Soft Summer: A Comprehensive Guide

The Features

I. Eyes

Soft Summer eyes can be grey, grey blue, grey green or grey hazel. A muted brown is common for darker ethnicities. Regardless of the colour, Soft Summer eyes are always softly greyed. Although they are clearer and less muddy than Soft Autumn eyes, they are by no means bright. Typical of the Summer eye, you may notice a crackled glass pattern on the iris.

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II. Skin

Soft Summer skin is either neutral, olive or neutral-cool with ashy undertones and possibly a pink tinge. This means both silver and gold look good against the skin, but silver looks better. Skin tones range from fair to tan, but they are muted rather than vibrant. Soft Summers may also have freckles.

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III. Hair

Hair in this colour season ranges from medium ash blonde over light to medium ash brown. Because of the high concentration of grey pigments, Soft Summer hair is always muted and ashy, never saturated and bright. When exposed to the sun, it can develop ash blonde highlights.

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IV. Contrast

Depending on the hair/skin combination, the contrast level between the features is low to medium. In the images below, you can see how the hair is darker compared to the skin, but the contrast is still quite weak. There are also no truly light or dark areas in the image. The colouring remains around a medium value.

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Soft Summer vs Soft Autumn

Containing the most muted and toned-down of the Summer family’s colours, individuals who fall into the Soft Summer category may very easily be mistaken for Soft Autumns. Both colour seasons are very similar, and the distinctions are subtle.

Both seasons’ primary colour aspect is muted - but while Soft Autumn is warm, Soft Summer is cool. The latter’s colouring contains more gentle, muted tones with a high content of grey and olive, whereas Soft Autumn’s colouring has more walnut and honey pigments.

Subtype test

If you are unsure whether your appearance is warmer or cooler, there is an easy way to find out: In natural daylight and without makeup, hold something grey to your face. If your eyes seem greyish (even if they are greenish or have brown blotches), then you are likely a Soft Summer; if they remain green, hazel, or olive, then you lean more towards Soft Autumn. Why is that?

As mentioned before, Soft Summer has a high content of grey pigments, which tones down the colours of their natural appearance. Soft Autumn colours contain more walnut, beige, and gold pigments, and therefore the eyes cannot appear grey.

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