Lipstick color by season

Makeup by season · all twelve · including nudes

Here is the most useful lipstick test nobody tells you about: the right red makes your teeth look whiter. That's it. Not whether you like the color, not whether it's trending – whether the skin around your mouth looks clearer and your teeth look brighter. Below is the shade family for all twelve seasons, a three-question route to yours, and an honest section about nudes, which are far harder than reds and get sold as though they were easier.

Analyze my photo – free

Three women applying lipstick side by side, each in the red for her season: a deep warm brick on deep golden-brown skin, a warm orange-based poppy on light peachy skin with copper hair, and a cool blue-based true red on medium skin with jet black hair

Why the same red looks different on everyone

Every red has a bias. Some lean blue and some lean orange, and that bias is doing almost all the work. A blue-based red next to warm skin makes the skin look slightly grey; an orange-based red next to cool skin makes it look flushed and uneven. The lipstick is behaving identically in both cases – what changes is the skin it's sitting next to.

Which is why 'is this shade nice' is the wrong question and 'what does this shade do to the skin around my mouth' is the right one. Put a lipstick on and then look at your chin and the corners of your mouth rather than your lips. That's where the answer is, every time.

Depth matters too, but less than people expect. A deep season can wear a deep berry, and a light season generally can't, but the temperature mistake is the one that actually looks wrong rather than merely strong. If you're going to get one thing right, get the temperature.

For the application side – lining, blotting, making it survive dinner – that's the how to apply lipstick guide. And if you specifically want the red question in depth, red lipstick for your skin tone goes deeper on that one shade than this page does.

Look at the skin, not the lipstick

Two reds at the same depth, one warm and one cool. The thing to practise is where your eye goes: the chin and the corners of the mouth, rather than the lips themselves. That's where a wrong temperature shows up as a slightly grey or blotchy cast.

Macro photograph of lips wearing a warm orange-based brick red lipstick, with the chin and surrounding skin visible — Warm brick red on warm skin. The skin around the mouth stays even and the lip edge looks clean.

Macro photograph of lips wearing a cool blue-based cherry red lipstick, with the chin and surrounding skin visible — Cool cherry red on cool skin. Same idea, opposite temperature – judge the skin, not the shade.

Don't know your season? Three questions

Depth, clarity, temperature, and you're in a family. That's the right resolution for lipstick – the difference between neighbouring seasons inside a family is smaller than the difference between two brands' versions of the same shade name.

01
How deep is your coloring overall?
Hair, eyes and skin together, not your skin on its own. Squint at yourself in a mirror – it helps.
02
What happens when you wear a bright, clean color?
Think a vivid emerald or a true fuchsia, right next to your face.
03
Gold or silver against your bare wrist?
Look at the skin next to the metal rather than the metal itself. One evens your skin out; the other makes it look patchy.

Your lipstick shades

Answer all three to get your shades. 0/3 so far.

Three answers gets you a family. A photo gets you the exact season, your undertone and your contrast level – plus fifteen labs on how your lipstick and base actually wear on you, which is the half a shade list can't tell you.

Analyze my photo

First look free · one photo · fifteen labs

Every season, three shades each

The full set. Start with the middle shade of your trio, which is the most wearable of each three. Shade names rather than product codes, because names carry between brands.

Light Spring

Warm Coral

Light Salmon

Soft Apricot

Warm Spring

Coral Red

Warm Poppy

Golden Red

Bright Spring

Warm Watermelon

Clear Warm Red

Bright Coral

Light Summer

Cool Rose

Raspberry

Soft Pink

Cool Summer

Cool Raspberry

Cool Berry

Soft Wine

Soft Summer

Dusty Rose

Muted Plum

Soft Raspberry

Soft Autumn

Soft Brick

Muted Russet

Dusty Tomato

Warm Autumn

Rust Red

Burnt Sienna

Warm Tomato

Deep Autumn

Brick

Terracotta

Warm Brown-Red

Bright Winter

Clear True Red

Bright Fuchsia-Red

Cool Cherry

Cool Winter

Cool Red

Cool Wine

Cool Berry

Deep Winter

True Red

Wine

Deep Berry

The nude problem

Nude is sold as the safe option and it is quietly the hardest shade in the whole category. A red is allowed to be a color; a nude has to pretend to be your mouth, which means it has to match both your depth and your undertone or it reads as concealer.

Two rules cover most of it. Your nude should be a shade or two deeper than your bare lips, not lighter – lighter is where the concealer-mouth effect comes from. And it has to share your undertone: a pink-based nude on warm skin looks ashy, and a peachy-brown nude on cool skin looks muddy.

The practical version: warm seasons want a peach-brown or caramel base, cool seasons want a rose-beige or soft mauve base, and neutral or olive skin usually does best with something that has a bit of brown in it rather than a lot of pink. If a nude makes you look like you've been unwell, it's too light, too pink, or both.

The nude problem, in two photographs

The single rule that fixes most bad nudes: go deeper than your natural lip, never lighter. Lighter is where the concealer-mouth effect comes from, and it is the reason so many people decide nude "does not suit" them.

Macro photograph of lips wearing a pale pink-beige nude lipstick lighter than the surrounding skin, making the mouth look washed out — Too light. The mouth flattens into the face and the whole thing reads as concealer rather than lipstick.

Macro photograph of lips wearing a warm caramel-brown nude lipstick two shades deeper than the surrounding skin, making the mouth look defined — Two shades deeper, and warm to match the skin. Still a nude, but now the mouth has its own edge.

Reading a lipstick before you buy it

Shop-floor lighting is designed to sell things rather than to tell you the truth. These four checks survive it.

Judge the skin, not the lips: Swatch it, then look at your chin and the corners of your mouth. If that skin looks clearer, the shade is right. If it looks slightly grey or blotchy, the temperature is wrong, regardless of how good the color looks on its own.
The teeth check: A correctly cool-leaning red makes teeth look whiter; an orange-leaning red on cool coloring makes them look yellower. It works in reverse for warm coloring, and it is the single fastest read there is.
Take it to the door: Every shop light in existence is warm, which flatters warm shades and mutes cool ones. Walk to the entrance and look at it in daylight before you commit.
Check the finish separately: Matte reads about a shade deeper and more saturated than the same color in a gloss or satin. A shade that is slightly too strong for you often works fine in a sheer finish, which is the useful workaround for a color you love and can’t quite carry.

The same red in three finishes

Identical color, three formulas. This is the lever people forget: if a shade is right on temperature but a bit much on intensity, changing the finish solves it without changing the shade.

Three lipstick bullets in identical silver tubes in the same brick red, one matte, one satin and one high gloss — Matte, satin, gloss. The matte reads deepest and most saturated, the gloss the lightest and sheerest, and all three came out of the same shade family.

“A red or pink lipstick with a blue tone or subtle amount of blue pearl can be very flattering, because it makes your eyes and teeth look whiter and brighter.”

Poppy King · Founder of Lipstick Queen

Getting your season, and what wear-testing adds

Three questions gets you a family. One photo gets you your exact season, your undertone as warm, cool, neutral or olive, and your contrast level – and contrast is the one that decides whether a full-strength lip works on you or overwhelms you.

It also maps your lips as part of the three geometry labs, which is the shape half of the question this page doesn't cover: where to line, whether to build the centre out, that sort of thing.

Then there's the part a shade list can't reach. Of the fifteen labs, most are about makeup rather than color: whether your base oxidises warm and shifts what the lipstick is sitting next to, whether the face throws flashback in photos, how your blending and transitions read, how long everything is lasting. A lipstick can be exactly right for Cool Winter and still look wrong because the base underneath it has gone orange since 9am.

One photo, and your first look is free without an account. Then swatch it and walk to a window, because the teeth test still beats everything.

Free color analysis The 12 seasons

Watch it done

Draping these two side by side, from color analysts on YouTube. Some use the “Dark” naming instead of “Deep” – same seasons.

Why that lip color does not look good on me, and how to choose for your skin tone

dear peachie

How to choose the best lipstick color for your skin

Haley Kim

Stop saying red lips do not suit me: how to find your shade

Glam Girl Gabi

Answered

How do I know if a red is warm or cool?

Hold it next to a true orange and next to a true magenta. A warm red looks closer to the orange; a cool red looks closer to the magenta. On your face, the fast version is the teeth check – the correct temperature makes your teeth look whiter and the skin around your mouth look clearer.

What lipstick suits everyone?

A mid-depth rose with a little brown in it, sometimes sold as rosewood or brick-rose, comes closest, because it sits between warm and cool. Genuine universality is a marketing claim rather than a color fact, but that family is the safest starting point and it is what the test above returns when you can't call your temperature.

Why does nude lipstick look bad on me?

Almost always because it's lighter than your natural lip, which reads as concealer rather than as your mouth. Go one or two shades deeper than your bare lips and make sure the base matches your undertone – peach-brown for warm, rose-beige for cool, and something with brown in it for neutral or olive.

Can I wear a bright lipstick if I am a muted season?

Yes, as a deliberate choice. A clear bright shade on muted coloring will be the first thing anyone notices, which is fine if that is what you want. A sheer or blotted finish is the middle path – same color, about two-thirds of the volume.

Does lipstick shade depend on skin tone or undertone?

Undertone decides the temperature, which is the part that looks wrong when you get it wrong. Depth of skin affects how much pigment reads well but matters less than people assume. Two people with very different skin depths and the same undertone will often share a lipstick happily.