How to Create Your Wardrobe Color Palette Without Knowing Your Color Type

One of the most common questions I receive is, “what color season am I?” Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t really need to know your seasonal color type to create your perfect capsule wardrobe color palette. Here’s why, and what to do instead to create your perfect color palette without all the cost, confusion, and restrictions of purchasing and following a professional seasonal color analysis.

Want to learn more about the 12 seasonal color types anyways? Get the Color Guides!

Problems with Seasonal Color Analysis

Confusion & Incorrect Results

It’s not uncommon for many people to become confused about their seasonal color type. In fact, the most common questions I receive on my channel are those asking for help in determining their color type. Often, women are even mis-analyzed by professionals and have reported being given multiple different results on multiple occasions. Frameworks like seasonal color analysis are supposed to make our lives easier. But more often than not I hear from women who are frustrated, confused, and don’t trust their results.

Cost

Professional color analysis services can cost hundreds of dollars, let alone the cost of purchasing new clothing to match your results. And with so many women still feeling confused or unsure of which colors work best for them even after receiving advice from a professional, it's hard to justify the price.

Restrictions & Lack of Personalization

If you’ve ever tried to determine your seasonal color type, you’ve probably had the experience of looking up a color palette example and thinking, “I don’t even like half of these colors!” Not only can this feed into the confusion around your color type, it can also create a feeling of restriction.
The truth is, some colors within a seasonal type might not look good on you, even if you technically do belong to that season. However, it can get boring when you feel like only a few colors in your seasonal palette are wearable for you.

We also have to consider personality, lifestyle, and preferences. First, let’s talk about lifestyle. In some cases, certain aspects of your lifestyle might encourage you to wear some colors and discourage you from wearing other colors. For instance, if your school or workplace has a uniform, you may be forced to wear a specific color every day. Or, if there is a dress code, you may be restricted in which colors you can wear. For example, if you work in an office with a formal business attire dress code, it may not be appropriate to wear a brightly colored suit. You may need to add certain colors to your color palette in order to accommodate these areas of your life. For example, even if black is unflattering on you, you may need to add black to your wardrobe if your work uniform must be black. Don’t worry, I’ve included some tips and tricks you can use to make almost any color work for you at the end of this post.

Next, take into account your personality and preferences. Don’t let seasonal color analysis stunt your creativity or suppress your personality. If there is a color you love wearing that doesn’t appear in your seasonal color palette, don’t be afraid to add it to your wardrobe anyways. If you have a bright and bubbly personality and you enjoy wearing bright fuschia pink, do it! Even if bright colors don’t perfectly suit your natural coloring, they can still look right at home if they match your personality. Similarly, you may like to wear a lot of black or dark colors and that’s okay too. You will always look best when wearing colors that you love because of that extra confidence that you will project out into the world.

Likewise, if there are colors in your color palette that you personally hate, remove them. Don’t feel in any way required to wear colors just because they appear in a color palette that has been supposedly prescribed to you. I would recommend removing them altogether by creating your own personalized color palette graphic. This way, you can feel a sense of visual clarity and inspiration when looking at your color palette.

Check out my extended guide on how to create your visual color palette. This guide includes everything you need to put together your own personalized color palette, broad color palettes for each seasonal color type to use as a starting point, and even more specialized capsule wardrobe examples to show how your color palette could be implemented in real life.

How to Create a Color Palette without Seasonal Color Analysis

First, Know Your Undertone

If you’re still interested in seasonal color analysis, or even if you just want to create your own color palette from scratch, the first and most important thing you need to know is your undertone. In my experience, matching your undertone family has the single biggest impact on how flattering or unflattering a color will look on you. Honestly, if you don’t want to bother creating a complex color palette for your capsule wardrobe, you can stop here. As long as you stick to your undertone family, you’ll be good to go for the vast majority of your color choices. If you’re not sure about your undertone, check out the video link below where you’ll learn how to determine your undertone in five easy steps.

RESOURCE // What is My Undertone?

Use Seasonal Color Analysis as a Starting Point

If you know your undertone, you don’t really need to go to the trouble of determining your seasonal color type. However, if you have been professionally analyzed or if you think you know your seasonal type, you can always use seasonal color analysis as a starting point for your capsule wardrobe color palette. Remove colors you don’t like and add the ones that you love that might be missing to create a visual guide for yourself. Then, edit as necessary to ensure that your color palette is cohesive and all of the colors mix and match to your satisfaction. Remember to try to stick within your undertone family, although some excursions outside of your color family might work if you can be strategic about how they are implemented.

RESOURCE // How to Find Your Best Colors According to Color Theory

Try My 5-Steps to Create Your Perfect Color Palette

And if you just don’t want to bother with seasonal color analysis whatsoever, but you still need some help in creating your perfect color palette, check out this video where you can learn my five step process to creating a color palette that perfectly aligns with your natural beauty. We don’t need someone to categorize us just to understand which colors look great on us! The basis of this method starts by understanding your natural beauty and experimenting with the clothing that you already own to physically experience which colors look best on you. And don’t forget to download the free guide so that you can easily follow along and create your visual color palette.

RESOURCE // Get Your Color Guide!

How to Wear Colors that are “Wrong” for You

Finally, let’s talk about how you can wear colors that are “wrong” for you or do not appear in your seasonal color palette. First and foremost, the bottom line is that you can really wear any color you want in any way that you want. But, if you’re looking to take your wardrobe to the next level, you may want to consider some of these tips to reduce the negative impact that less flattering colors could have on your look.

The gist of the matter is that we want to prioritize the appearance of our faces when we are trying to enhance our beauty with color. Our face is the first thing that others will focus on when interacting with us. Therefore we want the items of clothing and accessories closest to our face to be as close to our perfect color palette as possible, while items that are further away from our faces can deviate more from our perfect color palette if we want them to.

Wear Them on Your Lower Half

So, one way to incorporate colors that are “wrong” for you is to wear them on your lower half. You can also wear them as accent colors, such as a stripe or detail within a top, or accessories like bags or shoes which are typically held at the lower torso or below the waist.

Wear Accessories in Flattering Colors Near Your Face

On the other hand, if your top happens to be an unflattering color, you can wear a scarf, large earrings, headband, or other accessories near your face. As long as you are allowed to add one of these types of accessories, this is a great strategy if you’re forced to wear a certain uniform for school or work.

Pivot to a Similar Color Within Your Undertone Family

Finally, if you want to take your wardrobe to the next level, consider pivoting from a color that is “wrong” for you to a similar one that is more flattering on you. For example, if you love fuschia pink but you have a warm undertone, try swapping it for a warmer punch pink or coral with a similar level of brightness and saturation. This version of pink will flatter your warm undertone while still providing the same level of energy as fuschia. Or, if you like the edginess of black but have lighter hair and eyes, try swapping black for charcoal gray which still has the richness and edginess of black while being better suited to your lighter coloring.

I hope these tips help you to worry less about fitting into a specific seasonal color type and empower you to create your own perfect capsule wardrobe color palette! If you ever have any questions or suggestions, I would love to chat with you in the comments!

RESOURCE // Get the Color Guides!