it right: what fails on you fails because it is cool.

• Pure black: too cool and too harsh. It hollows out the face and adds shadows. Your black is chocolate.
• Optic white: too cool and too stark. It makes the skin look sallow. Your white is cream.
• Cool greys and silver grey: they pull grey into the skin. Warm charcoal with a brown cast is fine; dove grey is not.
• Icy pastels: baby pink, powder blue, lavender frost, mint. Cool and light, the two things you are not. They make warm autumn skin look washed out.
• Cool pinks, fuchsia, magenta, raspberry: the blue-based pinks. They clash with your golden undertone and make any redness in the skin look worse.
• Royal blue, cobalt, navy, true blue: the blue-based blues. Your blue is teal or warm turquoise. A warm-leaning, softened navy is borderline and best kept away from the face.
• Blue-based reds, cherry, wine, burgundy: your reds are tomato and brick. A cool red will look like it is floating on your face.
• Cool purples, lavender, violet, grape: the whole purple family except a brown-based aubergine.
• Blue-based greens, emerald, mint, pine: your greens are olive and moss. A green without yellow in it looks cold on you.
• Neon anything: obvious, but worth saying.

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 warm autumn in olive trousers and a rust top can carry a navy bag without any harm. The one place to be strict is next to the face: this is the season where the wrong temperature shows fastest.

The orange question: the season that finally gets to wear it

Almost every color guide says the same thing about orange: avoid it. Warm autumn is the exception, and it deserves a proper answer rather than a warning copied from cooler seasons.

Orange is your best family. On a warm autumn, orange does what red does for a winter and pink does for a summer: it makes the skin look like the best version of itself. Rust, pumpkin, terracotta, copper and burnt orange are the warm autumn best colors, and a rust knit or a terracotta dress near the face will get you more compliments than any neutral. If you have been avoiding orange your whole life because someone told you nobody can wear it, this is the season to stop.

The right orange is earthy, not neon. Picture the orange family as a line from a fluorescent traffic-cone orange at one end to a deep rust at the other. The fluorescent end belongs to bright spring. The clear, sunny middle, tangerine and clear coral, belongs to warm spring. The earthy end, rust, pumpkin, terracotta, paprika and copper, belongs to you. A quick test in the store: if an orange looks like it could glow in the dark, put it back; if it looks like a spice, a clay pot or a fallen leaf, it is a warm autumn orange.

How to wear it. Orange near the face, with camel, cream, olive or chocolate around it. Rust with olive is the classic warm autumn pairing. Terracotta with cream is the summer version. Copper with chocolate is the evening version. Pumpkin with warm turquoise is the bold version, and it works because both colors are yours. The same logic applies to lipstick, and it is covered in the makeup section below: a brick or terracotta lip on a warm autumn looks like a natural flush, where a cool pink would look like a mistake.

Warm autumn versus the seasons it gets confused with

Getting the season right is what makes the palette work, and warm autumn has look-alikes on both sides of the flow.

True autumn vs warm autumn

Covered in full above. In short: same temperature, same family, but warm autumn is a notch warmer, lighter and clearer, with spring's influence showing at the edges. If "autumn" colors always felt exactly right, you are a true autumn. If they felt almost right and slightly too dark or muddy, and a clean golden yellow or a warm turquoise makes you glow, you are a warm autumn.

Warm spring vs warm autumn

This is the border that matters most, because the two seasons share the same extreme warmth. Both wear gold, coral, turquoise and camel. The difference is depth and clarity. Warm spring is lighter and clearer: golden blonde or light copper hair, light warm skin, clear blue, green or golden eyes, and a palette of clear, sunny colors like bright coral, golden yellow, clear aqua and light camel. Warm autumn is a step deeper and earthier: darker hair, richer skin, and a palette of rust, olive, mustard and chocolate. A warm spring glows in a clear tangerine and looks heavy in rust; a warm autumn glows in rust and looks a little overpowered by tangerine. The clear and earthy test above settles it. If your hair is darker than golden blonde and your best colors are the earthy ones, you are a warm autumn.

Soft autumn vs warm autumn

Both are autumns with medium depth, and the palettes overlap around camel, olive and terracotta. The difference is warmth and clarity. Soft autumn is neutral-warm and muted; its dominant trait is softness, it can borrow cool-leaning colors like dusty rose and slate, and it needs its mustard and rust greyed down. Warm autumn is fully warm and clearer; its dominant trait is warmth, those cool-leaning colors look grey on it, and it wears mustard and rust at full strength. If gold beats silver narrowly and full-strength mustard feels loud, you are a soft autumn. If gold beats silver by a mile and full-strength mustard feels like home, you are a warm autumn.

Warm autumn vs deep autumn

Both are warm autumns and both wear olive, rust and chocolate. The difference is depth and contrast. Deep autumn has dark hair and eyes with visible contrast, and its palette centers on black-brown, forest green, burgundy and deep teal. Warm autumn is medium in depth and lower in contrast, and its palette centers on camel, rust, mustard and olive. A deep autumn looks washed out in camel and mustard alone and needs a dark anchor; a warm autumn looks heavy in black-brown and forest green head to toe and needs the golden mid-tones. If your hair is dark brown or black and you can wear black, you are a deep autumn. If your hair has red or gold in it and camel is your best neutral, you are a warm autumn.

Warm autumn vs bright spring

A less common mix-up, but it happens to warm autumns with bright eyes. Bright spring is warm-neutral and highly saturated: it wears hot coral, bright turquoise and clear lime. Warm autumn is warm and rich rather than bright. If clear, vivid colors make you glow and earthy ones make you look dull, you are a bright spring. If the reverse, you are a warm autumn.

Building a warm autumn wardrobe

How to combine your colors: warm autumn color palette outfits

Medium contrast is the guiding principle for warm autumn outfits, because medium contrast is what your own coloring has. Warm autumn color palette clothing looks best when it reads as rich and harmonious rather than either faded or sharp.

• Best: tonal outfits that move up and down one warm family. Cream with camel and chocolate. Apricot with rust and copper. Warm khaki with olive and moss.
• Best: analogous pairs, meaning neighbors on the wheel. Rust with mustard. Olive with gold. Terracotta with warm coral. Pumpkin with moss.
• Good: one neutral plus one rich accent. Camel with rust. Chocolate with golden yellow. Olive with terracotta. Cream with warm turquoise.
• Good, and specific to warm autumn: the warm complementary pair. Rust with warm turquoise, or pumpkin with teal. Because both colors are warm and both are yours, the pairing reads as rich rather than jarring, and it is the boldest look a warm autumn can wear.
• Avoid: black with white, anything cool anywhere near the face, and head-to-toe dark, which lowers the light your coloring needs.

A quick check before you leave the house: squint at the mirror. You should see a warm, coherent picture with your face as the focal point. If one piece jumps forward and the face falls back, the contrast is too high. If the whole thing reads as one brown mass, add cream or a golden accent.

A warm autumn capsule wardrobe

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

• A camel blazer and a chocolate blazer.
• Olive trousers and chocolate trousers.
• Warm-wash jeans and a cream shirt.
• A cream t-shirt and a warm khaki t-shirt.
• A rust knit and a mustard knit.
• A warm turquoise or teal shirt.
• A terracotta or warm coral blouse.
• An olive or rust dress, the warm autumn answer to the little black dress, and a copper or bronze dress for evenings.
• A camel coat, the single most flattering outerwear a warm autumn can own, and a cognac leather jacket.
• Shoes and bag in cognac, tan, olive or chocolate rather than black.

Warm autumn dresses deserve a note. A dress is a large block of color next to the face, and the safest warm autumn dress colors, and the safest warm autumn clothing colors in general, are rust, olive, terracotta, mustard and teal, with a stylized leaf or paisley print in those shades on a cream or camel ground as the safest pattern.

Denim

Denim is the one place a warm autumn has to be careful, because indigo is a cool blue. The washes that work are the warm ones: a golden or olive-tinted medium wash, a faded tan-cast wash, brown or khaki denim, and a warm dark wash rather than an inky one. Skip bleached white denim, cool grey denim, black denim and any bright, blue-blue wash near the face.

Patterns and prints

The best prints for a warm autumn use warm autumn colors at medium contrast, in natural, slightly stylized shapes: leaves, paisley, ikat, batik, animal prints (leopard and tortoiseshell are close to a uniform), wood grain, plaid in rust and olive, painterly florals in terracotta and mustard on cream. The elements should be medium to large and loosely arranged. What to skip is small, dense ditsy florals, sharp geometry, and anything on an optic white or icy background, which all belong to cooler or lighter seasons.

Metals and warm autumn jewelry

Warm autumn is the season where the gold rule is closest to absolute.

• Best metals: yellow gold, antique gold, copper, bronze, brass. Warm autumn is the one season that can wear a bright, orange-toned copper as easily as a soft one.
• Also fine: a warm rose gold, pewter with a warm cast, oxidized or hammered gold.
• Avoid: cool silver, platinum, chrome and white gold, which make the skin look grey. If you love silver, choose an antiqued, warm-toned one and mix it with gold.

Stones and materials for warm autumn jewelry: amber, citrine, carnelian, tiger's eye, jasper, topaz, turquoise (the warm, greenish kind), peridot, garnet, smoky quartz, gold or champagne pearls, coral, and wood, horn, leather, raffia and tortoiseshell. Skip icy, blue-toned stones and stark white pearls.

Glasses: frames in honey tortoiseshell, olive, tan, warm brown, rust, or brushed gold metal. A black frame draws a cold line across the warmest part of your face.

For work

A warm autumn's professional wardrobe does not need black or navy to look serious. Build it on chocolate, deep olive, warm charcoal and camel for suits and trousers, with cream, ivory, warm khaki and teal for shirts and blouses. Accent with rust, mustard or copper. A camel or chocolate suit with a cream shirt looks as authoritative as a navy one on anyone, and on you it looks better. If your office runs on navy, choose a warm-leaning, softened navy and always put cream or rust between it and your face.

Weddings and occasions

• As a bride: ivory, cream, champagne, warm blush, antique gold and a soft apricot all outperform stark white. A champagne gown with gold detail is the classic warm autumn wedding look.
• As a guest: rust, terracotta, olive, mustard, warm turquoise, warm coral, copper, and chocolate or deep olive for winter weddings.
• For the groom or a suit: chocolate, camel, olive, warm charcoal, with a cream shirt and a tie in rust, mustard, teal or copper.

Warm autumn for men

Warm autumn is common in men and easy to dress once you accept the one rule: no black, no navy, no grey near the face. A warm autumn man has golden brown, auburn, copper or warm dark blonde hair, warm or freckled skin, and hazel, green or golden brown eyes, and his beard grows in red or gold, which is the single most reliable tell. The fixes are small. Swap black for chocolate and deep olive, swap navy for teal or a warm-leaning dark brown, and swap optic white for cream. Keep denim in a warm wash. For color, rust, olive, mustard, teal and camel are the easy wins: a rust overshirt over a cream tee, an olive knit with tan chinos, a teal shirt under a camel blazer, a mustard scarf on a chocolate coat. Metals should be gold, brass or bronze, and a honey tortoiseshell frame beats black glasses. A camel coat or a cognac leather jacket is the most flattering thing a warm autumn man can own.

How to use your palette in the store

Warm autumn is a palette of temperature calls, and temperature is exactly what store lighting hides. The "rust" that turns out to have a pink cast. The "olive" that is really a cool grey-green. The "cream" that is a cool off-white. The "teal" that is a blue-based emerald. Under warm shop lights every color looks warmer than it is, so the cool impostors get through, and memory is not a reliable judge of whether a brown has gold or grey in it.

That is exactly what the MySwatches Personal Swatch Card is for. It is a transparent, credit-card-sized card printed with your warm autumn 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 Warm Autumn card

Warm autumn makeup

The mistake most warm autumns make with makeup is coolness, because the default "pretty" makeup look is a cool one: pink blush, a rosy nude lip, a taupe eye, a pearl highlight. On a warm autumn every one of those reads slightly grey against the skin. The second mistake is copying deep autumn: a dark burgundy lip and heavy bronze eye that look heavy on medium-depth coloring. Warm autumn makeup should be golden, peachy and rich: a slightly turned-up version of the way your skin already looks in October light.

Foundation and base

Warm to golden, with a yellow, peach or golden-olive base, matched in daylight. Avoid anything pink-based or "neutral" that leans pink, which turns ashy on you. Bronzer is your friend: a golden or terracotta bronzer, warm rather than grey, can go almost anywhere on a warm autumn face. Highlighter should be gold, warm champagne or bronze with a satin or soft shimmer finish, never a silver or pink pearl.

Blush

Warm peach, apricot, terracotta, warm coral, brick rose, cinnamon, golden bronze. Cream and powder both work, and you can wear a stronger blush than a soft autumn would. Avoid cool pinks, anything with blue in it, and pale pastel shades.

Lips and warm autumn lipstick colors

Your best warm autumn lipstick colors are the palette in miniature: brick, terracotta, rust, warm coral, peach nude, cinnamon, caramel, warm brown-rose, copper, and a spiced pumpkin. Warm autumn is the one season where an orange-based lipstick looks like a natural flush rather than a statement. For a bold lip, choose a tomato red, a warm brick or a rust rather than a cool cherry or wine; a blue-based red will float on top of your face. Satin, cream and warm-shimmer finishes all suit you; a cool-toned gloss does not. Avoid mauve, cool pink, berry, plum and any nude with grey in it.

Eyes and the warm autumn eyeshadow palette

• Shadows: copper, bronze, warm gold, olive, moss, rust, terracotta, warm caramel, camel, chocolate, warm khaki, amber. A warm autumn eyeshadow palette of camel, copper, olive and chocolate covers day and evening, and those four shades are the core of any warm autumn makeup palette, and a warm shimmer in gold or copper is one of the few shimmers that looks better on you than a matte. The warm autumn makeup colors to avoid on the eyes are cool taupe, grey, silver, lavender and anything with a pink or blue base.
• Liner: chocolate, bronze, copper, olive, warm dark brown. Black liner is the single fastest way to make a warm autumn look tired; a smudged chocolate or olive gives the same definition and makes hazel and green eyes look richer.
• Mascara: brown, brown-black or a warm auburn. True black is wearable on the top lashes if it is not an inky, blue-black one, but brown will always look more like you.
• Brows: warm brown, auburn, golden brown or a warm taupe, filled softly. Avoid ash and cool-brown pencils, which look grey on warm brows, and avoid a harsh, dark brow.

Warm autumn nail colors

Rust, terracotta, caramel, olive, mustard, copper, warm coral, chocolate, cognac, a warm peach nude, and a warm teal. The best nail colors for a warm autumn skin tone look like the palette in miniature: warm and rich. Skip cool pinks, blue-based reds, optic white, cool greys and silver glitter.

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

Warm autumn hair color

The People Also Ask box asks it directly: what hair color would look good with a warm autumn tone? Your natural hair is already in your palette, which is why the best hair colors for warm autumn stay close to nature: golden, copper and red-brown, with no ash and no cool tone anywhere.

• Best: copper, auburn, golden red, strawberry blonde, honey blonde, golden blonde, caramel, golden brown, chestnut with red lights, warm medium brown, cinnamon brown.
• Good for a change: a rich copper red, a "pumpkin spice" auburn, a warm caramel balayage, a golden bronde, a cinnamon or ginger brown, or a deep warm mahogany for something darker. These are the warm autumn hair color ideas that add richness because they add warmth, which is the one thing your coloring can always take more of.
• Avoid: ash blonde and ash brown (they turn the skin grey), platinum and icy blonde (too cool and too light), cool dark brown and jet black (too cool and too dark, and they lower your light), blue-black, and cool burgundy or violet reds. The warm autumn hair colors to avoid all have one thing in common: they are cool.

If you highlight, ask for warm, golden or copper-toned pieces blended through the lengths, and ask your colorist for "warm and golden, no ash" with a gold or copper-based toner. Skip purple shampoo, which is designed to kill exactly the warmth you want; a gold or copper color-depositing conditioner keeps your tone alive between visits. For the best hair color for warm autumn skin tone in one phrase: "copper or caramel, and never ash".

Warm autumn and red hair

Warm autumn is the natural home of red hair, and natural redheads are more likely to be warm autumns than any other season. If you are a redhead, the rule is simple: your hair is already the loudest warm color in the room, so let the palette support it rather than compete with it. Olive, camel, cream, teal and chocolate frame red hair beautifully. Rust and copper, which are your best colors on a brown-haired warm autumn, can look like too much of one thing on a redhead near the face, so wear them lower or in accessories. And the color everyone tells redheads to avoid, warm coral, is fine on a warm autumn redhead as long as it is peachy rather than pink.

Greying is the one place warm autumns need a plan, because grey is cool and your coloring is not. Warm autumn hair tends to grey into a yellowish or ginger-white rather than a clean silver, and a warm-toned blend, a soft honey-grey or a golden pearl, looks far better than trying to force it cool. If you cover the grey, keep the color warm and one shade lighter than your original, because a slightly lighter warm brown or copper keeps the light in the face as the natural contrast drops.

Warm autumn celebrities and examples

Nobody has draped these people in person, and celebrity typing from photos is never certain, so treat these warm autumn examples as a visual reference rather than a verdict. Because 12-season systems use "warm autumn" and "true autumn" interchangeably, most of these names appear in both lists. The names that come up most often in warm autumn discussions:

• Julianne Moore: the classic reference. Copper-red hair, warm ivory skin with freckles, and famously at her best in olive, rust and camel.
• Jessica Chastain: copper hair, warm fair skin and green eyes, and a red-carpet history of looking best in emerald toned warm, gold and rust.
• Isla Fisher: auburn hair, warm freckled skin and hazel eyes, a textbook warm autumn.
• Julia Roberts: warm brown hair with copper in it, golden skin and warm brown eyes, and a face that looks alive in rust and chocolate and tired in black.
• Jennifer Lopez: golden caramel skin, honey-brown hair and warm brown eyes, and a career of looking her best in gold, bronze and warm nude.
• Beyoncé: often typed warm autumn for her golden skin, honey hair and the way gold and warm bronze sit on her, though some analysts put her in warm spring.
• Eddie Redmayne and Prince Harry: the two most common warm autumn men. Copper or auburn hair, warm freckled skin, and beards that grow in red.
• Amy Adams and Emma Stone: the contested ones. Both are red-haired and warm, and both are typed warm autumn and warm spring in different places, because their coloring sits close to the spring border. If you have had two analysts disagree about you, they are proof that the border is real.

What they have in common is not a skin tone, which ranges from ivory to deep golden brown. It is warmth above everything: gold in the skin, red or gold in the hair, and a face that looks lit from within in copper and olive and slightly grey in silver and black.

Beyond the closet: warm autumn at home

Once you know your palette, it tends to spread, and warm autumn is the palette that spreads fastest, because it is also the most popular decorating palette in existence. Warm autumn living room decor is practically its own category: terracotta and rust cushions, an olive or camel sofa, oak and walnut, brass and copper lamps, cream linen, mustard throws, rattan and jute, plants in clay pots. 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.

If you want a warm autumn home in one formula: cream walls, one deep olive or terracotta accent wall or sofa, wood in a golden or honey tone, brass rather than chrome, and textiles in rust, mustard and camel. The same rule from your closet applies: no cool grey, no stark white, no black metal.

Frequently asked questions about warm autumn

How do you tell if you are a warm autumn?

Look for three things: gold clearly beats silver, cream looks better on you than optic white, and earthy warm colors like rust and mustard at full strength look better on you than either clear bright ones or greyed ones. If all three are true and your hair has gold or red in it, you are a warm autumn. The five tests earlier in this guide walk you through it.

Is warm autumn the same as true autumn?

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 autumn is the rich, balanced center of the family, and warm autumn is the sub-season that flows toward spring, a notch warmer, lighter and clearer. The full explanation is in the section near the top of this guide.

What colors complement a warm autumn skin tone?

The best colors for warm autumn are the warm, rich, medium ones: rust, pumpkin, terracotta, copper, mustard, golden yellow, olive, moss, warm turquoise and tomato red, on a base of camel, cream, chocolate and olive. If you only ever bought those, you would never wear anything wrong.

What are the worst colors for a warm autumn undertone?

Pure black, optic white, cool greys, icy pastels, cool pinks and fuchsia, royal and true blue, blue-based reds like cherry and wine, cool purples, blue-based greens, and anything neon. In one sentence: if a color has blue in it, it is probably not yours.

What hair color looks good with a warm autumn tone?

Copper, auburn, strawberry blonde, honey and golden blonde, caramel, golden brown and chestnut. Avoid ash, platinum, cool dark brown, jet black and cool burgundy.

Can a warm autumn wear black?

Not well near the face. Black is cool and harsh, and it makes warm autumn skin look sallow and shadowed. Swap it for chocolate, deep olive or warm dark brown, all of which read as "dark and serious" without the drain. Black trousers, shoes or a bag are fine; it is the neckline that matters. If you must wear black up top, put cream, rust or gold between it and your face.

Can a warm autumn wear navy?

Only with care. Navy is a cool blue, and a bright or inky navy will make you look grey. A warm-leaning, softened navy is wearable away from the face, and teal or dark teal does everything navy does while actually flattering you.

Can a warm autumn wear pink?

Yes, if it is a warm pink: coral, salmon, apricot pink, warm peach or terracotta rose. Cool pinks, pastel pinks and fuchsia are not yours. Think of a pink that has been mixed with orange rather than with blue.

What is the difference between warm autumn and soft autumn?

Warmth and clarity. Soft autumn is neutral-warm and muted, can borrow cool-leaning colors like dusty rose, and needs its mustard and rust greyed. Warm autumn is fully warm and clearer, looks grey in those cool-leaning colors, and wears mustard and rust at full strength. The mustard test settles it.

What is the difference between warm autumn and warm spring?

Depth and clarity. Both are extremely warm, but warm spring is lighter and clearer, with golden blonde or light copper hair and a palette of clear coral, bright turquoise and sunny yellow. Warm autumn is deeper and earthier, with darker hair and a palette of rust, olive and mustard. A warm spring glows in clear tangerine; a warm autumn glows in rust.

What is the difference between warm autumn and deep autumn?

Depth and contrast. Deep autumn has dark hair and eyes with high contrast and can wear black-brown and forest green head to toe. Warm autumn is medium in depth with red or gold in the hair, and its best colors are the golden mid-tones like camel, rust and mustard.

What is the best lipstick color for a warm autumn?

Brick, terracotta, rust, warm coral, peach nude and cinnamon. For drama, a tomato red or a warm brick rather than a cool cherry or wine.

How does warm autumn color analysis work?

Warm autumn color analysis looks at three things: hue, value and chroma. Hue is temperature, and it is the defining trait: warm autumn is fully warm, with golden, peach or copper undertones and no blue. Value is depth, and warm autumn is medium, with low to medium contrast between hair, skin and eyes. Chroma is saturation, and warm autumn is medium leaning rich: cleaner than soft autumn, earthier than spring. Because the season is defined by warmth first, the most useful home tests compare temperature side by side, gold against silver, cream against white, chocolate against black, and then check depth and clarity against the neighbors with the clear-and-earthy and mustard tests.

Is warm autumn a rare season?

No. Warm autumn is one of the most common seasons among people with red, auburn, golden brown or honey hair, and among freckled and golden-skinned people generally, and it is more common in warm caramel and golden-brown skin tones than most guides suggest. Because its coloring is defined by warmth, it is also frequently misdiagnosed: as warm spring when the hair is light, as deep autumn when the hair is dark, and as soft autumn when the analysis was done under cool 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, and for warm autumns that shift usually comes with grey hair, which is cool and lowers the warmth around the face. Most warm autumns stay warm autumn for life, keep the hair warm-toned as it greys, and find that the lighter, brighter end of the palette, apricot, golden yellow, warm turquoise, becomes a little more flattering over time.

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 Warm Autumn Personal Swatch Card puts the whole warm autumn 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 whether a brown has gold or grey in it under store lights. See the Warm Autumn card