The Winter palette is cool, clear, vivid and high contrast. The only palette with true white and black in it, it also features the strongest variants of red, green, pink and blue. If you've been given a designation within the Winter palette, let's explore what that means for you.
Do remember though, that your seasonal type is a guide. If you fall at one end of a palette, it doesn’t mean you can’t ever go near colours from other areas of that palette, just that this particular area is the strongest part for your own skin tone and contrast level. Sometimes a 12 or 16 season system can feel quite limiting in terms of the colours available to you, but remember that the rest of the colours within your wider seasonal palette will also work for you and will harmonise with your absolute best colours.
True/Jewel Winter
This is the palette most of us visualise when we think of the Winter colours. Boldest scarlet, bright white and true black. These colours all play at the extremes of light, dark and bright.
True Winters are high contrast, bold and bright, and often have high contrast in their colouring, perhaps in the form of very dark hair with fair skin and blue/green eyes.
Your best colours as a True Winter are holly berry red, emerald green, cobalt blue and stark black and white, all worn in high contrast.
Bright/Clear/Sprinter Winter
A Bright Winter is in some ways even brighter than a True Winter, with an even lighter, clearer look to the colours. This is because they have a little of Spring's lightness added to them (although they still sit on the cool side of that warm/cool dividing line).
Bright Winters can often look like Springs, with clear blue eyes and blonde hair, or like Summers, with their brightness only appearing when they wear their bold Bright Winter colours.
Your best Bright Winter colours are shocking pink, Chinese blue, icy greys and acid yellow.
Cool/Sultry Winter
A Cool Winter sits at the deepest end of the Winter palette, losing some of the brightness of the True and Bright Winters and gaining some extra darkness.
Cool Winters often have slightly more depth of colouring than their brighter counterparts, and are often (unsurprisingly, given the name!) extremely cool toned, turning sallow in anything with even a hint of warmth in it.
Your best colours are charcoal grey, deepest indigo and navy and burgundy, and very pale grey is often a better pale neutral than stark white.
Burnished/Deep/Dark Winter
A Deep Winter often carries hints of a warm look, perhaps a bit of red in the hair or a glimpse of amber in the eye colour - they actually sit closer to the Autumn end of the Winter palette, while still needing those cooler Winter colours rather than Autumn's golden tones. As such the colours often have a slight hint of almost-warmth - a bit more brown in a burgundy, or a slightly richer green rather than bold emerald.
Your best colours as a Burnished Winter are some of the least obviously Winter colours of the palette, such as stone, mole grey and pine green.
Let's talk about crossover colours
Once you understand seasonal types, the 'crossover' colours (those that apply to more than one season) at Kettlewell begin to make more sense. If a person sits at the 'end' of the Spring palette closest to Summer, it stands to reason that some colours will sit so close to that dividing line between Spring and Summer that the difference between them and the colour the other side of that dividing line will be indistinguishable to the human eye. If you are looking at crossover colours, consider which season the colours cross over with - if you are a light Spring, for example, those colours that work on both Springs and Summers will be your best crossover colours. Don't be afraid of trying other season crossover colours too though - if they apply to your palette, there's an excellent chance they will work on you. If you're feeling unsure, do give Kettlewell a call.
Crossover colours can be a tricky subject to get your head around, but once you begin to look at the entire spectrum of colours rather than each season in isolation, it starts to make perfect sense.
To read about the other seasons use the links below:
