Seasonal Color FinderA skin tone chart does two separate jobs, and most charts mix them up. One job is naming how light or deep a skin is. The other is naming its undertone, the warm, cool or neutral cast underneath. Two people can share a depth on the chart and still look best in completely different colors, because their undertones differ.
So this page gives you both: a depth chart with names and hex codes, then an undertone table, then a short guide to reading your own skin from a photo.
A ten-shade depth chart
The shades below come from the Monk Skin Tone Scale, a ten-step scale developed by sociologist Ellis Monk and released by Google in 2022 for testing whether cameras and image tools treat every skin tone fairly. We use it here because it is public, evenly spaced and covers deep skin better than older charts did.
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Screens shift color, so treat these as a rough guide rather than a match test. Hold your hand next to the screen in daylight and you will usually narrow it to two neighbouring steps, which is as precise as a chart gets.
Skin tone names and hex codes
Everyday names are looser than numbers. Here is how the common ones line up with the scale, with a representative hex code for each.
| Name | Roughly | Hex |
|---|---|---|
Porcelain | Steps 1–2, very light, often cool | #F6EDE4 |
Fair | Steps 1–3, light with any undertone | #F3E7DB |
Ivory | Step 3, light with a warm or yellow cast | #F7EAD0 |
Beige | Step 4, light-medium, neutral to warm | #EADABA |
Golden / tan | Step 5, medium and warm | #D7BD96 |
Olive | Steps 4–6, with a green-grey cast | #B59A72 |
Caramel | Step 6, medium-deep and warm | #A07E56 |
Chestnut | Step 7, deep with red-brown warmth | #825C43 |
Espresso | Step 8, deep | #604134 |
Ebony | Steps 9–10, very deep | #3A312A |
The olive row is the odd one out: it is not a single depth. Olive describes a green or grey cast that can appear on light, medium or deep skin, which is why so many people with olive skin feel no chart fits them. We wrote a separate guide to olive skin for that reason.
Undertones: the part that decides your colors
Depth tells you how much contrast you can carry. Undertone tells you which family of colors will look clear on you and which will look slightly off.
| Undertone | What you tend to see | Seasons it usually points to |
|---|---|---|
| Warm | Golden, peach or yellow cast; gold jewelry looks natural | Spring and Autumn families |
| Cool | Pink, rosy or bluish cast; silver looks natural | Summer and Winter families |
| Neutral | No clear cast; gold and silver both work | Soft or "true" seasons near a border |
| Olive | Green or grey cast over a warm or neutral base | Often Soft Autumn, Deep Autumn or Soft Summer |
If you are not sure which row is yours, the undertone test guide walks through four quick checks and explains why the popular vein test misleads so many people.
Reading your skin from a photo
A chart compares you to a printed or on-screen square. A photo lets you compare your skin to itself under controlled light, which is more useful. Three things matter:
- Daylight, not lamps. Warm bulbs push everyone toward golden; office LEDs push toward grey.
- No makeup on the cheek area. Foundation is chosen to match, so it hides exactly what you are trying to see.
- A white reference in frame. A sheet of paper or a white T-shirt lets you, or a tool, correct the camera's color bias.
Our photo analysis checks exposure and color cast before it reads anything, then reports warm or cool, light or deep, and clear or muted separately. Those three answers place you in one of the twelve seasonal palettes.
What a chart cannot tell you
A skin tone chart cannot tell you your season on its own. Season also depends on hair, eyes and contrast between them: two people at step 3 with warm undertones can be a Light Spring and a Soft Autumn. Use the chart to describe your skin, then use a color analysis to decide what to wear.
Keep exploring
Find your undertone · Try photo analysis · Take the no-photo quiz