Part of Find Your Colors. Once you know your undertone, genres tell you how light and how intense your best colors are.
Two colors can be the same hue and still feel completely different. A powder pink and a raspberry are both pink. What separates them is how light they are and how intense they are. Color genres sort every color by those two things.
The nine color genres come from Anuschka Rees and her book Personal Color. Her system is the clearest map of color I know, and it’s worth owning. Find Personal Color at anuschkarees.com ↗
Which genres suit you?
Most people look great in two or three genres and good in a couple more. Your skin’s undertone and depth, plus the contrast of your hair and eyes, decide which. Here’s where my dyes cluster for each skin tone. Not sure of yours? Start with Find Your Colors.
- Warm skin: vivids, jewel tones, brights
- Cool skin: jewel tones, dusky shades, vivids
- Olive skin: rich shades, moderates, dusky shades
- Soft Neutral skin: dimmed tones, pale tones, pastels
Value and chroma
- Value is how light or deep a color is: light, medium or deep. More in Color Value.
- Chroma is how intense a color is: soft (grayed), medium, or clear (pure, with no gray). More in Color Chroma.
Put three values against three chromas and you get nine genres. Here’s one color, blue, in all nine.
Value runs light to deep from top to bottom. Chroma runs soft to clear from left to right. Top row: pale tones, pastels, brights. Middle row: dimmed tones, moderates, vivids. Bottom row: dusky shades, rich shades, jewel tones.
The nine color genres
| Genre | Value | Chroma | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pale Tones | Light | Soft | Light and softened. A whisper of color over a lot of light. |
| Pastels | Light | Medium | Light with gentle intensity. Clearly colored, sweet and airy. |
| Brights | Light | Clear | Light and clear. Lit from within, with no gray in it. |
| Dimmed Tones | Medium | Soft | Medium depth, softened. Color seen through a little haze. |
| Moderates | Medium | Medium | Medium depth and medium intensity. Balanced, everyday color. |
| Vivids | Medium | Clear | Medium depth at full intensity. As close to the pure hue as it gets. |
| Dusky Shades | Deep | Soft | Deep and softened. Rich color sitting on a gray base. |
| Rich Shades | Deep | Medium | Deep with medium intensity. Velvety, moody and warm-blooded. |
| Jewel Tones | Deep | Clear | Deep and clear. Saturated like a gemstone held to the light. |
Color genres in every color
Each color post has its own genre grid, so you can see which yellows, blues or browns I have in each genre, and where the gaps are.
Earthy warm colors · the home colors of Springs and Autumns
Cosmic cool colors · the home colors of Summers and Winters
Explore each genre
Open any genre to see who it suits, how to wear it and every dye in it. They’re laid out like the grid: light on top, deep below, soft on the left, clear on the right.
All 150 dyes by genre
My whole dye library sorted into the nine genres. Screenshot it as a cheat sheet.
Credit
Color genres come from Personal Color
The nine color genres come from Anuschka Rees and her book Personal Color. Her system is the clearest map of color I know, and it’s worth owning. Find Personal Color at anuschkarees.com ↗
Your next step
Book A Color Revival
Three hours to revive your whole closet in the colors that are truly yours: an in-depth color analysis, a closet edit, six pieces dash-dyed as a capsule that mixes and matches, and ten styled photos of you in it.
More joy is possible.