Soft Summer color palette: a cozy corner painted in its colors

Summer · Color season

Soft Summer color palette

Soft and cool

Soft and misty, like a lavender field after the rain.

Your features blend gently into each other, with a cool, muted elegance. Smoky, grayed colors look refined on you; very bright or very contrasted ones shout louder than you.

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The Soft Summer palette: 24 colors

With their names and hex codes. The first twelve are the essentials; the other twelve round out the palette.

The essentials

  • Dusty rose#C4A0A6
  • Mauve#B09AB0
  • Heather#A897AF
  • Wisteria#A9A3C6
  • Slate#7E8FA3
  • Steel blue#8FA5B5
  • Eucalyptus#7E978C
  • Sage#9DAA98
  • Seafoam#A3BCB8
  • Storm gray#6E7C86
  • Mushroom#A79D96
  • Pearl#E3DDD6

More colors

  • Raspberry#B5677F
  • Rose#C98B9B
  • Plum#7D6079
  • Lilac#B7A3C3
  • Denim#5F7891
  • Navy#3E4D63
  • Petrol blue#4F7A7A
  • Jade#6F9A8C
  • Taupe#8B7D73
  • Cocoa#6E5F5A
  • Charcoal#4E5257
  • Mist#C8C8CF

Soft Summer neutrals, metal and lips

Neutrals

  • Pearl #E3DDD6
  • Taupe #8B7D73
  • Charcoal #4E5257

Metal

Brushed silver

Your white

  • Pearl #E3DDD6

Your black

  • Charcoal #4E5257

For your lips

  • Dusty rose #C4A0A6
  • Rose #C98B9B
  • Raspberry #B5677F

Soft Summer hair and makeup

Hair

Soft Summer hair color stays smoky and blended: mushroom brown, smoky ash blonde, taupe brown. Dark hair looks softest with fine, low-contrast ash highlights rather than stripes, and gray tends to grow in gracefully as a muted silver. Stark platinum, jet black and coppery reds usually break the gentle, cool harmony of this season.

Makeup

Soft Summer makeup looks best blurred and muted. Try a dusty rose or mauve blush, then dusty rose, rose or a blotted raspberry on the lips, and taupe, heather or smudged charcoal on the eyes, in matte or satin finishes. Skip hot pink, tangerine and crisp black liner, which tend to shout louder than you.

Soft Summer colors to avoid

The ones that dull this coloring most, next to the face.

  • Hot pink #FF1493
  • Tangerine #FF8C1A
  • Lemon #FFF44F
  • Black #111111

Where it sits

Every season is a point on three axes: undertone, depth and chroma. The one that defines it is marked.

Undertone: Cool

CoolWarm

Blue, pink or rosy undertones: colors with a touch of blue light you up.

Depth: Medium

LightDeep

Chroma: Soft Defining trait

SoftBright

Your features blend gently: muted, dusty colors look elegant on you.

Neighboring seasons

The two closest to Soft Summer: if a color here doesn’t convince you, look at theirs.

Opposite season

The palette furthest from Soft Summer.

How to wear it

  • Wear your colors close to your face: a top, a scarf, your glasses. Further away, they matter less.
  • Build on your neutrals, then add one or two colors from the palette.
  • Try them in daylight, next to your face: the right ones even out your skin and light up your eyes.

A test can’t see you, so take it as a starting point: try your colors next to your face, in daylight.

All twelve seasons