Are You a Summer?

A Beauty Post! Seasonal Color Analysis Part 2

Are You a Summer?

If you didn’t read Part 1: What is Seasonal Color Analysis? Seasonal color analysis is a system by which people can determine which colors of clothing, makeup, hair color, etc will look best on them because of their tone.

As someone for whom nature is a spiritual thing, I’ve found it fascinating to learn that we are all a reflection of the natural world. We might exhibit the bold buttery sunshine of morning (Spring), the blue light and shadowless heat of midday (Summer), the shadowed, nuanced complexity of dusk (Autumn), or the clear, crystalline depth and mystery of night (Winter). All are beautiful, just different.

There are a total of 4 major seasons and 12 different sub seasons, and everyone fits in somewhere. Sometimes it’s completely obvious and other times it’s tough to tell even with draping where someone fits.

There are two light seasons: Spring and Summer. Summer is cool while Spring is warm.

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So are you a Summer? A summer is the physical representation of blue midday light. Picture noon on a hot July day, when the sun is straight over head. The light is a cool filtered blue and has lost its buttery warmth. There are no shadows here as the sun beats directly down on the grass and trees. Everything is soft.

Flowers are no longer in bud form, but full, brash, brilliant, and sweet. Cabbage roses and peonies are unashamedly fluttery, girly pink. Summers wear blush better than any other season because it captures their light, rosy innocence.

Summers are cool, reserved, and the ultimate classic beauty. They are bright pink roses and the soft powdery petals of mimosa and violet. They’re long, languid afternoons drowsing in the heat of the day and long cool ice baths finished with finely milled body powder.

“The lazy, hazy days of Summer” is a saying for a reason. When it’s very hot outside, ever notice everything moves slower? Summers are made of the soft matte of gauze, velvet, and powder.

So, how do you know if you’re a Summer? There are 3 kinds of Summers, and we’ll start with the lightest.

Light Summer

Light Summer is the quintessential Barbie doll. The perfect Cinderella, complete with champagne blonde hair and baby blue eyes.

What better example than the ultimate Southern lady, Reese Witherspoon.

I could look at this picture all day. It’s Reese by Monet. Her hair is cool ash blonde and her jacket is a cool cornflower pastel blue with just the right drop of brightness. Beneath it is a soft white summer blouse. She could wear this jacket anywhere and look like a princess.

And we were doing so well…I know what it’s like to search for the perfect blonde and get it wrong. Golden blonde ALWAYS looks like a wig on her. She has gray shadows under her eyes and the bright Winter-lemon yellow dress is making everything worse.

Are you a Light Summer?

Light Summers are fair, cool, and soft. They’re the only season that can rock the widely coveted cool blonde and have it look remotely believable. Light Summers include Cate Blanchett, Doutzen Kroes, Margot Robbie, Sebastian Roche, Anthony Hopkins, Alexander Skarsgaard, and most of the population of Scandinavia.

Skin tone: fair to medium, cool or cool neutral

Eye color: pale cool blue or blue gray, occasionally an icy aloe green

Hair color: Try ash, champagne, platinum, flaxen, ice, rose gold, beige, light gray. Feel free to go as light as you want (like Luna Lovegood light) or add taupe lowlights to look more natural. Thankfully there are any number of purple shampoos to help you achieve this color. If you like a drop of gold, it won’t kill you, just keep it ot a minimum.

Makeup: cool to cool neutral foundation with a soft matte finish. Light Summer should aim for cool pastel or silvery eyeshadows, taupe, and dune light brown. Lipsticks are cool and usually some version or pink.

Colors to wear: cool pastels, baby blue, baby pink, lilac. You wear white well, no black. The pale warm coral of the inside of a seashell is surprisingly lovely on you.

Color Palette:

Celebrity examples:

Is Light Summer lighter than you are?

True Summer

Let’s take a look at True Summer. True Summers include Outlander star Caitriona Balfe, Kate Middleton, Olivia Wilde, Timothee Chalamet, and Patrick Dempsey.

This comparison is more about hair color than anything else. The first is Emily Blunt looking like a heroine in a Victorian novel. All she needs is a haunted castle and a nightgown to run down the hall in and she’s set. Her skin is fresh, her cheeks and lips are cool pink, her bluish gray eyes shine, and her ashy medium Walnut hair sets it all off.

Girlfriend looks like the ghost caught up with her. If this is evidence of anything, it’s that two popular beauty fibs—that everyone looks good in black and the blonder, the better—are total nonsense. It’s all wrong from the golden blond hair to the golden eyeshadow and coral gloss to the gold earrings. True Summer as Light Spring looks heartbreakingly fake, and there’s no reason for it as she’s a gorgeous woman.

Skin tone: fair to medium cool or very cool

Eye color: cool blue or gray

Hair color: Go for ash light brown to ash medium/dark brown, not too dark. Medium walnut is perfect. Avoid anything warm or golden.

Makeup: This season cannot take any warmth at all, it will always look disruptive. Go for cool to very cool soft matte foundation with a cool pink cheek and lips. Eyeshadows abound from deep violet to smoky gray.

Colors to wear: deep gray, blue, gray-green, violet, and any number of cool pinks and blues. You can wear white, not black. Silver, white gold, and platinum jewelry only.

Color palette:

Celebrity examples:

A bit too cool?

Soft Summer

There are two soft seasons. Soft seasons live in the in-betweens, the doorways of life, the late afternoon, where shadows lurk and when used effectively, bring out the beauty of those with very neutral skin. Not too warm, not too cool, not too dark, not too light, soft seasons look best in colors combined of all those elements.

Soft Summer is neutral, skew cool. Soft Summers include Rosie Huntington Whiteley, Jessica Brown Findlay, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kevin Costner, and Michael Ealy.

Sigh. Sorry, I was distracted. I’m at least 80% straight on the Kinsey scale, but this woman could change my mind. The first time I saw Emilia Clarke on GOT, with her perfect face and the bountiful curves that are essentially illegal in Hollywood today, my jaw nearly hit the floor.

Here she is in her natural walnut-y hair color in a dusty muted violet dress.

Everything is neutrally- look at the lips that are part warm camel, part cool mauve— but on the cool side. She’s perfect. But I knew that.

While I refuse to believe this woman could ever look unattractive, she’s doing her best to convince she could in this chartreuse monstrosity (pardon me, dress). The color is far too warm, as are her earrings, and the thick black eyeliner wing is just too heavy on a delicate summer. Her eyes look like they weigh 20 pounds a piece.

Skin tone: neutral to neutral cool

Eye color: aqua, green, blue, often a mixed up version of “cool hazel” where you can’t pinpoint the exact color, but it’s on the cool side

Hair color: Soft seasons look best with lots of highlights and lowlights, lots of dimension instead of all one color hair. Stick to the cool side. Soft summer looks best in cool brown tones, not too dark, but Jennifer Aniston is one soft summer that rocks very highlighted beige blonde well. No soft season should have bright hair. I know it’s tempting to want “a lift”, but you’re right where you need to be. Seek out cool brown tones with words like muted, soft, highlighted, tinted, and dusky.

Makeup: neutral to neutral cool foundation with rosy taupe or mauve blush and lips, cool eyeshadows like midnight blue.

Colors to wear: I’m extremely jealous of soft summer because I think they get the prettiest colors. As a soft season, I can wear some of them, but not all. Fluffy seal gray, velvety deep violet, dusty aqua, silver, dusty rose, brambleberry, and glassy sea green. White, no black, but you look less wonky in it than other summers.

Color palette:

Celebrity examples:

Preferred perfumes: fully in bloom florals like powdery L’Iris by Santa Maria Novella, Peony and Suede from Jo Malone, and L’Artisan Mimosa. Or powdery like Donna Karen Cashmere.

Most likely personality: Summer people are refined, diplomatic, beautiful with rosy skin and pink lips, resourceful, and even-tempered. Ladylike and calm, Summers are first rate diplomats. She’d rather fall face first in the muck in her Oscar dress than be thought boorish. Cool and refined. A true princess.

Find yourself among Summer’s blooms? If not, let’s keep going. Autumn is up next…