Makeup Rules for Your Season, Decoded

Makeup is where colour analysis gets the most practical and, frankly, the most fun - because unlike a wardrobe, you can experiment with a ten-dollar lipstick instead of a 125-dollar sweatshirt (yeah, I’m looking at you, Aritzia!), and the stakes of getting it slightly wrong are refreshingly low. Here’s how your season translates to the makeup counter, category by category, in more depth than I’ve gone into before.

Foundation and base, the most important category. This is where undertone matters most of anywhere on your body, because foundation sits directly on your skin and any mismatch is glaringly obvious in a way that clothing, sitting a few inches further away, simply isn’t. Warm undertones generally need a yellow or golden-based foundation; cool undertones need pink or rosy-based; neutral undertones have the most flexibility but should still avoid anything that swings hard in either direction. The classic test: try the shade along your jawline, not your hand (the skin on your hand often has a different undertone and sun exposure history compared to your face), and check it in natural daylight, not the shop’s overhead lighting, which is almost always either too warm or too harsh to judge accurately. A correctly matched foundation should essentially disappear into your jawline with no visible line at all; if you can see a clear demarcation, that’s your sign the undertone, not just the depth, is off.

Concealer, while we’re on the subject, often needs to run slightly lighter and, for under-eye use, occasionally a touch more pink or peach than your foundation, regardless of season, simply because under-eye skin tends toward a different colour cast than the rest of the face. This is more of a universal makeup-artistry point than a season-specific one, but it trips people up constantly so it’s worth including.

Blush. Match the undertone logic, but you have more room to play than with foundation, since blush is meant to look like a flush rather than blend seamlessly. Warm seasons tend to glow in peachy, coral, or warm-rose blushes - these read as healthy and sun-kissed against warm undertones. Cool seasons tend to look most alive in true pink, berry, or mauve tones, which read as a natural flush against cooler undertones rather than the slightly orange cast a coral can take on. Soft or muted seasons generally do better with a sheer, blended-in blush rather than a high-pigment, sharply applied one, which can look like a costume rather than a flush; the goal for soft seasons is closer to “I just came in from the cold” than “I am wearing blush.”

Lipstick. This is the single easiest way to test colour theory without committing to anything, since lipstick is cheap, low-commitment, and instantly visible. Warm seasons typically suit coral, brick, warm red, and terracotta-leaning shades - anything with a golden or orange base to it. Cool seasons typically suit blue-red, berry, plum, and rosy pinks - anything with a pink or blue base to it. If you’re ever unsure whether a red is “your” red, the undertone test rule still applies: a true red has cool blue undertones, a warm red leans orange, and most people can actually tell the difference once they hold two reds side by side near their face, even without any formal training. Deep or high-contrast seasons can generally carry a bolder, more saturated lip than soft or light seasons, who often look more harmonious in a slightly more muted, blended lip colour.

Eyeshadow. This is where deeper or more muted seasons get to have the most fun, because eye colour palettes can be richer and more saturated than what works on the skin directly, since eyeshadow doesn’t interact with undertone in quite the same direct way that foundation does. Warm seasons generally glow in bronze, copper, golden-brown, and olive tones. Cool seasons generally suit taupe, plum, smoky grey, and rose-toned shadows. Clear or bright seasons can often carry more vivid, saturated eyeshadow shades - a true emerald or a saturated violet - that would overwhelm a softer season’s more gentle colouring.

Eyebrows and liner. Match these to your natural hair colour’s undertone rather than your favourite shade of brown or black, since this is one of the few makeup categories where “matching what’s already there” beats “matching your palette.” A warm-toned brow pencil on naturally ashy, cool-toned brows tends to look noticeably mismatched, regardless of what your overall season palette suggests.

Nail polish, a category I don’t think gets enough attention in most colour analysis content. The same undertone logic applies here as everywhere else, though because nails sit so far from the face, the rules relax considerably, similar to accessories. This is a good place to experiment with colours outside your core palette if you’re feeling tentative about applying the theory elsewhere first.

One last thing worth saying clearly: none of this is about restriction. If a colour outside your “official” palette makes you feel fantastic, wear it. These guidelines exist to help you understand why certain colours read as more harmonious, not to police your makeup bag with some sort of colour-analysis morality. Confidence is its own undertone, and it photographs beautifully on everyone, regardless of what’s technically “correct” for your season on any given day.

A practical approach to transitioning your existing makeup bag, rather than replacing it overnight. Makeup is one of the more expensive categories to overhaul all at once, so I’d suggest a staged approach rather than a clean sweep. Start with foundation and concealer, since those are the highest-impact, most visible category and the one where undertone mismatch is most obvious; if you’re going to prioritise replacing anything first, prioritise this. Lipstick is the next-easiest and cheapest category to experiment in, so it’s a good second step, and a great place to actually test your season’s recommendations in real life with minimal financial risk. Blush and eyeshadow can be transitioned more gradually, simply by leaning toward your better shades the next time an existing product runs out, rather than discarding perfectly good, half-used products purely on undertone grounds. Nail polish and the more decorative end of things really don’t need to be in any rush at all.

I’d also push back on the idea that you need an entirely separate, season-specific eyeshadow palette to do this properly. Most multi-shade palettes, even ones not marketed around colour analysis at all, contain at least two or three shades that work well for any given season, simply because eyeshadow ranges are usually broad by design. The skill is less about buying new, curated products and more about learning to spot which shades within what you already own (or are already eyeing up) are doing you the most favours, and reaching for those more often.

A note on the relationship between makeup intensity and your season’s intensity, since this is a layer of nuance I skipped over in the category-by-category breakdown above. Beyond simply choosing warm versus cool shades, the saturation and richness of the makeup itself should roughly echo your season’s overall intensity. Clear and bright seasons tend to suit fully saturated, high-pigment makeup applied with confidence - a vivid, true red lip, a sharply defined cat eye - because that boldness matches the natural vividness already present in their colouring. Soft and muted seasons, by contrast, often look more harmonious in lower-saturation, more blended applications, even when using technically “correct” warm or cool shades, because a highly saturated, sharply applied look can sit at odds with their naturally gentler colouring in a way that reads as slightly costume-like rather than polished.

This is probably one of the more subtle parts of applying colour theory to makeup, and it’s the piece that’s hardest to communicate through a quiz or a quick guide rather than an in-person consultation, since it depends on actually seeing the makeup applied and assessing the overall harmony rather than just checking a hue against a chart. It’s part of why I think the makeup recommendations in a proper guide are most useful as a starting framework you then adjust through your own trial and error, rather than a rigid prescription to follow to the letter.

If there’s one habit I’d want you to walk away with from this whole post, it’s simply trying on a “correct” undertone shade next to your usual go-to before assuming the usual one is right. The comparison itself, done slowly and deliberately in good light, teaches your eye more than any written guide ever could, mine included.

And as with everything in this post, the goal isn’t a rigid new set of rules to follow anxiously every morning at the bathroom mirror. It’s to have a slightly sharper eye for why some products feel effortless on you and why others require more concealer and prayer than they should. Once you see the pattern, you really can’t unsee it, and your makeup bag gets a little easier to shop for from that point forward, one swap at a time.