Today I want to look at the autumn type. I did a lot of research to define the difference from the spring type in terms of skin tone. What helped me was what I found out about undertones last time:

All autumn types, no matter how different they may look, have a golden, warm undertone to their skin. This distinguishes them from the spring type, for example, whose undertones are more bluish. Otherwise, the skin of the autumn type is often pale, light pink or bronze, depending on the sunlight. The undertone of the autumn type with freckles, which are usually difficult to tan, tends to be white-pink.

THE AUTUMN TYPE IN LITERATURE

All three of us had our mother’s pale skin, reddish-blond hair, thick freckles, green eyes, and slightly oversized nose, whose ancestors were said to be Irish or Scottish, although our father never specified.

(from: Tom Finnek: Under the Ashes)

Stylistically rather simple with auxiliary verb and order, only broken up by the reference to the origin, as we have already seen in other descriptions. I’ve included it here again because it describes the fall type well in its entirety.

Her lips were a natural pink, her teeth were pearly white. When she spoke, her eyes sparkled. Slowly, he moved his eyes down her body. Everything about her shone. Even her skin. Unlike most redheads, her skin was lightly tanned and shimmering. A few tiny golden freckles dotted the narrow bridge of her nose like stardust.

(from: Sandra Paul: Hello Angels!)

The overuse of auxiliary verbs is noticeable in a negative way. All in all, however, she succeeds in creating a beautiful, warm-hearted description. I especially liked: “Everything about her glowed. Even her skin.” Here Sandra Paul shifts from character to appearance. I think I have already described elsewhere how metaphors always point beyond themselves and do not just illustrate a skin color, but also say something about the people at the same time. This example makes that very clear.

The younger man, on the other hand, could not have looked more foreign – his hair wild and dark, his eyes so brown that they seemed almost black in the twilight of the damp city wall, his face possessed a golden undertone that reminded one of hot sand and sweaty nights under orange trees.

(from: Katharina V. Haderer: The Heart in the Glass)

Haderer first names the color of the skin and then adds two comparisons. “Sand” is obvious, “sweaty nights under orange trees” is poetic. Of course, one could critically object that the color of sweaty nights cannot necessarily be described as “golden. But the orange trees pull the image out at this point. I imagine oranges glistening on the branches in the moonlight; and somehow the image is right. She could not have described the younger man and his character better.

Still, she seemed completely different to him than she had in the morning, which was because – it took Tengo a moment to notice – she had her hair tied up and pinned back. As a result, her ears and neck were now completely exposed. She had delicate pink ears that looked as if they had just been shaped and powdered with a soft tassel. They seemed to have been created for aesthetic reasons rather than for the purpose of picking up sounds. At least that’s how they looked to Tengo’s eyes. The shapely, slender neck beneath them shimmered seductively, like a fruit ripened in the sun. She was of infinite purity, made for ladybugs and morning dew.

(from: Haruki Murakami: 1Q84)

In this example by Haruki Murakami, the metaphors and similes not only say something about what is being described, but also characterize the subjective narrator. We sense Tengo’s infatuation in the description, which becomes tangible at this moment for the first time in the novel. It is not least for this reason that an underlying eroticism emanates from it. Tengo’s desire to nibble on Fukaeri is not explicitly mentioned, but it comes through.