Light Summer · Hair color
Light Summer hair color: what works and why
By the Skintonic team · SKINTONIC LLC · Updated
Light Summer coloring is cool, light and soft in contrast, and those three between them decide almost everything about hair. The cool undertone picks the direction, the light depth picks the level, and the soft contrast decides how far Light Summer hair may sit from Light Summer skin before the face stops reading as one thing.
Most hair advice skips the middle one. It will tell Light Summer to stay cool and stop there, which is true and not very useful, because the Light Summer shade that goes wrong is usually the right direction at the wrong level. Here is all three.
The Light Summer level
Level 7 to level 10 — medium blonde through to the lightest shades, which is where Light Summer sits. Light coloring belongs in the top half of the scale, and Light Summer is at home there. Honey, wheat, light caramel and buttery blondes all keep the balance a Light Summer face already has rather than rearranging it.
Near-black hair on Light Summer coloring reads as a wig from across a room. The hair wins, the Light Summer face recedes behind it, and no amount of makeup puts that back — the only fix is the level.
The Light Summer direction: cool
Light Summer leans toward ash, cool beige, mushroom brown, cool chocolate and true black-brown, and away from golden, honey, copper and strawberry.
Cool skin under golden hair goes ruddy, and on Light Summer that shows up fastest around the nose and cheeks. The gold behaves like a warm light source held under the chin, and what it warms on Light Summer is whatever redness is already there.
The part most people miss: contrast
Light Summer runs soft on contrast, and this is the detail salons miss most often. On Light Summer, hair, skin and eyes sit close together in lightness; chunky highlights or a sudden darkening punch a hole in that, and the result is hair that arrives in a room before the person does.
For reference, Light Summer coloring usually comes with hair in the light range, from blonde to light brown, eyes that read as clear without being striking, and skin that leans pink, olive or blue-toned.
What to ask for at the salon
- Light Summer has to ask for a cool or neutral-cool tone in plain words, because most colorists default to adding warmth and silence on the point gets read as consent to it.
- Give the level as a number: level 7 to level 10 is the Light Summer band, and a number is unambiguous where "medium brown" means whatever that particular colorist happens to picture.
- Have the swatch held against your jawline at a window before anything is mixed, because salon lighting runs warmer than it looks and will flatter a cool Light Summer tone in the chair that stops flattering you at home.
- Ask where the fade lands. Cool tones fade warm, so a Light Summer brown drifts toward red over about six weeks and wants a gloss before it gets there.
- Say at the start if you are covering gray, because it changes the formula and a Light Summer tone chosen without that in mind arrives a level lighter than the one you agreed to.
The Light Summer colors your hair sits next to
Whatever shade you end up with will be seen against these Light Summer colors every day, which is a better test than any swatch book. Eight Light Summer colors, the same eight the free result hands you:
- Rose
- Cool Berry
- Slate Blue
- Orchid
- Soft Teal
- Cornflower Blue
- Soft Fuchsia
- Light Raspberry
All twenty-five Light Summer colors grouped by how to wear them, plus the shades to avoid and the reason for each, are in your report.
Not sure you are Light Summer?
Hair is the costliest thing on this page to get wrong, and everything above is only yours if Light Summer is. The scan settles whether you are Light Summer from one photo in about thirty seconds, free, with nothing uploaded and no account.
Questions
What hair color suits Light Summer?
For Light Summer, level 7 to level 10 — medium blonde through to the lightest shades, which is where Light Summer sits, taken in a cool direction — so ash, cool beige, mushroom brown, cool chocolate and true black-brown. For Light Summer the level matters more than the exact shade: a tone two levels away from where light coloring sits will look wrong even when the undertone is right.
Can Light Summer go blonde?
Yes, and for Light Summer it is the most natural option on the table — stay in the cool direction the undertone wants and keep it inside level 7 to level 10.
Does hair color change my season?
It moves two of the four — depth and contrast — because both are measured across the whole face with the hair in it, while undertone and chroma stay exactly where they are, so a big change can shift you off Light Summer and onto a neighbor. The honest position is that a Light Summer result describes you as you look now, which is also how everyone else is seeing you.
What should I ask a colorist for?
Light Summer has to ask for a cool or neutral-cool tone in plain words, because most colorists default to adding warmth and silence on the point gets read as consent to it. Take a reference photo at a window rather than relying on the salon's own lighting, and ask for the Light Summer level — level 7 to level 10 — out loud, because that is the half of the brief colorists most often fill in for themselves.
More for Light Summer
Light Summer makeup · Light Summer outfits · Light Summer colors to avoid · Light Summer in full