Colour analysis starts from a simple observation: some colours, worn close to the face, make you look rested; others deepen shadows or dull the complexion. It is not a matter of taste but of contrast and temperature between the colour of the garment and that of your skin, hair and eyes. This guide explains the principle, the four seasons and their twelve sub-seasons, how to do a free test at home — and above all how to use it with the clothes you already own.
Colour analysis classifies a face on three criteria.
Undertone: warm or cool. The shade beneath the surface of the skin, which does not change with a tan. A warm undertone leans golden or peachy; a cool one leans pink or bluish. Some people are in between: a neutral undertone.
Value: light or deep. The overall intensity — light hair, skin and eyes, or dark ones.
Chroma: bright or soft. Strong contrast (very dark hair and light skin, clear eyes) carries bright, pure colours; low contrast suits greyed, powdery colours.
The seasons are just a convenient way of combining these three answers.
Spring: warm and light. Golden or peachy complexion, often clear, bright eyes. Colours that suit: coral, peach, golden yellow, warm green, turquoise, ivory rather than pure white.
Summer: cool and soft. Rosy complexion, moderate contrast, often ash-toned hair. Colours that suit: powder blue, lavender, rose pink, soft grey, mauve, sage green.
Autumn: warm and deep. Golden or olive complexion, brown, red or copper hair. Colours that suit: rust, olive, mustard, terracotta, camel, forest green.
Winter: cool and high-contrast. Strong contrast between skin, hair and eyes. Colours that suit: true red, black, emerald, royal blue, fuchsia, pure white.
Conversely, each season has its difficult colours: black often hardens a spring or a summer, bright orange tires a winter, pastels wash out an autumn.
The twelve-season method splits each season in three, according to the criterion that dominates in you. It is where the names you see everywhere come from.
Spring: light spring (light dominant), warm spring (warm dominant), bright spring (contrast dominant).
Summer: light summer, cool summer (the most pink and bluish), soft summer (the most muted, close to autumn).
Autumn: soft autumn (powdery warm colours, close to summer), warm autumn (the most golden), deep autumn (the darkest, close to winter).
Winter: deep winter (close to autumn), cool winter (the purest), bright winter (the most contrasted, close to spring).
Sub-seasons explain why two "autumns" do not wear quite the same colours. But to sort a wardrobe, knowing your main season and your undertone already goes a long way.
You need daylight (near a window, out of direct sun), a face without make-up, hair tied back or covered with a white towel, and a mirror.
The white test. Hold a pure white fabric under your face, then an off-white or ivory one. If pure white brightens your complexion, you are probably cool (summer, winter); if ivory softens you and pure white makes you look pale, probably warm (spring, autumn).
The gold or silver test. A gold piece of jewellery or fabric, then a silver one. Same reasoning: gold tends to flatter warm undertones, silver cool ones.
The fabric test. Take from your wardrobe one garment per season — a coral, a dusty pink, a camel, a royal blue — and hold each in turn under your chin. Look at your skin, not the garment: do the shadows under your eyes fade or deepen? Is the complexion even or blotchy?
The wrist-vein test (blue = cool, green = warm) is widely shared but unreliable: treat it as one clue among others. And get help: someone else often sees the difference between two colours better than you do.
Knowing your season does not mean throwing out everything outside it. Three rules are enough.
What matters is close to the face. Tops, scarves, collars, make-up. Trousers or shoes outside your palette barely show; a jumper that dulls you does. A top you love but that does not suit you can often be worn with a scarf from your palette between it and your face.
Pick your neutrals by season. For the basic pieces you wear most, the difference pays off: navy or grey for a summer, camel or khaki for an autumn, black or pure white for a winter, ivory or golden beige for a spring.
Make the palette a shopping filter, not a shopping list. Before buying a colour, check whether it is in your palette and whether it goes with what you already own. It is the same logic as a capsule wardrobe: few colours, well chosen, that all combine with each other.
Fring offers a free colour analysis from a selfie, in your profile. The AI model looks at the face only — undertone, hair, eyes, contrast — and gives one of the four seasons, your undertone (warm, cool or neutral) and a six-colour palette. The photo is not kept: only the result is saved, and the AI runs on Fring's own server in France, with no outside service.
The palette is then used in the app: Dress me's outfit suggestions take your colours into account, and the shopping assistant flags a colour that is not in your palette.
To be clear about the limits: it is an estimate, in four seasons rather than twelve, and it depends on the photo — artificial light, make-up or dyed hair skew it. Take the selfie facing the camera, in daylight, and check the result against the fabric test above. For a full assessment, nothing replaces a colour analyst with real drapes.
Create your wardrobe on Fring, run the colour analysis from your profile, and let Dress me suggest outfits in your colours. No credit card, and the photo is not kept.
