You have ruled out ten seasons with total confidence and now you are stuck on the last two. This is not a failure of method — it is the single most common place for a careful self-analysis to land, and it happens for a structural reason: the twelve palettes are not isolated islands. Neighbouring seasons share most of their properties and a good portion of their colours, and your colouring will look genuinely harmonious in both. Choosing between them is a matter of degrees — which is precisely why there are tests for it.
Sister seasons, and the trick of the sisters' sisters
Every season has sisters — the neighbouring palettes that share two of its three dimensions. A Light Spring and a Light Summer, for instance, are both light, both gentle, and differ mainly in which side of neutral their undertone sits. Because sister palettes overlap so heavily, being stuck between sisters is the classic close call, and looking back and forth between the two palettes rarely settles it.
What settles it is to stop comparing the sisters and compare their other sisters instead. Torn between Light Spring and Light Summer? Ask which fits you better: True Spring or True Summer. Those two palettes exaggerate exactly the difference you are trying to see — full warmth against full coolness — and one of them will usually feel obviously more like you than the other. If True Spring feels closer, you are a Light Spring; if True Summer, a Light Summer. The amplification does what squinting at near-identical palettes cannot.
The six classic confusions
Beyond the sisters, six particular pairings cause most of the remaining trouble, and each has a litmus test — two colours chosen because the seasons react to them as differently as they react to anything.
Clear Spring or Deep Autumn: both warm-neutral, both high contrast, and on medium or deeper skin both glorious in gold and sunset shades. Test a desaturated deep oak brown against a bright canary yellow. If the canary yellow does not feel like too much, you are a Clear Spring — almost nothing visibly clashes on Clear seasons, so the diagnostic is what you can survive, and a Clear season survives neon. If the oak quietly wins, Deep Autumn.
True Spring or Soft Autumn: usually a fair, delicate colouring that feels not-light-enough for Spring and not-deep-enough for Autumn. Test a dusky grey-green against a flamingo pink. Pink as a family is a good Autumn-detector — most pinks are simply too bright or too light for Autumn colouring. If the grey-green looks considerably better, Soft Autumn; if it drags you down while the pink lifts, True Spring.
Light Summer or Soft Summer: both subtly cool, both flattered by gentle mid-value shades. Test a pastel lemon yellow against a dusky stone grey. A Light Summer wears pastels of every description and is overpowered by the deep neutral; a Soft Summer is faintly washed out by the pastel and entirely at home in the stone.
Soft Summer or Deep Winter: the surprising pair — both cool-neutral and high contrast, both better in depth than lightness. Black is the first filter: if black reads even slightly intense on you, you are a Soft Summer, because no quantity of black overwhelms a Deep Winter. If black passes, test taupe against a blue-based shocking pink. The pink will be tolerable on a Deep Winter and unbearable on a Soft Summer; the taupe, the reverse.
Soft Autumn or Deep Autumn: balanced, earthy colouring that prefers browns to brights. Test an intense pumpkin red against a dusty rose. Too much pumpkin and a happier rose: Soft Autumn. The opposite: Deep.
Deep Winter or Clear Winter: both cool-neutral, high contrast, and dazzling in jewel tones. Test a deep mustard against a bright canary yellow. If your honest first reaction to the canary is not bad, actually, you are a Clear Winter. If the mustard is wearable and the canary absurd, Deep.
When the tests still don't settle it
Sometimes they don't — usually because judging your own face is the one perceptual task you cannot do neutrally, and the differences here are measured in small degrees. This is the precise situation professional draping exists for: a full set of calibrated drapes, neutral daylight, and an eye that is watching the drape rather than remembering your opinions. A close call is not ambiguity in your colouring. It is a measurement waiting for better instruments.
Rebecca Sells is a certified colour practitioner and the founder of The Colour Doc, a personal colour analysis studio in Battersea, South London. She practised as a clinical medical doctor before opening the studio in 2025.
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