Summer colour palette
Cool, soft and gentle — colour seen through morning haze.
Summer is the cool, muted half of the wheel. Summer palettes are blue-based with grey folded in: dusty rose, powder blue, soft teal, sage. If your colouring is cool and gentle rather than stark, and strong colours tend to wear you, you are somewhere in Summer.
All three Summers share coolness and softness. The difference from Winter — the other cool family — is saturation: Winter takes colour at full strength, Summer needs it diluted. A True Winter in Summer colours looks washed out; a Summer in Winter colours looks overwhelmed.
The three summer seasons
"Summer" on its own is too broad to shop from. These three are where it actually splits.
The combined summer palette
Colours that work across the whole family — safe ground while you narrow down which sub-season you are.
- Powder pink#F2C4D0
- Cool raspberry#C2185B
- Dusty rose#C08497
- Dusty rose#E5A9BC
- Rose red#D81B60
- Soft berry#A5677A
- Rose pink#D98BA5
- Soft rose#E091AE
- Muted plum#8F5F6E
- Soft raspberry#C2739A
- Dusty pink#C97B9B
- Soft mauve#B08BA5
- Soft lilac#B8A4CC
- Cool berry#A85C7A
- Dusty lilac#8E7C9E
- Periwinkle#A6A9D6
- Soft plum#7E5A82
- Dusty periwinkle#7A809E
- Powder blue#93B4DB
- Cool lavender#9575CD
Summer palettes in detail
Frequently asked
What is the summer colour palette?
Summer is the cool, muted half of the wheel. Summer palettes are blue-based with grey folded in: dusty rose, powder blue, soft teal, sage. If your colouring is cool and gentle rather than stark, and strong colours tend to wear you, you are somewhere in Summer. The palette on this page combines the strongest colours from all three summer sub-seasons — Light Summer, True Summer, Soft Summer — so it is a good starting point before you narrow down.
What are the three summer seasons?
Light Summer is cool, strongly light and moderately soft. True Summer is strongly cool, moderately light and moderately soft. Soft Summer is moderately cool, medium in depth and strongly soft. Each has its own palette page with full hex codes.
How do I know which summer I am?
All three Summers share coolness and softness. The difference from Winter — the other cool family — is saturation: Winter takes colour at full strength, Summer needs it diluted. A True Winter in Summer colours looks washed out; a Summer in Winter colours looks overwhelmed. Once you know you are in the summer family, the remaining question is which characteristic dominates — depth, temperature or clarity. Our free analysis scores all twelve seasons and tells you which summer you land on, and by how much.
Is summer a warm or cool season?
Cool. Every colour in a summer palette is blue-based. If silver jewellery flatters you more than gold, and pure white suits you better than cream, you are in a cool family.