Free colour analysis at home.

What you can do for free

There are four common free routes. They're worth using together, because each is good at a different part of the job.

Stylists tend to say the same thing about filters. A UK stylist interviewed by The Guardian suggested taking off make-up and fake tan and standing in natural light before trying them.⁶ An Australian colour analyst called phone filters "a bit iffy", and warned that warm-versus-cool tests struggle for the many people who aren't obviously one or the other.⁷

One UK colour-analysis business, which sells in-person sessions, tried several AI tools on a team member whose season it already knew. A popular app and a general chatbot both returned a Summer for someone it describes as clearly warm; one filter got the right family but the wrong subtype; and the filters that let you scroll palettes against your face were the most useful for spotting what didn't work.⁸ That's one person and an interested tester, so treat it as an anecdote. It matches the pattern above: comparison tools help, single verdicts wobble.

Why light is the whole game

Most home results that change from one day to the next aren't about you. They're about the light. Three things stack up.

• Daylight isn't one colour. A two-year study of 2,600 daylight measurements in Granada found its colour shifted with the sky, from typical daylight around 5,700 K to much bluer light above 9,000 K.¹ A blue-sky north window and a low winter sun are very different lamps.
• Your brain corrects, but not perfectly. We see surfaces partly "through" the light we assume is falling on them. That's why people famously disagreed about the colour of one dress in one photo.²
• Your phone corrects too, in its own way. Camera exposure and white balance are automatic choices, and testing has found them less reliable on darker skin tones.³ Even the phone's distance and angle changed measured skin colour in one study.⁴

Surroundings matter as well. In a 2026 study, the same faces were judged more or less even-toned depending on the background colour and hair colour around them.⁵ A painted wall or a bright jumper behind you is part of the test whether you mean it to be or not.

Set up a free home studio

You need about ten minutes and things you already have.

1. Pick one window and use it every time. Indirect daylight is best: face the window, but out of direct sun. Late morning to mid-afternoon is usually steadier than early or late in the day.
2. Turn off the lamps. Mixing warm bulbs with daylight gives your face two colours of light at once.
3. Neutralise the background. Stand in front of a white, grey or plain pale wall, or hang a white sheet. Avoid coloured walls and patterned curtains.
4. Wear white or light grey, or drape a white towel around your shoulders, so your own top doesn't join the test.
5. Bare skin, natural hair. No make-up, fake tan or tinted SPF. If your hair is dyed, pull it back or cover it with a white towel; recent sun counts too.
6. Put a sheet of white printer paper in shot for any photos. It gives you a quick check: if the paper looks yellow, blue or grey in one photo and not another, the light or camera changed, not you.
7. Camera hygiene. Wipe the lens. Use the standard photo mode with filters, beauty modes and portrait lighting effects off. Hold the phone straight on, at arm's length, at eye level.

Make a drape kit from your wardrobe

A drape is just a block of solid colour held under your chin. Matte fabric works best: cotton, jersey, felt or a towel. Shiny satin throws extra light onto your face.

The point is pairs. You're not looking for "a good colour"; you're looking for which of two similar colours does more. Gather a few pairs that differ in just one way:

• Pure white · cream (warmth)
• Cool grey · camel (warmth)
• Pale stone · deep wine (lightness)
• Vivid red · dusty rose-brown (chroma)

Illustrative pairs only, not a season palette.

Hold each one at the same height, look for about five seconds, then swap. Watch your skin, not the fabric: does it look more even and awake, or do shadows, redness or sallowness show up more? Then switch the order, because the first colour you see colours your judgement of the second.

We cover the full four-question method, in the right order, in What season am I?, and the warmth question in more depth in Warm or cool undertone? Here's a compact routine that puts the set-up above to work.

A 20-minute free routine

1. Light check (2 min). Photograph the white paper next to your face. If it doesn't look white-ish, move further from coloured walls or wait for steadier light.
2. Lightness and contrast (5 min). Pale versus deep pairs. Note whether light colours or deep ones look more like they belong to you.
3. Vivid versus muted (5 min). Same depth, different intensity.
4. Warmth last (5 min). Warm and cool pairs of similar depth.
5. Write it down (3 min). Which trait was clearest, which was a toss-up. Then use the decision flow to get a likely season and its neighbour, for example Deep (Dark) Autumn versus Deep (Dark) Winter.

Repeat on a different day, in the same window, before you believe it. If you get the same pair twice, you've done most of what a free colour analysis can do. If the answer keeps changing, it's usually the light, and the steps above are where to look.

Using filters and quizzes well

• Use filters to rule out, not to rule in. If a whole palette clearly fights your face in good light, that's useful. A filter's single season verdict is weaker evidence.
• Run them in your home studio, not in the bathroom at night.
• Treat quiz answers as a hypothesis. If a quiz says Warm (True) Autumn, test it against its neighbours with drapes rather than taking it at face value.
• Expect systems to disagree. A 1986 thesis comparing published colour-analysis books found "few similarities in color recommendations even among authors using the same name categories".¹² Two free tools giving different names isn't necessarily a contradiction.

When it's worth paying

Paying a consultant buys you trained eyes, controlled lighting, a full set of professional drapes and, usually, a physical swatch book. The UK studios we checked ranged from about £150 to £375. At the lower end, regional consultants listed full sessions at £150 (Bristol, at your home) and £165 (Edinburgh), and Colour Me Beautiful listed its full colour analysis from £185. House of Colour stylists listed group sessions at £235–£265 a person and individual sessions at £280–£290, with a swatch fan to take home. At the upper end, London studios listed £325 for a one-hour head-stylist session, £350 for an in-person analysis, and £375 for a half-day (that last one as reported by a London directory).¹¹ What you get varies a lot: session length, how many seasons the system uses, and whether a fan, booklet or follow-up report is included. Prices are set by each studio or stylist and change, and shorter or online options can cost less.

It's most worth it if your free results keep landing between two neighbours, if you're planning a big wardrobe spend, or if you simply enjoy the experience. It's least worth it if your free results are consistent and you mainly wanted a shortlist to shop with.

Where DayDrape fits

We're building DayDrape to be the free, measured version of this routine. Before it reads your colours, it checks your light. It takes three photos that have to agree with each other, can use a sheet of white paper as an optional reference, and measures lightness, contrast, chroma and warmth. Then it shows your season with the runner-up and the measurements behind both, so you can see why. It's still in development. At launch, the reading will be free. Pro, which adds the rest of your palette and the colour checks, is planned at £6.99 a month (renews monthly) or £44.99 a year, about £3.75 a month (renews yearly), and you can cancel any time. It's a different thing from an in-person session: an AI reading from three photos, with no stylist and no physical drapes.

Sources

This article is general styling information. Your season is a styling shortcut, not a fixed or medical fact about you. We link every source we rely on; if you spot an error, tell us and we'll correct it.