The topic of this article has been on my mind for a long time. As a professional stylist specializing in color analysis with many years of experience, I rely first and foremost on real practical work with many clients. In color analysis, it is practice tested on real people, and not theoretical schemes and texts copied from each other year after year, that gives the most reliable conclusions.
Why did I decide to talk separately about myths in color analysis? Because I constantly encounter them in my work. Many people, after carefully reading online articles about how to determine their season, come to a consultation already with ready-made conclusions and strong beliefs. But these same beliefs do not help them stop doubting themselves and their results. On the contrary, it is precisely because of these myths that people most often come for a professional analysis, because many popular statements simply do not work in practice.
Quite often I first have to carefully sort out the false beliefs a person comes with, and only then show what their real, not “mythical,” palette looks like.
Below I will briefly list the most common misconceptions about color typing that are widely spread on the internet, are outdated, and prevent people from seeing their true season.
1. “Olive skin is a sign of a warm season. So I must be Autumn!”
This statement is overly simplified and often leads to subjective conclusions. Olive skin can be warm, neutral, or cool in temperature, it all depends on the specific shade.
In addition, it is far from always easy to objectively understand whether the skin is really “olive” or it only seems that way. Personally, I much more often describe skin as beige, light beige, pink-beige, and so on. But this alone still does not define the season, because everyone’s shades are different.
2. “Asian people most often have a warm appearance, so they are Autumn/Dark Autumn”
My practice shows a completely different picture. Many of my Asian clients have a cool or neutral-cool overall temperature.
It is hard to say where the myth about “warm Autumn” as the main option for Asians came from. In reality, it corresponds very poorly with the results of real drapings.
3. “I am Autumn because olive green, brown, and similar colors look good on me”
Olive, brown, and even terracotta can be not only warm, but also neutral or cool-neutral in temperature.
A lot of people with cool seasons look wonderful in olive, brown, and other colors that many perceive as “definitely warm.” The reason is simple: what matters is not the name of the color, but its specific shade.
4. “I am Autumn/Spring because I love warm earthy tones and, as it seems to me, I look good in them”
A lot of clients come to me with exactly these words. But in reality, the vast majority of them turn out to be representatives of cool seasons, especially Soft Summer, Dark Summer, and Soft Winter.
From this comes another important point that destroys some of these myths: there are in fact many more people in the world with cool coloring than with warm coloring. And a season like Spring, especially the subtypes Pure Spring, Light Spring, and Dark/Warm Spring, is quite rare. A season that is both bright and warm at the same time is in fact an exception rather than the rule.
That is why it is not surprising that forums often discuss why so many people turn out to be, for example, Soft Summers. This really reflects reality, not an error on the part of stylists.
5. “I am Autumn because I tan easily / I have green veins / I have freckles”
These are myths based on outdated approaches. For modern professional color analysis, it is not fundamentally important whether a person tans easily, has freckles, or what color the veins appear on the wrist.
First, all of these criteria are very subjective. What does “tan easily” mean? Compared to whom? How exactly does a person observe this? Are the veins really green, or are they green-blue, or does it only seem that way under certain lighting?
Second, even if we define these signs as precisely as possible, they still are not reliable criteria for color analysis.
The main reference point is the real visual reaction of the face to different colors of drapes, in other words, practice and not indirect theoretical signs.
6. “I am Autumn/Spring because I have red hair / my hair looks red in the sun”
Very often people call hair “red” when in fact it is not.
In addition, under direct sunlight a huge number of hair colors give a reddish reflection. But this is not the true hair color, it is an optical effect from the sun’s rays.
A slight reddish tone can be found even in people with cool seasons. Its presence alone does not make a season warm. The claim that “red tones exist only in warm seasons” is another myth that does not stand up to practical testing.
7. “Silver looks good on me, so I must be a cool season” / “Gold looks better on me, so I must be a warm season”
This is an oversimplified and already outdated rule. Almost any season can wear both gold and silver, as long as the metal shade is chosen correctly.
There are subtypes within each season, and their temperature and contrast also influence which metals look more harmonious.
In addition, jewelry usually covers a relatively small area, so its color is not as critical as is often assumed. This is especially true for pieces that are worn far from the face.
At the same time, I do believe that even jewelry worn far from the face is best chosen within your own palette so that the whole look, and not just the face, appears cohesive and harmonious.
8. “All seasons should be equally common”
People often assume this automatically, but in reality the distribution of seasons is uneven.
As already mentioned, most people have a cool or close-to-cool overall temperature, and this clearly outnumbers the warm types.
In addition, in practice we see soft, muted subtypes much more often than very bright and very clear ones. High brightness combined with a distinctly warm temperature in appearance is more of an exception than a norm.
9. “All representatives of warm subtypes look good in bright yellow”
In reality, most people look best in moderate, soft, non-loud shades. Bright yellow, bright orange, and the color of very bright spring grass suit very few people, even when we are talking about spring subtypes.
On the internet you can often see Spring palettes that include flashy, very bright warm colors, and these images are copied from one platform to another for years. But such palettes have little to do with the colors that actually suit people with spring seasons in real life.
On the vast majority of people, even warm spring types, overly loud shades look unnatural and pull all the attention onto themselves instead of highlighting the appearance.
10. “Black people can be representatives of all color seasons”
There are stylists who claim that dark-skinned clients can belong to all seasons, including Light seasons and Spring, and they actively give such results.
I can rely only on my own experience: in all my practice I have never seen a person with an obviously dark color of skin, hair, and eyes who in fact belonged to a Light season. This is at the very least extremely unlikely.
If the appearance is originally dark in tone, it already does not fit the basic idea of Light seasons. It is important not to adjust the result to the desire to “get a certain preferred season,” but to honestly look for the palette that truly highlights a person’s natural beauty. In my view, it is much more helpful to assist a client in revealing their natural harmony than to fit their expectations and illusions.
I have listed only ten of the most common outdated beliefs about color seasons. In reality there are more myths, and they continue to live online, often preventing people from seeing themselves objectively.
That is why it is very important to be careful with information sources and to take categorical “rules” without practical proof with a healthy amount of skepticism.
And it is even better to turn to an experienced professional who relies on real drapings and live practice. This helps save a lot of effort, time, and money, protecting you from many unsuitable purchases and from long-lasting doubts about your appearance.
Your stylist,
Yana Novi