Cool Summer celebrities

Traits these famous faces share

This season's palette is cool, softly muted, and medium in depth. It holds gentle blues, roses and plums with no warmth at all. The people typed into it look similar: nothing golden shows up, and nothing looks sharp.

Their skin sits on the cool side. That undertone is the color beneath the skin's surface, and here it comes across as rosy or bluish instead of yellow or golden. The surface shade itself varies, from fair through beige to medium brown. Emily Blunt's skin is fair and cool, while Thandiwe Newton's is a cool medium brown.

Ash is the usual natural hair shade. Ash hair is smoky and cool, without any red or golden shine, and in this season it runs from light ash blonde down to deep ash brown. The eyes most often come in gentle shades: blue-gray, gray-green, dusty blue, soft blue or a mellow brown.

Many of these faces show medium or calm contrast. Contrast means how far apart the tones of your skin, hair and eyes are from each other. A gentle, moderate gap matches this season's softer character.

True Summer and the season's other name

Cool Summer has a second name, True Summer, so both lists point to the same group of people. The name reflects its leading trait, coolness. Softness comes second.

Kate Middleton lands here often because of her cool, rosy skin, her dark ash brown hair and her gray-green eyes. Paulina Porizkova represents the paler end of the range, with fair cool skin, ash blonde hair and gentle blue eyes.

Why famous faces are only a rough guide

A famous person's real coloring usually stays hidden. Dye can turn ash brown hair into golden blonde, and makeup can mask the skin's true cast. Both change how colors appear to work around the face.

Lighting on set and filters on photos also shift skin color. The camera on your phone and the bulbs in your home do the same to your own pictures, so a screen never tells the whole truth. Analysts also work from different photos and frequently land on different seasons for the same face.

The typings here were taken from photos, not from draping. Draping is a face-to-face test in which swatches of colored fabric are placed near your face to see which shades flatter it.

Using celebrity photos to check yourself

What a celebrity photo shows best is how a clothing color acts next to the face. Matching your own hair to theirs tells you little, since hair is so often colored.

1. Pick photos taken in natural daylight with light makeup, since studio lights and heavy makeup hide what the skin really looks like.
2. Find the person dressed in this season's colors: think raspberry, orchid, soft jade, dusty rose or cornflower. See if the face seems brighter and fresher.
3. Next place them in shades the season avoids: navy, moss, bright royal blue, bright peach, bright copper or gold. See if the skin seems tired, or if the color draws more attention than the face.
4. Run the same test on yourself at a mirror near a window. Hold a fabric of one shade, then the second, beneath your chin.

Here are the clues that usually signal Cool Summer:

• Warm shades like orange and yellow drain the skin, leaving it sallow and tired.
• Pure black feels heavy and pulls the color out of your face.
• Silver jewelry sits quietly against your skin, while gold looks brassy and separate.
• Cool rose pink wakes up your face and softens dark circles quickly.
• Dusty blue and slate grey flatter your eyes more than navy ever will.

Seasons that get mistaken for this one

There are 12 seasons built from 4 families, and each family divides into 3 seasons named after its strongest trait. The seasons nearest to Cool Summer borrow a few of its traits, so people's typings slide between them.

When two of these feel equally right, the skipped colors help. If pure black feels like too much and navy looks flatter than slate, Cool Summer is the likelier fit.