Purple vs Violet: How to Tell Them Apart and Which Is Yours

The shade simply called Purple is dark, vivid and pink-purple in hue. That pink note sets the mood of the whole family.

Five shades share the name. From lightest to darkest: Medium Purple, Amethyst, Royal Purple, Grape and Purple. Grape is the most intense of the five, Royal Purple the least.

The hue words split them. Purple leans pink-purple. Grape and Amethyst lean violet. Royal Purple and Medium Purple lean blue.

So a “purple” sweater can sit on either side of the family, and the tag won’t tell you which. Look at the lean before you look at the depth.

Violet is dark and vivid too, with a violet hue. The five shades run from lightest to darkest: Light Violet, Warm Violet, Iris Violet, Violet and Deep Violet.

This family stretches further. Light Violet is the only light shade across both lists, and it leans blue. Iris Violet is the only very vivid one.

Deep Violet is dark but only medium in intensity, which makes it the quiet member. Warm Violet sits at medium depth, vivid, with a violet hue.

If you want a color that whispers, start with Deep Violet. If you want one that carries across a room, Iris Violet is the shade to try.

Less than you’d think. The main shade of each is dark. Both are vivid. The two weigh the same on a hanger, and there’s no gap in depth or strength to hunt for.

The gap is the lean. Purple sits in the pink-purple range, Violet in the violet range. On a face, hold each one near your chin and see which lean your skin answers to: the pink-purple of Purple or the violet of Violet.

On fabric, the gap is range. Violet has a light shade, Light Violet, and a very vivid one, Iris Violet. Purple has neither: its lightest is medium and its strongest is vivid. If you want a lighter color near your face, only the violet family offers one.

In my view, the lean matters more than the name. Two pieces sold as “purple” can be further apart than one purple and one violet.

Eight of the twelve take neither. Three take Violet only. One takes Purple only. No sub-season has both in its palette.

Deep Winter and True Winter are the clearest cases. Deep Winter is dark and True Winter is medium to dark, and both are saturated and high in contrast. Violet is in both palettes, as Deep Violet for Deep Winter and as Violet itself for True Winter. Purple stands next to those same colors, so it is close, not in.

Bright Spring has Violet close to its Bright Violet. Purple is not for you there, and Bright Violet is only a stand-in for it.

Bright Winter flips the family. Its pick is Purple, close to Magenta. Violet is not for you there, and Bright Violet is only a stand-in.

The other eight have neither. Soft Autumn is very soft and desaturated, and its closest palette color is Soft Eggplant. Deep Autumn is dark, rich and intense, and its closest is Eggplant.

Soft Summer stands in with Soft Plum for Purple and Grayed Navy for Violet. Cool Summer uses Light Plum and Navy. These are stand-ins, not matches. Wear them by your face.

The home test takes one sentence: sit by a window with a bare face, hold one color under your chin at a time, and follow the setup in color draping at home.

Purple has six partners: cream, light gray, charcoal, mustard, olive and camel. Cream and light gray are lighter than a dark purple, so they give it room. Charcoal stays quiet beside it. Mustard, olive and camel set it against warmer colors.

Violet has no partner listed, so choose by a rule. Pick a neutral clearly lighter or clearly quieter than the violet, so the two don’t melt into one dark block. My advice: try it against the neutrals of your own palette, on your season page.

If your sub-season takes neither, I would start with the stand-in from your palette near your face. The color itself is yours to try lower down.