Light Summer Color Palette: Every Shade With Hex Codes

Light Summer is the lightest and softest season in the cool half of the system: fair, cool colouring with low contrast that looks luminous in powder blue, lavender and dusty rose and drained by anything dark, warm or loud. This is the complete Light Summer palette from the Tone & Fit app, 38 shades with hex codes, plus the five to buy first, the colours that fight you, and the metals that suit the palette.

What defines Light Summer

Light Summer is defined by value: lightness first, then coolness. Skin, hair and eyes all sit at the light end of their ranges and close together, so the overall impression is soft and low-contrast. The undertone is cool but gently so, which puts Light Summer on the border with Light Spring, its warm sister; the difference between them is a drop of blue against a drop of gold. Chroma is medium to soft, so colours should be clear enough to read as colour, but never saturated.

The palette is a cool watercolour: powder blue, soft lavender, cool sage, dusty rose, lilac and mauve at the front, a wide band of pale midtones behind them, and neutrals built from soft white, pearl, dove grey and rose grey. Compared with Cool Summer it is a step lighter and less deep; compared with Soft Summer it is clearer and lighter. If a colour must be light and cool before it looks right on you, this is your season.

Still deciding? The Light Summer identification guide lists the seven signs to check, and the summer colour palette shows how the three Summers compare. Also called Light Cool.

All 38 Light Summer colours with hex codes

This is the Light Summer palette exactly as the Tone & Fit app stores it: 10 statement colours, 12 everyday midtones, 8 neutrals and 8 accents. Every swatch carries its hex code, so you can paste it into a shopping filter, a paint app or a moodboard. The app shows a filtered selection of these on your result screen so that no single hue family crowds out the rest.

Statement colours (10)

The ten shades that carry the season. Wear them as the main colour of an outfit.

• Powder Blue#8AAEC2
• Soft Lavender#C2A3CC
• Cool Sage#90B8A8
• Dusty Rose#D4A5A5
• Cool Teal Blue#7BAAB5
• Soft Lilac#C8B0D4
• Cool Mint Green#A8C4B8
• Soft Mauve#B0A0C0
• Cool Blue Gray#8FB8C8
• Soft Pink Mauve#D0B8C8

Everyday midtones (12)

Twelve softer versions for shirts, knits and layering. These are the workhorses.

• Light Blue Gray#B8C9D9
• Pale Lilac#D3BCE8
• Pale Sage#A7C5BD
• Pale Rose#E0B4C8
• Light Periwinkle#9BB7D4
• Light Blue#C0D1E1
• Pale Lavender#DBCAF0
• Pale Teal#AFCDC5
• Pale Pink#E8BCD0
• Soft Mint#B7D5CD
• Soft Purple Blue#D8C8E4
• Soft Cool Green#C0D8CC

Neutrals (8)

Eight anchors for trousers, coats and bags. They replace the black and white that are not in this palette.

• Soft White#E8E3DF
• Rose Grey#C8BFC4
• Dove Grey#B5B0AD
• Pearl#D6D1CE
• Cloud#EDEAE7
• Mauve Grey#CEC5CA
• Cool Stone#BBB6B3
• Mist#DCD7D4

Accents (8)

Eight deeper or brighter shades for shoes, scarves, lipstick and small doses of drama.

• Cool Blue Accent#7A93AC
• Cool Lavender Accent#B48EAD
• Cool Teal Accent#6FA8A0
• Cool Rose Accent#C48B9F
• Periwinkle Accent#8FA5C4
• Cool Sage Accent#A0C0A8
• Cool Mauve Accent#C0A0BC
• Cool Sky Accent#7AB8C8

Light Summer power shades: the five to buy first

Start with these five. They are the clearest light-cool colours in the palette and the ones the app surfaces first for Light Summer, because they match your depth instead of overwhelming it.

• Powder Blue#8AAEC2
• Soft Lavender#C2A3CC
• Dusty Rose#D4A5A5
• Cool Sage#90B8A8
• Cool Teal-Blue#7BAAB5

• Powder Blue #8AAEC2: The Light Summer colour: cool, light and soft, and the one that makes your eyes look clearest.
• Soft Lavender #C2A3CC: Purple at the exact lightness and softness that flatters delicate cool colouring.
• Dusty Rose #D4A5A5: Your pink: a little grey, a little cool, and never sugary.
• Cool Sage #90B8A8: The green that reads as fresh on you where warmer greens look muddy.
• Cool Teal-Blue #7BAAB5: Your deepest everyday colour, and still light enough not to overwhelm.

Four Light Summer outfit formulas

Light Summer is cool and light with gentle contrast, which means the outfits that work are built from colours close to each other in depth. Hard contrast, the white-shirt-and-black-trousers kind, cuts the face in a way this colouring does not support.

Read each one as base, main colour, accent. Keep the three within a few steps of each other and the whole thing looks composed.

• The signature Soft White + Powder Blue + Dusty Rose #E8E3DF #8AAEC2 #D4A5A5

  Soft white base, powder blue at the face, dusty rose accent. The two colours are the ones Light Summer is known for, and the near-white keeps it airy.

• Tonal cool Pearl + Soft Lavender + Cool Teal Blue #D6D1CE #C2A3CC #7BAAB5

  Pearl trousers, soft lavender knit, cool teal-blue accessories. A quiet outfit that still has three distinct colours in it.

• Smart and soft Cloud + Light Periwinkle + Cool Lavender Accent #EDEAE7 #9BB7D4 #B48EAD

  Cloud shirt, light periwinkle jacket, a lavender accent. Periwinkle does the navy job here without the hard edge.

• Weekend cool Rose Grey + Cool Sage + Pale Rose #C8BFC4 #90B8A8 #E0B4C8

  Rose grey base, cool sage top, pale pink accents. Sage and pink both sit in the middle of the palette, which is where this season is most comfortable.

A six-piece Light Summer capsule

Six garments, one colour each. A Light Summer capsule works on closeness rather than contrast, so the neutrals sit only a step or two away from the colours.

Buy the dove grey coat and the soft white shirt first. They set the gentleness that the rest of the palette depends on.

Light Summer colours to avoid

Depth, warmth and volume are the three problems. Black, deep brown and burgundy are far too heavy and hollow out light features. Warm colours such as vivid orange, golden mustard and coral turn cool skin pink and uneven. Highly saturated shades, even cool ones like fuchsia and electric blue, swamp soft colouring. Where you need a dark, reach for a cool mid-tone: dove grey, soft navy or a muted teal-blue.

• Black#000000
• Vivid Orange#FF4500
• Golden Mustard#DAA520
• Saddle Brown#8B4513
• Fuchsia#FF00FF

Five shades that work against Light Summer colouring

• Black: Too heavy for the lightest cool colouring; it hollows the face.
• Vivid Orange: Warm and loud; it makes light cool skin look pink and blotchy.
• Golden Mustard: Warm and strong, the opposite of everything Light Summer is.
• Saddle Brown: Warm and dark; there is no brown this deep in your palette.
• Fuchsia: Cool but far too saturated; it swamps soft, light features.

The four near misses

Light Summer near misses come in two flavours: too warm, or too strong. Both leave the face looking like it lost an argument with the clothes.

• →
  Black #000000

  The default for evening, and the fastest way to make light cool colouring look drawn. The contrast is too great for a face that has none of its own. Wear Dove Grey #B5B0AD instead.

• →
  Coral #FF7F50

  A beautiful colour that belongs to the warm seasons. On Light Summer it turns the skin pink in the wrong way and takes the softness out of the face. Wear Pale Rose #E0B4C8 instead.

• →
  Beige #F5F5DC

  The universal neutral, and it is warm. Against cool light colouring it goes muddy and takes the clarity with it. Wear Pearl #D6D1CE instead.

• →
  Burgundy #800020

  Deep, cool and apparently safe. The coolness is right; the depth is four or five steps beyond anything in this palette. Wear Cool Rose Accent #C48B9F instead.

Metals and jewellery for Light Summer

Cool, light metals. Silver and white gold are the natural choice for a cool undertone, and a satin or brushed finish suits the softness of the palette better than a mirror polish. Rose gold works too, because its pink cast sits well against cool-light skin. Yellow gold reads warm and can make skin look sallow. Pearls, moonstone and pale amethyst suit the palette better than anything dark.

Best metals: Silver, white gold, rose gold.

Sister seasons and neighbours

Light Summer borders Light Spring and Cool Summer. If you sit between two of them, wear the colours the palettes share and skip the extremes of each. The full summer palette puts all three Summer sub-seasons side by side, and the 12 colour seasons guide explains how the whole system fits together.

Frequently asked questions