Reds, oranges and yellows are warm colours, while greens, blues, violets and purples are cool colours. Also, every colour has its warmer and cooler shades. For example, a burgundy red is cooler than a bright tomato red because the former is mixed with blue and the latter is mixed with yellow. A bright turquoise is warmer than cobalt blue for similar reasons. Gold is a warm metal, and silver is a cool metal. Pewter and rose gold can often go either way.
Earth tones like burnt orange, rust, cognac, chartreuse, mustard, camel, toffee and chocolate brown are on the warm side. Earth tones like burgundy, taupe, forest green, olive, donkey and very dark brown are on the cool side. Jewel tones like amethyst, fuchsia, eggplant, magenta, jade and teal tend to be on the cool side too. Clear, crisp brights and neons skew warmer. Muddy colours with lots of grey in them are generally cool.
Neutrals like ink blue, black, charcoal grey, stone, pearl grey and optical white tend to be cool-toned. Neutrals like navy, cream, and tan tend to be warmer. Pastels are a little tricker to categorize into warm and cool tones but generally, mint, lilac, icy blue and icy pink skew cool, while peach, lemon, lime and aqua skew warm.
I bat for Team Warm Colours. I love wearing crisp and sour brights like citron, lime, apple green, tomato red, Dutch orange, shocking pink and turquoise. I enjoy wearing warm earth tones like toffee, cream, chartreuse and cognac, and pastels like melon and peach. Gold is my favourite metal. That said I also wear cool shades like black, optical white, ink blue, blush, icy blue, French blue and silver. Very occasionally, I’ll wear a cool pearl grey and olive. But for the most part, my wardrobe is about warm colours because they make my heart happy and work best against my complexion.
Over to you. Do you bat for Team Warm or Team Cool Colours? And just because it’s Thanksgiving in the US tomorrow, feel free to bat for both teams. If my clientele are anything to go by, my guess is that Team Cool Colours will win this race.
