Deep Winter Hair Color: Cool Darks and What to Skip

Depth is your leading trait. Deep Winter, also called Dark Winter, is dark, saturated and cool, so your hair works best when it matches that.

The three shades, cool dark brown, very dark brown and black, share one thing: none of them leans golden or coppery. They differ in how much weight they put around your face, and you choose by trying them, not by ranking them.

Hair also frames your Deep Winter palette. A cool dark base sits comfortably beside a cool burgundy or a midnight blue. A golden one pulls the other way, so hold a swatch near your face and watch your skin.

Dark hair doesn’t make you a Deep Winter, and lighter or red hair doesn’t close the door. What decides is how your skin takes colors with the hair covered. In my view, the skin and eyes have the last word.

Yes. A dye can’t move you to another season, because your season is read on the skin and the eyes with the hair covered.

What a dye changes is the frame. Hair sits right next to your face, and its color bounces onto your skin. Warm, earthy colors turn a Deep Winter yellow, so a golden dye is a risk. Try a cool dark shade near your face and watch your skin.

So a dye should follow the palette, even if your natural color doesn’t. Choose from cool dark brown, very dark brown or black, and avoid golden or coppery tones.

Not sure you’re a Deep Winter in the first place? The free color analysis quiz points to a likely season in about two minutes. Confirm it with colors held to a bare face, hair tied back.

Because gold sits on the warm side, and your palette is cool and crisp.

Look at your avoid list: Golden Beige, Rust, Mustard and Peach run too warm or too light, and they turn your skin yellow. Your hair advice follows the same logic: golden and coppery tones are the ones to skip. Hold a swatch near your face and watch your skin.

One trap stands out: lightening your hair with gold costs you definition.

Your contrast is high: the gap between hair, eyes and skin is part of what makes your face look so clear. Hold a swatch of any new shade against your bare face before the salon, not after.

Deep Autumn is your neighbor, and its hair includes coppery tones, mahogany and deep auburn. Coppery tones belong to that neighbor, not to you. If you can’t decide between the two, the Deep Autumn and Deep Winter comparison shows how to tell them apart.

Gray hair can lean cool or warm. That tells you nothing about your season. It only matters for how the gray looks next to your palette.

A silvery, cool gray sits well beside your cool darks. A gray that has turned yellowish pulls toward the golden tones you’re avoiding, so it deserves a look in daylight.

For highlights, follow the temperature of your base shade. Keep them cool, with a crisp edge rather than a blended haze, since your colors are saturated and your contrast is high.

Try this, or print it:

“I want a cool dark brown, very dark, close to black. No gold and no copper in it. If you add anything, keep it cool and subtle.”

If your hair is already black, you can say: “I want to keep it black, with a cool tone and no warm cast.”

Judge the result in daylight, not under a yellow bulb. The Deep Winter makeup page shows the lip and eye shades that go with the finished color.

The Deep Winter PDF guide isn’t out yet, and its waitlist is open on that page.