Soft Summer · Colors to avoid
Soft Summer colors to avoid, and what to wear instead
By the Skintonic team · SKINTONIC LLC · Updated
"Avoid" is a stronger word than this deserves, and Soft Summer is not forbidden from owning anything. What the shades below do is specific and small: worn near a Soft Summer face, in daylight, they make the skin do something you would rather it did not — go gray, go ruddy, go flat, or step back.
Soft Summer is cool, medium and muted, and every shade that fails does so for a reason that follows directly from one of those three. Knowing the Soft Summer categories beats carrying a list of Soft Summer 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 clear
A pure, high-saturation color beats Soft Summer's muted coloring outright. On Soft Summer you stop being the thing people look at, the shirt starts being it, and the face above reads as faded rather than as soft.
4 of Soft Summer's 6 listed shades fall here.
Shades that are too pale
Very light color disappears against Soft Summer's depth, and on its way out it takes the lower half of the face with it. On Soft Summer the jaw softens, the edges go, and the whole face loses its shape.
1 of Soft Summer's 6 listed shades fall here.
Shades that work against your balance
A few Soft Summer 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 Soft Summer report spells each of them out on its own.
1 of Soft Summer's 6 listed shades fall here.
Three of them by name
Neon Orange, Bright Yellow and Pure Black. Three is enough to calibrate your eye. If you can see why those three fail on Soft Summer coloring, you can recognize the fourth and the fifth yourself in a shop, which is more useful than carrying a list.
The complete Soft Summer 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 Soft Summer should wear instead
Take the same color and move it toward blue: a cool red, a cool green, a cool brown — on Soft Summer the family is usually fine and the direction is what is wrong.
These eight are the safe Soft Summer direction, and they are the same eight the free result hands you:
- Muted Burgundy
- Deep Sage
- Soft Navy
- Dusty Plum
- Deep Muted Teal
- Dusty Rose
- Muted Teal
- Soft Plum
Any of them near your face does the opposite of the shades above: they clear Soft Summer 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 Soft Summer specifically, in your browser, storing nothing.
Are you Soft Summer?
A Soft Summer avoid list is worse than no list at all if you are not Soft Summer, because it will talk you out of colors that suit you perfectly well. Settling whether you are Soft Summer takes one photo and about thirty seconds, and it is free.
Questions
What colors should Soft Summer avoid?
As categories: too clear, too pale and work against your balance. By name, Neon Orange, Bright Yellow and Pure Black are three of the Soft Summer ones. The rest of the Soft Summer 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 Soft Summer face, and nothing more than that. A shade on the Soft Summer 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 Soft Summer face, and that is a much smaller part of a wardrobe than it sounds.
What if I love one of the Soft Summer colors to avoid?
Then wear it below the waist, or find the version of it that belongs in the Soft Summer palette. Take the same color and move it toward blue: a cool red, a cool green, a cool brown — on Soft Summer the family is usually fine and the direction is what is wrong.
Is black on the list?
For Soft Summer, yes, and it surprises people more than anything else here. The reason is depth rather than taste: black is the deepest shade there is, and Soft Summer does not go deep enough to meet it, so it stops behaving like a neutral and starts being the loudest thing in the wardrobe.
More for Soft Summer
Soft Summer hair color · Soft Summer makeup · Soft Summer outfits · Soft Summer in full