Every seasonal palette comes with colours to embrace — but the colours to avoid are just as important. Wearing the wrong colours doesn't just make an outfit look off. It changes how your face reads: flattening it, adding shadows under the eyes, creating redness, or simply making you look tired.
Here's what's actually happening, and what to avoid for each season.
What "Washing Out" Actually Means
When a colour clashes with your natural colouring, it creates optical dissonance — your eye doesn't know whether to focus on you or the clothing. The result is that the fabric competes with your face rather than framing it.
Specifically, the wrong colour can:
- ✦Cast a grey or green shadow under your eyes
- ✦Pull redness to the surface in warm-toned skin
- ✦Make pale skin look translucent or ashy
- ✦Flatten the natural depth in dark skin
- ✦Highlight unevenness in the complexion that your best colours conceal
The right colour, by contrast, makes the skin look even, the eyes look brighter, and the face look more three-dimensional.
Spring: What to Avoid
Spring's palette is warm and clear. The colours to avoid are cool, muted, or very dark.
- ✦Black: Too harsh. Near the face, black creates a hard contrast that overwhelms Spring's delicate clarity. Warm-toned dark brown works; black doesn't.
- ✦Dusty, grayed tones: Muted colours (dusty mauve, greyed lavender, dirty khaki) compete with Spring's natural brightness and make the complexion look dull.
- ✦Very cool colours: Icy grey-blue, stark white, silver-toned hues — these pull cool against a warm undertone and make the skin look off.
The Spring test: If a colour makes you look like you need more sleep, it's probably too muted or cool.
Summer: What to Avoid
Summer's palette is cool and soft. The colours to avoid are warm, bright, or very heavy.
- ✦Warm earth tones: Terracotta, camel, mustard, warm brown — these fight Summer's cool undertone and create a muddy, sallow effect.
- ✦Orange: One of Summer's strongest adversaries. Even in small amounts near the face, orange clashes with cool-pink undertones.
- ✦Black and stark white: Too harsh for Summer's low-contrast, soft colouring. Charcoal, navy, and soft white work instead.
- ✦Highly saturated brights: Intense, vivid colours overwhelm Summer's gentle clarity. The brighter the colour, the more it dominates Summer's face.
The Summer test: If a colour looks like it's wearing you, it's probably too warm or too vivid.
Autumn: What to Avoid
Autumn's palette is warm and muted. The colours to avoid are cool, bright, or icy.
- ✦Cool pastels: Lavender, baby blue, icy pink — these pull cool against Autumn's warm undertone and create a grey, washed-out effect.
- ✦Black: Autumn's skin is warm and rich; black near the face creates a harsh, unflattering contrast that flattens the complexion. Deep warm browns are the better neutral.
- ✦Fuchsia and hot pink: Strongly cool-bright colours are among the worst for Autumn. They fight the undertone aggressively.
- ✦Silver jewellery: Technically not clothing, but worth noting. Silver reads cool against Autumn's warm skin and looks out of place. Gold is almost always better.
The Autumn test: If a colour makes your skin look grey or your eyes look smaller, it's likely too cool or too bright.
Winter: What to Avoid
Winter's palette is cool and clear. The colours to avoid are warm, muted, or dusty.
- ✦Warm earth tones: Camel, terracotta, warm orange, mustard — these fight Winter's cool undertone and create a muddy or yellowish cast.
- ✦Dusty, grayed tones: Muted versions of colours (dusty rose, faded teal, greyed violet) lack the clarity Winter needs and make the complexion look flat.
- ✦Cream and warm off-white: Against Winter's cool clarity, cream reads yellow. Pure white or icy white works; warm cream doesn't.
- ✦Medium, blended tones: Winters are a high-contrast type. Mid-toned, low-contrast colours disappear against Winter's strong features.
The Winter test: If a colour makes your face look muddy, tired, or older than you are, it's probably too warm or too muted.
A Practical Rule
You don't need to eliminate every off-palette colour from your wardrobe. Colours worn below the waist have far less impact on your face than colours worn at the neckline.
The critical zone is the area within about 30cm of your face — your neckline, collar, and any draping fabric. That's where your best colours will have the most impact, and where your worst colours will do the most damage.