Warm Autumn · Colors to avoid
Warm Autumn colors to avoid, and what to wear instead
By the Skintonic team · SKINTONIC LLC · Updated
"Avoid" is a stronger word than this deserves, and Warm Autumn is not forbidden from owning anything. What the shades below do is specific and small: worn near a Warm Autumn face, in daylight, they make the skin do something you would rather it did not — go gray, go ruddy, go flat, or step back.
Warm Autumn is warm, deep and muted, and every shade that fails does so for a reason that follows directly from one of those three. Knowing the Warm Autumn categories beats carrying a list of Warm Autumn 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 cool
Blue-based color against Warm Autumn's warm skin leaves a gray cast under it. The shade is not unattractive — it is that it makes a Warm Autumn face look like it needs more sleep than it has had, and the effect is strongest in daylight.
5 of Warm Autumn's 6 listed shades fall here.
Shades that work against your balance
A few Warm Autumn 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 Warm Autumn report spells each of them out on its own.
1 of Warm Autumn's 6 listed shades fall here.
Three of them by name
Icy Blue, Fuchsia and Black. Three is enough to calibrate your eye. If you can see why those three fail on Warm Autumn coloring, you can recognize the fourth and the fifth yourself in a shop, which is more useful than carrying a list.
The complete Warm Autumn 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 Warm Autumn should wear instead
Take the same color and move it toward gold: a warm version of almost any shade works on Warm Autumn where the cool version does not.
These eight are the safe Warm Autumn direction, and they are the same eight the free result hands you:
- Deep Rust
- Forest Green
- Burnt Sienna
- Deep Mustard
- Espresso
- Rust
- Mustard
- Pumpkin
Any of them near your face does the opposite of the shades above: they warm Warm Autumn skin rather than greying 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 Warm Autumn specifically, in your browser, storing nothing.
Are you Warm Autumn?
A Warm Autumn avoid list is worse than no list at all if you are not Warm Autumn, because it will talk you out of colors that suit you perfectly well. Settling whether you are Warm Autumn takes one photo and about thirty seconds, and it is free.
Questions
What colors should Warm Autumn avoid?
As categories: too cool and work against your balance. By name, Icy Blue, Fuchsia and Black are three of the Warm Autumn ones. The rest of the Warm Autumn 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 Warm Autumn face, and nothing more than that. A shade on the Warm Autumn 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 Warm Autumn face, and that is a much smaller part of a wardrobe than it sounds.
What if I love one of the Warm Autumn colors to avoid?
Then wear it below the waist, or find the version of it that belongs in the Warm Autumn palette. Take the same color and move it toward gold: a warm version of almost any shade works on Warm Autumn where the cool version does not.
Is black on the list?
For Warm Autumn, 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 Warm Autumn 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 Warm Autumn
Warm Autumn hair color · Warm Autumn makeup · Warm Autumn outfits · Warm Autumn in full