Hair Color and Color Season: How They Work Together

Hair Color Guides  ·  8 min read

Skin undertone gives you a broad hair color direction: warm, cool, neutral or olive. Color season refines that direction further by accounting for the depth and chroma of your natural coloring as well as the undertone. Understanding how color season applies to hair color gives you a more precise guide than undertone alone.

How Color Season Adds to Undertone Guidance

Undertone tells you whether to go warm or cool in your hair color choice. Color season adds depth and chroma to that guidance. A True Spring and a Deep Autumn are both warm undertone but they suit very different hair colors. True Spring, with its light warm coloring, suits lighter warm shades like golden blonde and honey. Deep Autumn, with its deep rich warmth, suits richer deeper shades like dark auburn and warm espresso. Both are warm but the depth differs.

The same logic applies to cool seasons. A Light Summer with soft light cool coloring suits ash blonde and pearl blonde. A Deep Winter with deep cool coloring suits jet black and cool deep espresso. Both are cool but the appropriate depth is completely different.

Spring and Autumn Hair Color Guidance

Spring seasons are warm with clear light coloring. True Spring suits golden blonde, strawberry blonde and light warm brown. Light Spring suits the lightest warm shades including golden blonde and very light honey. Warm Spring suits slightly richer warm shades including honey and light auburn.

Autumn seasons are warm with deeper or more muted coloring. Warm Autumn, the most classic autumn, suits rich auburn, chestnut and warm dark brown. Soft Autumn suits more muted warm shades including warm ash brown and soft chestnut. Deep Autumn suits the richest deepest warm shades including dark auburn and warm espresso.

Summer and Winter Hair Color Guidance

Summer seasons are cool with soft or light coloring. Light Summer suits ash blonde, pearl blonde and very soft cool brown. True Summer suits ash brown and cool medium brown. Soft Summer suits the most muted cool shades including mushroom brown and greyed blonde.

Winter seasons are cool with high contrast or very deep coloring. Deep Winter suits jet black, blue-black and very deep cool espresso. True Winter suits cool black and very deep cool dark brown. Bright Winter suits high contrast combinations including very dark hair with the striking clarity that bright winter skin carries.

When Natural Hair Does Not Match Your Season

Many women have natural hair color that does not perfectly match their color season guidance. This is normal. Color season hair guidance is most useful for choosing how to color or highlight hair rather than as a commentary on natural color. A woman born with hair that sits outside her ideal season range often finds that adding color or highlights that align with her season transforms how her overall coloring looks.

The practical application is when choosing highlights, balayage or color treatments. If you know your color season, you know whether to ask for warm or cool highlights, how light or dark to go and whether your color should be rich and saturated or soft and muted. This replaces the guesswork of choosing from a salon color chart with a clear brief that your colorist can work with.