Tints in Clothing

Tints are the opposite of shades. You create a tint when adding white to any given color. By doing so, you increase the value of said color and you make it lighter.

Tinting a color makes it lighter and be perceived as less saturated because the apparent brightness of the color gets reduced. Tints are colors like “pink” (light red) or “mint” (light blue-green) and so on.

From white to fully saturated: all the tints of the color blue-purple.

Light colors in clothing make the person wearing them seem more open, outgoing, and friendly. They are less suited for very formal occasions and are more often used in casual settings.

It’s widely accepted, that tints are more feminine – but it doesn’t have to be that way. Men can benefit tremendously from using tints in their outfits. The signals the wearer sends by highlighting instead of darkening, can, if done correctly, make a huge difference in how he or she is perceived by others.

Using tints in an outfit, makes the wearer stand out in a group. They are most often used as accent colors in clothing but are also sometimes used as canvas colors. The latter is especially true for tints of neutral colors.

More on tints (and shades) and their meanings in clothing in this article >