Colors for your features
Best colors for neutral undertones
By the Skintonic team · SKINTONIC LLC · Updated
A neutral undertone is the widest place to start and the hardest to confirm, because the test everyone reaches for first is built to come back positive one way or the other. Gold against silver looks fine both times. The veins look ambiguous. Nothing has gone wrong; the honest reading is simply "not committed", and that is a finding rather than a failure.
Here is the part no chart will tell you: there is no neutral season. Scored on undertone, all twelve of the types land either warm or cool, and not one of them sits in the neutral band. What a neutral reading means in practice is that you are close to the line, so the types in play are the four that sit closest to it from either side — Bright Winter, Soft Summer, Soft Autumn and Deep Winter — two cool and two warm. Depth then does most of the remaining work, and that is how this page is divided.
The honest key point
Of the four factors, neutral undertones is the one that rules options OUT; depth, contrast and chroma are what rule them back in. The neutral types divide cleanly by depth: Bright Winter, Soft Summer and Soft Autumn in the lighter half, Deep Winter in the deeper one.
Neutral undertones, lighter coloring
For Bright Winter, Soft Summer and Soft Autumn, the palette stays in the upper half of the depth scale. Eight of their published colors:
- Shocking Pink
- Muted Burgundy
- Deep Rust
- Electric Blue
- Deep Sage
- Deep Olive
- Bright Violet
- Soft Navy
Neutral undertones, deeper coloring
For Deep Winter, neutral undertones are carried at considerably greater weight. Eight more: what separates them from the set above is depth rather than direction, which is the clearest way to see what neutral undertones do and do not decide.
- Deep Emerald
- Wine
- Royal Purple
- True Red
- Emerald
What neutral undertones should be careful with
Extremes in either direction
The types neutral undertones points at disagree with each other about undertone, so no single category of shade is wrong for all of them. The very warmest shades will be wrong for some of them and the very coolest for others, so until neutral undertones has been narrowed to one type, the middle of any range is where to shop.
Three outfits for neutral undertones
Assembled from the neutral undertones chips above rather than from a lookbook — the first piece sits nearest your face and has to be right, the second is forgiving, and the third is small enough to be a bag, a scarf or a shoe.
- TopShocking Pink
- BottomDeep Emerald
- AccentMuted Burgundy
- TopDeep Rust
- BottomRoyal Purple
- AccentShocking Pink
- TopWine
- BottomMuted Burgundy
- AccentDeep Rust
The 4 neutral types in full
Each one has its own page with the whole explanation: Bright Winter, Soft Summer, Soft Autumn and Deep Winter.
Your exact palette depends on all four factors, not on neutral undertones alone. The scan reads undertone, depth, contrast and chroma from one photo, shows you the three colors it took off your face so you can correct them, and names your type — free, in your browser, with nothing uploaded.
Get my palette from one photo — free
Questions
How do I know I have neutral undertones rather than the opposite?
You usually find out by failing to find out — gold and silver both look acceptable, peach and pink both look acceptable, and no test gives a clean answer. That is the signature. If instead one metal clearly wins, you are not neutral, and the undertone test will say which way.
Can neutral undertones change?
No, and that is what makes neutral undertones worth establishing once. Undertone is the direction skin leans, and neutral undertones will still be neutral undertones in forty years — which is why the whole twelve-type system is built on that axis. Surface tone is a different thing and moves constantly with sun, flushing and the time of year, which is why a photo meant to establish neutral undertones wants an ordinary day rather than the week after a holiday.
Which metal goes with neutral undertones?
Bright / polished silver, Soft / brushed silver, Gold and Silver, depending on which of the 4 types you are. Neutral undertones are the one group that can genuinely wear both, and mixing them is a real option rather than a compromise.
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