Skintonic

Season comparison

Bright Spring vs Light Spring: how to tell which you are

By the Skintonic team · SKINTONIC LLC · Updated

Bright Spring and Light Spring agree on clear chroma and warm undertone. Where Bright Spring and Light Spring part company is contrast: how much distance sits between the lightest and the darkest parts of your face. Bright Spring reads as strong and Light Spring as soft, and that single difference changes whether you look best in one tone throughout or in something that separates.

Bright Spring and Light Spring also differ on depth (medium against light), though that is the smaller gap and not the one people get stuck on. What follows is the Bright Spring palette against the Light Spring one, three contrast tests you can run at home with things you already own, and what each of the two looks like in a mirror. If you would rather not work it out by hand, the scan measures all four factors from one photo and tells you whether you are Bright Spring or Light Spring.

The one factor

Contrast. Bright Spring is strong; Light Spring is soft. Bright Spring and Light Spring share clear chroma and warm undertone, which is why the two get swapped so easily.

Bright Spring against Light Spring

Six colors from the Bright Spring palette and six from the Light Spring one, the metal each wears, and the direction each one's neutrals run. The Bright Spring column and the Light Spring column are both drawn from the season data the app itself uses, so these are the swatches the free result would hand you rather than an approximation of them.

Bright Spring

warm · medium · strong contrast · clear

  • Shocking Pink
  • Bright Turquoise
  • True Red
  • Violet
  • Golden Yellow
  • Hot Coral
Best metal
Gold or bright silver
Neutrals run
warm white, camel and warm charcoal
Typical coloring
Hair somewhere in the middle, usually medium brown, eyes that read as bright and defined against the face, and skin that leans golden or peach. Usually a wide gap between the lightest and the darkest parts of the face.

Light Spring

warm · light · soft contrast · clear

  • Poppy Orange
  • Warm Turquoise
  • Coral Red
  • Marigold
  • Watermelon Pink
  • Coral
Best metal
Gold
Neutrals run
ivory, warm beige and camel
Typical coloring
Hair in the light range, from blonde to light brown, eyes that read as bright and defined against the face, and skin that leans golden or peach. Usually almost no gap between hair, skin and eyes.

Three tests that separate Bright Spring from Light Spring

All three test contrast, because contrast is the only thing in question between Bright Spring and Light Spring. Do all three at a window: an indoor bulb will quietly push the answer toward whichever of Bright Spring and Light Spring you were already hoping for, and there is no way to notice that it has while you are looking.

1. The squint test

Stand at a mirror in daylight and half close your eyes until the detail drops out of Bright Spring and Light Spring alike. Bright Spring keeps its features separate — you can still see where the hair stops and the face starts — while Light Spring blurs into a single tone. That blur, or the absence of it, is the whole of what separates Bright Spring from Light Spring.

2. Black and white together

Put a true black and a pure white against your face at once — a striped shirt separates Bright Spring from Light Spring as well as anything. Bright Spring looks deliberate in it; Light Spring looks like the clothes are having an argument the face is not part of.

3. A tonal outfit

Now the reverse of the test above: three pieces all within a shade or two of each other, on a Bright Spring or Light Spring frame. Light Spring looks expensive in this, and Bright Spring looks slightly washed out, as though a piece went missing. Whichever of Bright Spring and Light Spring reads better on you in it is the one you are.

Still not sure between Bright Spring and Light Spring?

Each test above reads one factor by eye, and contrast by eye is exactly where Bright Spring and Light Spring go wrong. The scan reads all four — undertone, depth, contrast and chroma — from a single photo, shows you the three colors it took off your face so you can correct them, and names which of the two you are. It runs in your browser, the photo is never uploaded, and seeing your type costs nothing.

Find out which one I am — free

Questions about this pair

Can you be both Bright Spring and Light Spring?

No — the analysis returns one of the two — but Bright Spring and Light Spring sit close enough together that, if you are near the line, either palette covers most of a wardrobe. Bright Spring and Light Spring share clear chroma and warm undertone, so a good part of the two color lists overlaps. Where it starts to matter is the contrast end of each one, which is where Bright Spring and Light Spring stop overlapping.

Does contrast change over time?

Contrast moves whenever the gap between your hair and your skin moves, so dye changes it at once and greying changes it slowly — easily enough to carry you between Bright Spring and Light Spring. A Bright Spring or Light Spring result describes you as you are today, which is also how everyone is seeing you today.

What if I dress as Bright Spring and I am really Light Spring?

Nothing dramatic, which is worth saying plainly — Bright Spring and Light Spring are neighbors rather than opposites. A handful of shades will look slightly off under your chin and the rest will be fine, because Bright Spring and Light Spring overlap everywhere except at the contrast extremes. The giveaway is at the contrast extreme, where the Bright Spring colors furthest along that axis are the first to stop working on a Light Spring face.

Keep going

Bright Spring in full · Light Spring in full · Take the quiz instead · All season comparisons · All 12 seasons