Best colors for pale skin

Shades for pale skin

Here are the shades we recommend again and again for a light complexion. Most sit on the lighter side, and a few go deeper to give you some contrast.

A HEX code is the short string a screen or design tool uses to name one exact color. When you shop online or choose makeup, it helps you get the shade you actually wanted.

What makes these shades suit a light complexion

Because pale skin is light, colors with a similar lightness tend to blend with it instead of fighting it. Shades like soft white, light lavender and powder blue hold a whole look at that airy level of brightness, and that's why the light-season palettes include them.

Contrast plays a part too. It's the gap between your lightest and darkest features, meaning your skin, hair and eyes. When your hair and eyes are also light, the softer shades tend to be your friends. Dark hair is different: a deeper shade like berry can pick up that darkness and stop your face from looking washed out.

Warm and cool versions of the advice

Being pale by itself won't tell you your season. Your undertone counts just as much. An undertone is that warm or cool tint beneath your skin, and it stays put through tans and flushes.

Here's how those seasons tend to split once you know your undertone:

• Light Spring: warm as well as light, so light coral and light aqua make easy first picks
• Light Summer: airy and cool; start with powder blue, light lavender or soft white
• Cool Summer: gentle and cool, where dusty rose, rose pink and light periwinkle shine
• Cool Winter: crisp and cool, a natural home for berry's depth

If you can't tell which way your coloring tips, the site's undertone test and its gold-versus-silver check both give you a fast answer.

Colors to avoid with pale skin

Earthy camel, dark mustard and olive all feel heavy or muddy. Beside a light face they can dull things down and drain brightness from your skin. Bright terracotta causes the opposite trouble, because it's so strong and orange that it draws the eye away from you.

That doesn't mean you must toss them. They matter least at a distance from your face, which makes trousers, skirts, bags and shoes the easiest spots to keep them in rotation.

Wearing your best colors

The color sitting nearest your face does the most work, so that's the place to begin.

• Tops and shirts: a top in soft white or powder blue, worn near your chin, carries the palette straight to your face.
• Scarves: a scarf in dusty rose or soft jade puts a flattering color right at your face, even on top of a coat in a shade you'd normally pass on.
• Makeup: rose pink or berry lipstick suits cooler skin, while light coral flatters warmer tones.

Phone cameras and indoor lighting both shift the way skin color reads. A top or scarf held under your chin in front of a daylight mirror will show you more than a selfie will.

Finding your full season

Pale skin narrows the field to a handful of seasons, but naming just one takes two more answers. The home quiz walks you through 3 questions, one per screen: does gold or silver suit you better, do your features run light, medium or deep, and do bright or soft shades look better near your face?

The 12 seasons grow out of 4 families: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Every season's palette on the site holds 60 named colors in 3 groups: neutrals, main colors and accents, along with a list of shades to avoid. No photo, email or account is needed for the quiz, and nothing you enter leaves your own device.