Hands down the best explanation of undertones I’ve seen. Much more helpful than the “four seasons” approach.

Man, this is way better than the 12/16 color seasons system!!!

Your system is so much simpler than the 12 seasons, and easier to understand! Really inclusive for all skin tones and ethnic back grounds, as other systems simplify all brunettes to winter. You should really have a bigger following! As a dark haired Asian, I always thought I was a winter as most colors seemed okay on me (yet fuschia turns my skin yellow). When in reality I'm a delicate warm. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge! PS Could you do a video on colors for delicate warm skin tones?

Your voice is so warm, soft and feminine ❤

From my perspective this is the best contemporary color analysis video because it pinpoints  and demonstrates the key descriptives of the four skin undertones based on cool, blue base and warm, yellow base skin tones. I feel the key to personal color analysis is knowing one's skin tone--whether cool or warm. The next determination is the degree of clarity or  chroma of a hue that is harmonious with the individual's skin tone. In this video Merriam beautifully illustrates  both cool or warm "radiant" and clear undertones that appear to sparkle; and cool or warm "delicate" and soft undertones that appear to glow. I appreciate that Merriam keys us into the profound effect color has on us with photos of celebrities illustrating that when we wear our best colors we shine, but when we wear inharmonious colors we can appear "ashy" and less radiant. Great, foundational information.

I'd like to see how your color analysis plays a part in choosing the correct shades of  makeup. Including foundation

This explains why I've struggled to pull off high-chroma cool colors and look my best in heathered and muted colors that don't make my skin look grey by comparison

Maria of Gentle Whispering ASMR recommended your video, very very interesting and informative! I made notes and feel much more confident with color choices now, thank you!

Cool and muted people seem kind of mystical in their colors for some reason

Your skin tone theory makes the most sense to me. I have always been interested in the Four season colour theory since high school but the more I studied scientific colour theory (which is actually more my field of profession) the more confused I became about all the skin tone colour theories out there. Especially since I started colour draping my colleagues who are all East Asian, just for fun, I found that although hair and eye colours  are very similar or some have different contrast between hair and skin, when you colour drape them, the best colours seem to be categorized along the axis of warm-cool and bright-muted which doesn’t quite fit the four seasons or any other more complex systems I saw. Asians have medium to dark hair and although their skin can be very pale to medium depth to sun tanned deep, the depth of their colouring  did not seem to matter as much and it makes more sense to me to categorize skin tones along the lines of hue, saturation and value because that is how a colour is defined. I have always wondered why all skin tone colour theories suddenly move away from what defines colour scientifically even though skin tone is still just another colour.

I wore a bright vermillion shirt the other day and I got so many compliments, I’ve always been very pale and thus confused about my undertone. I have bright golden honey blonde hair that has a lot of red in it, yet I’ve never known whether I was warm or cool! I’m convinced I’m warm and radiant, and I feel so good about it. Thank you Merriam ❤

Came from Maria

Brilliant video!!! It’s interesting how different stereotypes persist about depth and undertone. This was eye opening and so clever. I am Hispanic and I am immediately assumed to be warm undertoned but I am actually a cool and delicate and I determined this observing the colors that I got compliments on when wearing them. It’s a fun experiment! I never get tired of these videos😍

This is so much better colour info than The book from the seventies. I especially love how you show light and dark skin with the same tone also who's muted and whose bright.

I can see very clearly the difference in the undertone of Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett! They're around the same skin tone, but the underlying HUE is different. Thank you for making this video!!!

As someone who was always either put in the warm box just because idk I’m brunette? Or Filipino? Or put in neutral bc rlly bright warm colors look bad on me but I still prefer gold over silver so undertone has been throwing me off lately, this acknowledgment of the spectrum was rlly eye opening for me!

I think there are people who are in between radiant and delicate. I’m cool but can wear colours from both radiant and delicate but they have to be in the middle of the spectrum, too muted or too bright both aren’t right.

I know this is an old video, but I just want to say thank you! The  lineups of the different women with the same skin tone finally made it all CLICK for me for the first time ever. Until I saw them lined up like that I couldn’t understand how people whose coloring looked so different at first glance could be in the same category. But those groupings made it all so clear! And I was also able to compare my photos to those lineups and determine whether I was radiant or delicate, and it now makes so much sense to me why so many of the “deep winter” colors I’ve been wearing haven’t been quite right. Thank you, thank you!!!

Fantastic explanation.   I'm an acting/vocal coach.  I teach skin tone analysis too in clients preparing for headshots,  picking correct colors etc.   Super important.   Thanks.  I have sent my students here to watch this.