Colour analysis
Colours for brown skin
This is your palette
Brown skin – caramel, tan or a warm mid-brown – does not decide warm or cool in our quiz: it leans one small step warm, exactly as light, beige, olive and deep skin do, so your eyes, hair and skin together settle that, and a check at the mirror after the result has the last word. What it does decide is depth: it carries rich, deep shades that would overwhelm lighter skin, so with the rest of your answers it most often leads to Deep Autumn or Deep Winter, and after them to True Autumn. Blond or red hair almost always keeps the result warm, chestnut or black hair usually takes it to Deep Winter, and grey hair softens it.
What it says about your colouring
On its own, it leans warm.
It can carry clear, saturated colour.
It reads deep.
The palettes it leads to most often
Colours to try first
- Mahogany
- Deep Pumpkin
- Deep Sapphire
- EmeraldYour green. Blue-leaning and clear, never olive.
- Burnt Sienna
- Warm Rust
Pieces in these colours
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ShirtMahoganyAmazon ↗
DressDeep PumpkinAmazon ↗
ShirtDeep SapphireAmazon ↗
DressEmeraldAmazon ↗
ShirtBurnt SiennaAmazon ↗
DressWarm RustAmazon ↗The photo shows the colour and the cut, not the product the search finds.
Tips
- Wear colour near your face that is as clear as your skin can carry: coral, tomato red, cobalt, emerald, turquoise. Pale, greyed pastels – dusty pink, beige-lilac, washed-out sage – tend to leave brown skin looking dull rather than calm.
- Your skin will not settle warm or cool for you, so test it: in daylight, hold gold and then silver, ivory and then pure white near your face. If gold and ivory win, start with mahogany, deep pumpkin, warm gold and rich teal from Deep Autumn; if silver and white win, try deep sapphire, emerald and deep magenta from Deep Winter. Then wear the metal that won.
- White makes a clean, crisp contrast with brown skin, so a white shirt is an easy win. Choose its temperature to match your side: bright ivory if you lean warm, optic white if you lean cool. The only white to skip is one that has gone grey or yellow.
- With neutrals, step clearly away from your own depth. Camel, caramel or tan knitwear at exactly the shade of your skin blurs where you end and the garment starts. Near the face go lighter – ivory, pearl grey – or deeper – navy, dark chocolate – and keep the skin-shade camel for coats and trousers.
- Then let your hair set the depth. With chestnut or black hair, bring in the deeper end: mahogany, rich teal and deep aubergine from Deep Autumn, or black cherry, royal amethyst and black from Deep Winter. With grey hair, soften instead: terracotta, muted teal and dusty denim blue from Soft Autumn.
How to find your palette
Colour analysis reads three things in your colouring: warm or cool, light or deep, clear or soft. The quiz asks about your eyes, hair and skin, looked at in a mirror by a window in daylight. It never photographs or scans your face, and the palette it finds is yours to keep.