What is colour analysis?

Colour analysis — also called seasonal colour analysis or personal colour analysis — is observation of how cloth changes a face. The useful claim is small. Some reds even the skin. Other reds make it look tired. The result is a palette for clothes, makeup, hair, and jewellery that sit near the skin. It is not a horoscope and not industrial colourimetry.

In British English the search is “colour” with a U. This page matches that spelling. The method is the same 12-season grid used on the rest of this site. House of Colour is a four-season studio network in the UK and Ireland. It is not this website. A House of Colour sitting is live fabric; this page is a definition, then a three-question teaser.

Studio draping in Britain typically costs a few hundred pounds for an hour or two of north light and cloth — not dollars. Carole Jackson’s Colour Me Beautiful (1980) named four families; Kathryn Kalisz (Sci/ART) and True Colour International teach the twelve axes Season Palette uses. Sixteen-type schools name the borders too. We ship twelve, not sixteen.

You watch the face, not the cloth. Wrong colour: yellow-cast or grey-cast, deeper under-eyes, lips that lose blood. Right colour: evening of the skin, shallower shadows, colour returning to the mouth. If two of three worsen, that colour is not yours — even if you like it on the hanger.

Carole Jackson’s Colour Me Beautiful put four families into department-store English: Spring and Autumn as warm, Summer and Winter as cool. House of Colour and many UK stylists still drape those four. Useful as a first cut. Two Autumns do not share a lipstick.

Twelve seasons add value (light versus deep) and chroma (bright versus soft) on top of warm/cool. That is the Sci/ART lineage, the same axes taught by True Colour International. Season Palette uses twelve, not sixteen. “True Spring” in some studios maps to Warm Spring here. Translate the face — gold or silver, white or ivory — not the string.

Spring (warm, light, clear): Light, Warm, Bright. Summer (cool, soft): Light, Cool, Soft. Autumn (warm, muted, dense): Soft, Warm, Deep. Winter (cool, high contrast): Bright, Cool, Deep.

North daylight. No makeup. Hair off the jaw. Optical white versus ivory, then silver versus gold, at the collarbone. That is the honest DIY yield: temperature and contrast. Light Spring versus Bright Spring still needs live fabric.

A three-question colour analysis quiz is structured self-report of eyes, skin depth, and hair. It names a neighbourhood. It will not finish a sub-season. Vein charts under a yellow bulb are a weak hint.

In-person draping in the UK and Ireland typically costs a few hundred pounds for 60–120 minutes of live fabric. You are paying for cloth, north light, and someone watching your face. House of Colour is a studio network, not this website.

This quiz does not require an account. That is not a free colour analysis product. The Season Palette iOS app is paid photo confirmation of undertone and contrast. Flash and restaurant bulbs lie. If the decision is hair dye or a wedding palette, drape.

That search wants a name. A name is only useful if the method matches how sure you need to be. Three typed answers can open the right family. A daylight still can tighten undertone. Cloth on the shoulders still finishes chroma.

Sister seasons share a border. Soft Autumn and Soft Summer both want muted colour; they split on gold versus silver and on rust versus dusty rose. The quiz will not break that tie. Hold metal at the jaw.