Personal Color Self-Test

Answer eight questions, or measure the skin color in a photo of your face, to gauge your warm or cool undertone and your seasonal color type.

There are two routes. One asks eight questions about the things personal color consultants actually look at, such as the color of the veins in your wrist and the way your skin reacts to sun. The other takes a photo of your face and measures the real pixel values of your skin in CIELAB coordinates. Neither route stops at the verdict: the page says what it looked at to get there, shows the palette for that tone as hex codes, and gives the direction to look in when picking lipstick or blush. Neither the answers you pick nor the photo you supply ever leaves this screen.

Pick one of two ways

The questions are answered in front of a mirror; the photo route reads the actual pixel values of your skin out of an image you supply and calculates from them. The two measure different things, so they can disagree. A disagreement does not mean one of them is wrong, it means both are for reference.

Eight questions

Answering in front of a mirror in daylight works better. A bare face is more accurate than a made-up one, and picking "not sure" is fine. Those answers are counted too and reported in the result.

1. What color do the veins on the inside of your wrist look?
What this question looks at
The color showing through the skin is treated as a hint about undertone: greenish reads warm, blue or purple reads cool. It is the most widely used question in personal color testing, but vein color also depends on skin thickness and blood flow, so nothing is decided on this one alone.
2. What happens to your skin after a long time in the sun?
What this question looks at
Tanning to an even brown reads warm; turning red first and barely tanning reads cool. The idea is borrowed from the Fitzpatrick scale used in dermatology. That scale classifies burning and pigmentation as a medical matter, though, and never said anything about which clothes suit you.
3. Which do people say suits you better, gold or silver jewellery?
What this question looks at
The yellow cast of gold is thought to clear the complexion on warmer skin, and the white cast of silver on cooler skin. Holding each one under your chin and picking whichever brightens your face is the practical test.
4. Which brightens your face more, pure white or ivory?
What this question looks at
Even within white there is a difference: ivory carries a yellow cast and pure white a blue one. Held right under the face the contrast is fairly easy to see, which is why these are among the first cloths used in a professional draping session.
5. Which lipstick family has felt right on you so far?
What this question looks at
Corals and oranges carry a yellow cast; pinks and plums carry a blue one. For anyone who has worn both this is the most reliable question here, and for anyone who has not, "not sure" is the correct answer.
6. What is your natural, undyed hair color closest to?
What this question looks at
Whether your inherited coloring is light or deep is what separates spring and summer (the lighter pair) from autumn and winter (the deeper pair). Look at the roots rather than any dyed length.
7. What is your eye color closest to?
What this question looks at
Same depth axis as hair. Light hazel, amber, green and blue read light; dark brown and near-black read deep. Take contact lenses out and look near a window.
8. How much brightness difference is there between your skin and your hair and eyes?
What this question looks at
A sharp light-dark difference within the face is thought to carry clear, deep colors, and a soft difference to carry pale, muted ones. Standing back from the mirror and squinting leaves only the difference, which makes it easier to judge.

You have answered 0 of 8 questions.

Result

Answer the questions and the result appears here.

The answers you picked were not sent anywhere. The whole verdict was worked out on this screen.

This result is a self-test for reference

This result is a self-test meant as a reference, and it may differ from a professional in-person analysis (draping). Draping holds real fabric under the face one piece at a time, which reveals more than a questionnaire can. The questions have their own limits too: the colors your screen renders, the light you are sitting in, even a bad night's sleep showing in your face all end up in the answers. Before buying makeup, trying it on your own skin in the shop is still the better way to choose.

Where this classification came from, and where it was refined

The four-season system is rooted in Western color teaching. Mapping colors onto the feeling of four seasons is usually traced to Johannes Itten, who taught color at the Bauhaus, and carrying that into clothes and makeup for individual people was spread by Carole Jackson's 1980 book. In South Korea the same classification grew into an industry of paid analysis appointments, and with that came finer subdivisions, splitting the four into eight, twelve or sixteen, along with a settled draping procedure at professional studios. That is the practical reason a reader outside Korea often finds Korean sources unusually specific on this subject. This page does not go as far as those subdivisions and stops at four, because splitting sixteen ways off eight questions and one sampled spot would amount to manufacturing a precision that is not there.

What this verdict rests on

The questions used here are the self-test method many personal color consultants actually use. We did not find peer-reviewed research validating that vein color or metal preference can predict which colors suit someone, so this page does not claim to be academically validated. Where the four-season classification itself came from is listed under sources. And no accuracy figure is produced. A number like "87% spring warm" has nothing behind it, so instead the count of your answers is shown as it is.

The four seasonal tones

You can also skip the test and go straight to a palette.

Sources

How to tell warm from cool, and how the four seasons work

Made alongside

Other services by the same maker.