How many color seasons are there?

The modern system uses 12: Light, True and Bright Spring; Light, True and Soft Summer; Soft, True and Deep Autumn; Deep, True and Bright Winter. The older system used four, which is why two people with the same season can look wrong in the same colour.

Can I find my color season from a photo?

Yes — that's exactly what AI colour analysis does. It reads undertone, contrast and chroma from a natural-light selfie and returns a 12-season classification with a full palette.

What if I'm between two seasons?

Most people sit close to a boundary. In practice you use the overlap: the colours that appear in both palettes are your safest wardrobe core, and you treat the disputed shades as accents worn away from the face.

Is colour analysis accurate for deep skin tones?

It should be. Older 4-season systems handled deep and neutral colouring badly. A 12-season, photo-based reading measures depth and chroma directly, which is what makes it work across a much wider range of colouring.

What is my color season?

Your colour season is where your natural colouring lands on three axes — undertone (warm/cool), value (light/deep) and chroma (soft/bright). Those combine into 12 types: Light, True and Bright Spring; Light, True and Soft Summer; Soft, True and Deep Autumn; Deep, True and Bright Winter. Springs and Autumns are warm, Summers and Winters are cool; Summers and Autumns are muted, Springs and Winters are clear.

Seasonal color analysis and outfit palette — Visual example for What is my color season?.

How It Works

One selfie in daylight. minniie samples skin across several facial regions to separate true undertone from lighting cast.
Contrast and chroma measured. It compares hair, skin and eye values to place you on the depth axis, and reads saturation to place you on the clarity axis.
Your season, with proof. You get the 12-season result plus your flattering, neutral and clashing colours — and a portrait rendered in your palette so you can see it, not just read it.

What You Get

Step 1 — temperature: do gold jewellery and warm whites flatter you (warm), or silver and cool whites (cool)?
Step 2 — value: is your overall colouring light, medium or deep when you squint at a photo of yourself?
Step 3 — chroma: does your colouring look clear and saturated, or soft and blended?
Warm + clear = Spring; cool + soft = Summer; warm + soft = Autumn; cool + clear = Winter.
Each of the four families splits into three: a light/deep variant, a true variant and a soft/bright variant.
The 'true' seasons are dominated by temperature; the others are dominated by depth or clarity.
Neutral undertones sit on the boundaries — Soft Summer and Soft Autumn are the most commonly mistyped pair.

Personalized example

Question: What is my color season? Ash blonde hair, fair skin, grey-blue eyes.

Cool undertone, light value, soft chroma → Light Summer.
Best: soft rose, powder blue, dove grey, cool mauve, soft navy.
Neutrals: cool grey and soft navy rather than black.
Avoid: orange, mustard, and stark black near the face.
Metals: silver and white gold.

Where the 12-season system came from

Seasonal colour analysis went mainstream with Carole Jackson's Color Me Beautiful in 1980, which sorted people into four seasons. It worked, but bluntly: two people can both be 'Autumn' and need completely different depths of colour. The 12-season expansion added a second and third axis, so each family splits into a light or deep variant, a true variant, and a soft or bright variant.

The system survived because it's descriptive rather than prescriptive. It isn't claiming a rule about you; it's describing where your colouring already sits, and which pigments agree with it.

The seasons people get wrong

Soft Summer and Soft Autumn are the classic confusion: both are muted, medium-depth, and both look wrong in bright colour. The tell is temperature — Soft Autumn warms up in olive and camel, Soft Summer warms up in cocoa and soft plum.

Deep Winter and Deep Autumn are the second pair. Both carry very dark shades well; the difference shows in black (Deep Winter's friend, Deep Autumn's enemy) and in whether burgundy or wine looks better than rust.

Your season is a starting point, not a uniform

Knowing your season doesn't mean dressing in twelve approved colours forever. It means knowing which shades of the colours you already like will suit you: which red, which green, which white, which denim wash.

Inside minniie, the season becomes an active filter rather than a PDF. Outfits are scored against it, shopping suggestions are constrained by it, and every wardrobe piece you upload gets flagged as flattering, neutral or draining.

Practical checklist

Take the photo in daylight, no filter
Decide temperature before anything else
Squint at the photo to judge depth
Ask whether your colouring is clear or blended
Cross-check against the neighbouring season
Re-test after a major hair colour change

Frequently Asked Questions

How many color seasons are there?: The modern system uses 12: Light, True and Bright Spring; Light, True and Soft Summer; Soft, True and Deep Autumn; Deep, True and Bright Winter. The older system used four, which is why two people with the same season can look wrong in the same colour.
Can I find my color season from a photo?: Yes — that's exactly what AI colour analysis does. It reads undertone, contrast and chroma from a natural-light selfie and returns a 12-season classification with a full palette.
What if I'm between two seasons?: Most people sit close to a boundary. In practice you use the overlap: the colours that appear in both palettes are your safest wardrobe core, and you treat the disputed shades as accents worn away from the face.
Is colour analysis accurate for deep skin tones?: It should be. Older 4-season systems handled deep and neutral colouring badly. A 12-season, photo-based reading measures depth and chroma directly, which is what makes it work across a much wider range of colouring.