A color makes you look washed out when it misses your coloring on one of three properties: depth, clarity or temperature. Each failure leaves a different mark in the mirror, so once you can read the symptom you know what to change.
Your color season sums up all three properties at once; the Color Season Quiz finds it in a few minutes. Black is the most common color to wash people out and has its own page: why black makes some people look tired. This page covers everything else.
The three reasons
Depth (value). A color too close to your skin’s lightness leaves no edge between face and clothing. Beige, nude and camel on skin of the same depth are the classic case: the face seems to dissolve into the top. The opposite also happens. Very light pastels on deep coloring look chalky and make the skin look duller by comparison.
Clarity (chroma). Neon, electric blue or hot pink placed next to soft, blended coloring is brighter than anything in your face. The eye goes to the color, and your skin looks dull or gray beside it. The reverse is quieter but real: dusty, grayed colors on vivid, high-contrast coloring make the face look tired and flat.
Temperature. A color from the wrong side of warm and cool shows up in the skin itself. Cool, icy colors on warm skin bring out a grayish, sallow tone. Warm, golden colors on cool skin can make it look yellow, or bring out redness around the nose and cheeks.
Read the symptom
| What you see in the mirror | Likely cause | Try instead |
|---|---|---|
| Face blends into the top, features look faint | No difference in depth between skin and color | A shade or two lighter or deeper than your skin |
| Clothes look striking, face recedes and looks pale | Color too dark or too bright for you | A softer or lighter version of the same hue |
| Skin looks dull beside a vivid color | Too much chroma | The muted version: sage instead of emerald |
| Face looks flat and tired in dusty colors | Too little chroma | The clear version: emerald instead of sage |
| Gray or sallow cast | Too cool for warm skin | The warm version: coral instead of fuchsia |
| Yellowish skin, redness more visible | Too warm for cool skin | The cool version: raspberry instead of orange-red |
The palette pages make this concrete. Soft Summer, for example, lists “bright saturated color and stark black and white” as colors to avoid, while True Autumn lists “cool pinks, icy colors and pure white”. Each avoid list is one of these three failures written out for one season.
The three-fabric mirror test
In daylight, with no makeup and your hair pulled back, hold three versions of a color you suspect under your chin, one at a time: the version you own, a lighter or deeper one, and a softer or brighter one. If you can, add the same hue with the opposite temperature.
Watch the under-eye area, the corners of your mouth and the jaw, not the fabric. The right version makes those areas look even and lighter. Whichever version fixes the problem tells you which axis was off, and that tells you how to shop next time. The bright or muted guide has a fuller chroma test if that turns out to be the deciding axis.
Washed out in white?
White is two colors in practice. Pure optical white is cool and has no softness, so it suits cool, clear coloring and can make warm or soft coloring look yellowish or gray. Ivory and cream suit warm coloring; soft white works for many cool and soft seasons. If white washes you out, switch the white before you give up on it. Black and white by season lists which white goes with each season.
Pale skin is not one category
“Colors to avoid for pale skin” lists usually assume pale skin always comes with light hair and low contrast. Pale skin with light hair is often overwhelmed by black, charcoal and other very dark colors. Pale skin with dark hair and clear eyes can carry those colors well and is more likely to fade into beige, nude and dusty pastels.
Hair color sits even closer to your face than clothing, so the same three reasons apply to it. If your clothes are right and you still look washed out, read hair colors that make you look washed out.