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

By the Skintonic team · SKINTONIC LLC · Updated

Bright Spring and Warm Spring agree on warm undertone, clear chroma and medium depth. Where Bright Spring and Warm 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 Warm Spring as medium, and that single difference changes whether you look best in one tone throughout or in something that separates.

No other axis separates Bright Spring from Warm Spring at all, which is unusual and is exactly why this pair is so hard to settle by eye. What follows is the Bright Spring palette against the Warm 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 Warm Spring.

The one factor

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

Bright Spring against Warm Spring

Six colors from the Bright Spring palette and six from the Warm Spring one, the metal each wears, and the direction each one's neutrals run. The Bright Spring column and the Warm 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.

Warm Spring

warm · medium · medium contrast · clear

  • Poppy Red
  • Golden Amber
  • Kelly Green
  • Warm Fuchsia
  • Deep Turquoise
  • True Red
Best metal
Gold
Neutrals run
cream, camel and warm khaki
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 moderate gap between hair and skin.

Three tests that separate Bright Spring from Warm Spring

All three test contrast, because contrast is the only thing in question between Bright Spring and Warm Spring. Do all three at a window: an indoor bulb will quietly push the answer toward whichever of Bright Spring and Warm 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 Warm Spring alike. Bright Spring keeps its features separate — you can still see where the hair stops and the face starts — while Warm Spring blurs into a single tone. That blur, or the absence of it, is the whole of what separates Bright Spring from Warm 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 Warm Spring as well as anything. Bright Spring looks deliberate in it; Warm 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 Warm Spring frame. Warm Spring looks expensive in this, and Bright Spring looks slightly washed out, as though a piece went missing. Whichever of Bright Spring and Warm Spring reads better on you in it is the one you are.

Still not sure between Bright Spring and Warm Spring?

Each test above reads one factor by eye, and contrast by eye is exactly where Bright Spring and Warm 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 Warm Spring?

No — the analysis returns one of the two — but Bright Spring and Warm Spring sit close enough together that, if you are near the line, either palette covers most of a wardrobe. Bright Spring and Warm Spring share warm undertone, clear chroma and medium depth, 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 Warm 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 Warm Spring. A Bright Spring or Warm 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 Warm Spring?

Nothing dramatic, which is worth saying plainly — Bright Spring and Warm 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 Warm 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 Warm Spring face.

Keep going

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