You've taken a seasonal color analysis quiz. You know your season. Now what? Two apps keep coming up in the conversation: Palette Hunt and TruHue. They both use the 12-season color system, they both want to help you look your strongest in your natural coloring — but they solve different problems.
Here's the honest breakdown so you can decide which one fits your routine, or whether you want both.
What Palette Hunt Does Well
Palette Hunt is a fashion-focused color palette tool with a clean, visual interface. You get seasonal palettes you can explore, save, and reference when shopping for clothing. If you've ever stood in a store wondering whether a sweater is Soft Autumn or True Autumn territory, Palette Hunt gives you a palette to hold up and compare.
Not sure which season you are?
Take the free color analysis quiz — 2 minutes, no email required. Then every product in this post gets scored for your palette.
Take the Free QuizIt's designed around wardrobe decisions — which colors to reach for, which to skip, and how different seasonal palettes feel side by side. The interface is minimal and pleasant to browse, and it's a solid companion when you're building a capsule wardrobe or cleaning out your closet by color.
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What TruHue Does Differently
TruHue is a makeup product-scoring engine. Instead of showing you a palette and letting you eyeball it, TruHue scores specific products — by name, by shade, by brand — and gives you a clear verdict: YAY (great match for your season), OKAY (wearable), or NAY (clashing with your palette).
The catalog currently holds 45,175 products across 735 brands. You can scan a barcode at the drugstore, search by product name, or browse a feed of pre-scored products filtered to your season. The scoring engine analyzes four dimensions of every shade: undertone, depth, chroma, and contrast. It's not guessing from a photo — it's working from actual color data.
There's also foundation matching (a separate system that finds your skin-tone match by confidence percentage), ingredient analysis for acne-prone skin, and affiliate pricing so you can see what things actually cost.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | TruHue | Palette Hunt |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Makeup product scoring | Fashion color palettes |
| Color system | 12-season Sci/Art | Seasonal color analysis |
| Per-product scoring | ✓ YAY / OKAY / NAY | ✗ |
| Product catalog | ✓ 45,175 products, 735 brands | ✗ |
| Barcode scanning | ✓ | ✗ |
| Browser extension | ✓ Chrome + Safari | ✗ |
| Foundation matching | ✓ Confidence % | ✗ |
| Acne-safe filtering | ✓ | ✗ |
| Wardrobe / fashion palettes | ✗ | ✓ |
| Clothing recommendations | ✗ | ✓ |
| Free color quiz | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free product scoring | ✓ | N/A |
Curious what your season scores look like on real products? Take the free quiz →
Where Each App Shines
Use Palette Hunt when you're shopping for clothes
You're at Zara, you've pulled three tops off the rack, and you need a quick palette check. Palette Hunt gives you that visual reference — a set of swatches you can hold up against fabric. It's fast, intuitive, and purpose-built for wardrobe decisions.
Use TruHue when you're shopping for makeup
You're standing at the Sephora lipstick wall, or scrolling through Ulta online, and you need to know: does this exact shade of berry lip work on a Soft Summer? TruHue doesn't show you a palette and leave you guessing. It tells you — YAY, OKAY, or NAY — for that specific product, in that specific shade.
You can scan the barcode right there in the store, or use the browser extension while shopping online. The scoring engine runs across all the major categories: lipstick, blush, bronzer, eyeshadow, nail polish, and more.
The Case for Using Both
These two apps aren't competitors — they cover different territory. Palette Hunt handles the fashion side: clothing, accessories, the general palette exploration that helps you build a cohesive wardrobe. TruHue handles the makeup side: specific product verdicts, ingredient safety, foundation matching, and real-time scoring while you shop.
If you're serious about dressing and wearing makeup in your season, having both gives you coverage across your entire routine. Use Palette Hunt to pick the dress, TruHue to pick the lip color that goes with it.
What About Accuracy?
Both apps build on the seasonal color analysis framework, so the underlying theory is the same. Where they differ is in what they do with your season once you know it.
Palette Hunt gives you reference palettes — you're doing the matching visually, comparing swatches to real items. TruHue automates the matching at the product level, scoring each shade against your season using four measurable dimensions: undertone, depth, chroma, and contrast. You get a verdict, not a swatch to interpret.
Neither approach is wrong. Visual matching works well for clothing, where fabric drape and lighting matter. Automated scoring works well for makeup, where you're dealing with precise pigment colors that can be measured and compared algorithmically.
Pricing
TruHue's color analysis quiz is free. Product scanning and scoring are free. Premium features like foundation matching are available through an optional upgrade. Palette Hunt offers its own pricing model for accessing seasonal palettes and features — check their site for current plans.