For most of my twenties, I bought red lipstick the same way everyone does: I saw a shade on someone else, loved it, bought it, and then wondered why it didn’t look the same on me. Sometimes it looked a little flat. Sometimes it just looked like it was fighting my skin instead of working with it. I chalked it up to red lipstick being hit or miss and moved on.

It wasn’t until I actually understood my own color season that the pattern made sense. Every red that had ever looked slightly off was pulling in the exact opposite direction of my undertone and depth. Every red I’d reached for without thinking, the ones I kept repurchasing without really knowing why, all lived in the same lane.

What a Color Season Actually Is

A color season isn’t a personality quiz. It’s a way of describing three things about your natural coloring at once: your undertone (warm, cool, or neutral), your depth (how light or deep your coloring sits), and your contrast (how much your features stand out against your skin). Put those three together, and you land somewhere in one of four seasons: winter, summer, autumn, or spring.

Once I knew mine, I stopped buying lipstick off vibes and started buying it off the actual math.

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My Season, and What It Told Me About My Reds

I run cooler and deeper, which put me solidly in winter. That explained almost everything retroactively. The blue-based reds I’d always gravitated toward without knowing why? Built for winter coloring. The orange-leaning, coral-adjacent reds that always felt slightly wrong on me? Built for the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

I also learned something I wasn’t expecting: deeper skin tones can carry far more saturated, richly pigmented reds than I’d been giving myself credit for. I used to reach for “safer,” lighter reds, assuming that was the flattering move. It’s the opposite. The bolder and more pigmented the red, the better it actually reads against deeper skin. Muted or watered-down reds are what wash out.

The Four Seasons, in Real Terms

If you haven’t figured out yours yet, here’s roughly where each one lands:

Winter

Runs cool and deep with high contrast. True reds and blue-based reds, cherry, wine, anything with real depth, tend to look built for this group specifically.