Spring color palette

This guide covers what makes a colour "spring", the three spring types, how to check if you're one, and a palette with hex codes to try.

What makes a palette "spring"

The seasonal system describes every colour by hue (warm, leaning yellow, or cool, leaning blue), value (light or dark) and chroma (clear or greyed).

Spring is warm + light, and in the system that combination comes out bright. So spring colours have a golden undertone, sit at the light-to-medium end and look clean, with little grey in them. They're the opposite of autumn's earthy, muted depth, and the warm counterpart of summer's soft, cool pastels.

A good test for any colour: does it look like fresh fruit or flowers in sunlight? Peach, coral, buttercup yellow and new leaves are spring. The same hues made dusty or deep belong elsewhere.

The three spring types

Most systems split spring by which quality leads:

• Light spring: lightness first, then warmth. Pale, warm, fresh colours such as peach, light aqua and buttercup. It borders on summer.
• True (warm) spring: warmth first. The most golden palette: coral, golden yellow, warm green.
• Bright (clear) spring: brightness first. The most vivid, high-contrast spring colours; it borders on winter and can take some cooler brights.

How to tell if you're a spring

Look at your colouring in daylight:

• Warm undertones: skin with a peachy, golden or ivory-warm cast, often with a natural flush.
• Golden or strawberry hair: golden blonde, strawberry blonde, light warm brown or copper.
• Clear, bright eyes: blue, green, turquoise or light warm brown, often with a sparkle.

A home test: hold a clear coral and a dusty mauve under your face. If coral brightens your skin and mauve makes you look washed out, you're likely a spring. A professional drape test compares many more colours, so use this as a first hint.

A spring palette with hex codes

These eight come from the colour names CSS defines. We picked the ones that fit spring's three qualities when measured in OKLCH: warm hue, high lightness and high chroma.

| Colour | Hex | |---|---| | Light coral | #f08080 | | Salmon | #fa8072 | | Coral | #ff7f50 | | Light salmon | #ffa07a | | Sandy brown | #f4a460 | | Orange | #ffa500 | | Gold | #ffd700 | | Yellow green | #9acd32 |

The tool here opens with this set. Click any of them to see its 50–950 scale. Springs usually look best in the middle and light steps; the darkest steps turn brown and lose the clear quality.

Building a spring wardrobe

• Neutrals: ivory, cream, camel, light warm grey and a clear warm navy instead of black.
• Main colours: coral, peach, warm aqua, apple green, golden yellow.
• Accents: bright poppy red, clear turquoise.
• Metals: polished yellow gold and rose gold. Bright springs can often wear silver too.

Wear the clearest colours near your face, where they do the most work, and keep darker pieces for shoes and trousers.

A note on the system

Seasonal colour analysis was popularised by books like Carole Jackson's Color Me Beautiful (1980), and it has had a revival online. It's a styling method, not a measurement, and analysts don't share one standard. Your season is a shortlist of colours worth trying first.