Deep Winter · Colors to avoid
Deep Winter colors to avoid, and what to wear instead
By the Skintonic team · SKINTONIC LLC · Updated
"Avoid" is a stronger word than this deserves, and Deep Winter is not forbidden from owning anything. What the shades below do is specific and small: worn near a Deep Winter face, in daylight, they make the skin do something you would rather it did not — go gray, go ruddy, go flat, or step back.
Deep Winter is cool, deep and moderate, and every shade that fails does so for a reason that follows directly from one of those three. Knowing the Deep Winter categories beats carrying a list of Deep Winter names, because a category is something you can apply to a garment you have never seen before.
The categories, and why each one fails
Shades that are too warm
Golden and orange-based color on Deep Winter's cool skin brings up whatever redness is already there and turns the rest faintly yellow. The usual symptom on Deep Winter is looking flushed in photographs for no reason you can point at.
3 of Deep Winter's 6 listed shades fall here.
Shades that are too pale
Very light color disappears against Deep Winter's depth, and on its way out it takes the lower half of the face with it. On Deep Winter the jaw softens, the edges go, and the whole face loses its shape.
1 of Deep Winter's 6 listed shades fall here.
Shades that work against your balance
A few Deep Winter shades fail for reasons particular to this palette rather than for any of the four usual ones. Because the reason differs from shade to shade, the Deep Winter report spells each of them out on its own.
1 of Deep Winter's 6 listed shades fall here.
Shades that are too muted
Dusty, grayed-down color drains Deep Winter, which is clear coloring. The shade was softened to make it easy for everyone to wear, and what it softens on Deep Winter is the definition that makes the face work.
1 of Deep Winter's 6 listed shades fall here.
Three of them by name
Muted Orange, Beige and Camel. Three is enough to calibrate your eye. If you can see why those three fail on Deep Winter coloring, you can recognize the fourth and the fifth yourself in a shop, which is more useful than carrying a list.
The complete Deep Winter avoid list — every shade, its exact value, and the reason it works against you — is in your report rather than on this page, which is deliberate.
What Deep Winter should wear instead
Take the same color and move it toward blue: a cool red, a cool green, a cool brown — on Deep Winter the family is usually fine and the direction is what is wrong.
These eight are the safe Deep Winter direction, and they are the same eight the free result hands you:
- Black
- Deep Emerald
- Wine
- Royal Purple
- True Red
- Emerald
- Royal Blue
- Fuchsia
Any of them near your face does the opposite of the shades above: they clear Deep Winter skin rather than reddening it, and they agree with one another, so any two of them pair without thought.
Check a specific color
If you are holding a garment and want an answer about that exact shade rather than about its category, the free color checker takes a hex code or a color picker and says where it falls against Deep Winter specifically, in your browser, storing nothing.
Are you Deep Winter?
A Deep Winter avoid list is worse than no list at all if you are not Deep Winter, because it will talk you out of colors that suit you perfectly well. Settling whether you are Deep Winter takes one photo and about thirty seconds, and it is free.
Questions
What colors should Deep Winter avoid?
As categories: too warm, too pale, work against your balance and too muted. By name, Muted Orange, Beige and Camel are three of the Deep Winter ones. The rest of the Deep Winter list, with exact values and a reason each, is in the report — which is the part worth paying for and the reason it is not printed here.
Does "avoid" mean never wear it?
No. It means keeping it away from a Deep Winter face, and nothing more than that. A shade on the Deep Winter avoid list is perfectly fine as trousers, as a bag, as a coat you take off indoors, or anywhere below the waist. What the list is about is the light bouncing off a garment up into a Deep Winter face, and that is a much smaller part of a wardrobe than it sounds.
What if I love one of the Deep Winter colors to avoid?
Then wear it below the waist, or find the version of it that belongs in the Deep Winter palette. Take the same color and move it toward blue: a cool red, a cool green, a cool brown — on Deep Winter the family is usually fine and the direction is what is wrong.
Is black on the list?
Not for Deep Winter. Black is not universally bad; the question is whether a person's own coloring goes deep enough to meet it, and deep coloring does well enough that black stays off the Deep Winter list.
More for Deep Winter
Deep Winter hair color · Deep Winter makeup · Deep Winter outfits · Deep Winter in full