12 Seasons: The Most Important Thing (TMIT)
December 31, 2011 by Christine Scaman
My conversations with Rachel of Truth Is Beauty always anchor down some previously floating piece of information so that I can begin using it. What’s written below, you already know but it’s not completely self-evident.
There are three dimensions or measurable properties of colour that we use for personal colour analysis:
- value – how light to dark
- hue – or heat level, how cool to warm
- saturation or chroma – a colour’s position between the most greyed version of the colour and the purest version of the colour
Your colours don’t zigzag all over the place on any of those scales. They stick to a fairly close setting. Who has colours that are extremely warm and extremely cool at once, or very clear and very muted? Nobody. We can have several positions along the value scale but there is still a logical and consistent range that is respected within each of the 12 categories. The genetic paintbrush is very organized. It decides what your settings are on the 3 scales and from there, faithfully picks the paints for your own personal colour wheel, a predictable slice through Planet Colour.
However, whatever the settings on your 3 scales, which is what decides your Season or natural colouring group, one of those matters more than the others. It’s The Most Important Thing, or TMIT, for that natural colouring to glow with their most perfect skin. Once that attribute is fixed at a certain setting, colours that respect that setting are more likely to work well for you. That setting on that scale is your TMIT. The other two scale settings matter but they are less critical.
Your TMIT setting can’t be known just by looking at you. That’s done with drapes, by knowing the Season first. Sometimes when you’re looking at photographs without seeing the person in various colours, you find yourself thinking about their TMIT. I believe Color Me Beautiful calls these Dominant Traits. They ask themselves “Of Dark, Light, Clear, Soft, Warm, or Cool, which of these is the person MOST?”, or the reverse as “Which of these is the person LEAST?”
Tricky because some people don’t really look like what they are. You might look at a woman of medium-dark complexion, quite dark brown eyes, and fairly dark brunette hair and think that she seems Dark, when in fact, she’s a Soft. Look at this gallery. What do you think about Pics 13 and 28? (As a side note, I wonder if Revlon Lip Butter in Tutti Frutti would look like Pic 15 on a True Spring. Who else could look that good in clear orange?) As you go through all the photos, try to pin down their TMITs.
The intensity of a brown-eyed True Winter can be so undeniable, especially if complexion is dark, that you think “Wow, they’re really a Dark”, when what they are most importantly to perfect their skin tone is Cool. Think about Kim Kardashian, often thought a Dark Winter. She might well be. She doesn’t have the squareness of the Selena Gomez/Salma Hayek Dark Winter jaw. In fact, her long face is more a True Winter shape. She looks terrific in B&W&red. Scroll down the photos, worth the trip in itself, till you get to her. Does she need browner colour? You could say her lips and cheeks are Dark Winter now, quite possible. The point is just that you can’t tell by looking at one photo.
This is one of the weak points of Photo PCA – you never saw it happen. Your mind can’t get completely at ease with the Season. One relative comes along and expresses doubt about your lipstick colour and you feel all unsteady again. You can’t say back to them “I thought I might be Dark Autumn too! But, oh, my dear, you should have seen how drained those colours made me look. And I learned that a Dark Autumn looks near dead in my Summer pastels (so does a Bright Spring)!”
Once your Season is known from a correct in-person draping, your TMIT is most important when you go shopping. And that’s when you’ll begin choosing and wearing your rightest makeup.
The TMITs
Light Summer: Lightness! Saturation (clearness) is low-medium. Neutral cool.
Light Spring : Lightness! “ “ medium. Neutral warm.
Lightness in a colour will help it work well for her. Her eyeshadows, suits, eyeglass frames, nail polish, and shoes are more likely to be beautiful if they’re among the lightest in the selection at the store. It doesn’t mean that every colour she wears must be light, not at all. She has her version of dark tones too, but they’re her version, to look dark on her. Nevermind that they’ll look medium or light on someone else, we’re not talking about them here. Too dark colour on a Light and oldness will happen. Dark colours are not forgiving at all, meaning that she really needs to get them right or they’re way wrong and she is subtracting from herself.
A so-smart reader asked “Since every Season has its best black, does each have its best white?” Sure, yes. The Lights will do raw cauliflower better than latte, but many could get away with latte just fine if it’s mostly milk. Just being light in value raises a colour’s odds of being pretty good. As long as the other scales, of warmth and clarity, stick near the middle, things will probably be quite ok. Once we raise the darkness level to cinnamon or nutmeg, we run into problems with aging, fatigue, and 5 oclock shadow effects and they’re not even dark colours. The woman needs to have her colour analysis swatch book to wear the best suit for her speech.
Soft Summer: Softness! Value (darkness range) is medium. Cool to neutral.
Soft Autumn: Softness! “ “ “ “ .Warm to neutral.
Another so-smart reader pointed me to Cobie Smulders. I see her as Soft Summer. Is her hair too dark for that Season? No. But notice her eyes. Yes, they’re light-medium blue, but what are they MOST? Blue or hazy ? I’d say hazy (at least in this photo). Someone might say icy. The overall impression isn’t light and it isn’t dark, it’s medium. She seems cooler than warm, but more soft than cool. Someone might say “She’s definitely mostly cool. She’s a True Winter.” Who’s right?? Who knows?? Drape the woman already, then you know.
Cobie Smulders Pictures
That white is hard on her. The white is owning the whole picture somehow, it keeps nagging at our attention. A Winter would subdue that white into behaving itself. The same woman in that great soft pine green that is pure beauty for a Soft Summer blue-green eye (we could pretend the beads are not there):
Doesn’t always work. Like that green, not every colour that would look fantastically good on a Soft Summer’s colouring is obviously grayed, though many are. Same as True Autumn can have reds and golds that are so rich and so hot, you’ll think red and gold before you think heat (but with time, you’ll come to think HOT or at least, GOLD, first).
Some Soft Summers have a brown eye that is most perfected by their red wine colour. Some, who lean towards the warm side, can have warmer greens like avocado and army in the eye. Their eye colour is incredible in Soft Summer’s medium taupes and can even look great in Soft Autumn’s greens and browns. As long as the colour stays soft and muted and they don’t try Soft Autumn’s reds, oranges, and yellows, the skin will remain beautiful. I love this effect on Soft Summer and it’s not common. You see it sometimes in Dark Winter too, the very cool skin with the very warm eye, like the last golden-green-brown leaf left before the first snowfall. The contrast looks remarkable and even better when repeated by wearing warm and cool colours from their palette together in outfits.
Dark Autumn: Darkness! Saturation is medium to fairly high. Neutral warm.
Dark Winter : Darkness! ” ” “ “ . Neutral cool.
I find most people cooler than they think they are, but are confused about how to get a little cooler with their colours without going all the way to pure cool. Demi Lovato carries darkness well. She can look Warmer&Dark and Cooler&Dark quite well as long as the Dark takes precedence.
The Warm version:
Demi Lovato Pictures
There are cool photos in her gallery. The picture she presents of herself is often cooler than warm. Below, Demi goes too cool and we lose it. She’s become cooler than she is dark. It becomes hard and uncomfortable to be with compared to the molasses cookie above. It’s that dark toasty woman that we want to get close to. We wonder how close we could get and if our intuition is right, could we be singed? Winter is coming in and even in small amounts, a vague sense of unease or jeopardy comes with it.
Demi Lovato Pictures
Bright Winter: Brightness! Value is medium to fairly dark. Neutral cool.
Bright Spring: Brightness! Value is medium, not too dark. Neutral warm.
It’s the pure colour that you should become aware of first, before Thinking Mind engages and starts chewing on “Well, let’s see, I don’t perceive greying down of the colour, it looks neutral and somewhat warm,…” Grab onto that moment before dissecting mode turns on and proloooonnnng it. Spend some time just feeling what’s happening there. Soon, you’ll have more control of it and will be able to slow down that time. Think of fresh basil or parsley. Before you get going on how cool, how dark, what enters your awareness is GREEN.
I don’t get the same feeling here:
True Summer: Coolness! Saturation is medium. Value is medium.
True Winter : Coolness! Saturation is mid to high. Value is mid to fairly dark.
Stand a True Winter next to a Dark Winter and ask someone “Who’s darker?” The TW may have dark hair, dark eyes, but if the complexion level is the same, it’s often the DW that gives the darker overall impression. They seem a little shaded, less shiny, their whites not as blinding, as if their skin were so slightly and evenly cross-hatched with a graphite pencil.
Now, if you’d said “Who’s cooler?”, the TW always seems not necessarily frost-coated like a windshield, but they’re more absolute, more hard, more definite, more clear-cut and less ambiguous. They seem cleaner. Better to ignore the hair colour a lot. Seems to me I see more variation in natural hair colour among the True Winter than any other.
I was asked recently about the difficulty True Summer has in finding shoes (and mascara) in a world of brown and black. Compromise the darkness but not the coolness. In time, you’ll insist on being more discriminating. You’ll have found yourself enough great items to give you confidence in holding out for the right shoes. You won’t need to buy stuff just to have shoes at all. Use soft blacks, navies, and cranberries. Borrow some True Winter greys. Choose textiles that mute colour. Look for medium colours like denim, teals, mauves, and taupes. It takes time for every Season to build a background wardrobe.
True Spring : Warm-ness! The kind added by pure, clear yellow, so the feeling stays warm, bright, and light in that order when you shop. Saturation is mid to fairly high. Value is medium.
True Autumn : Warm-ness! The kind added by darker, duller, richer gold. So the feeling is warm, muted, and mid-darkish when you shop. Saturation is medium. Value is medium to med-dark.
I find these the most difficult people to decide their TMIT just by looking at them or their photos.
People ask “How can I be warm and cool at once?” It depends on how warm and cool you’re talking about. You won’t see really warm and really cool colours together in one person. Nobody’s setting on the Hue scale will swerve around that much. If your inborn colours are all completely warm, you won’t contain any completely cool colours. You might be 90% warm and 10% cool, but for shopping purposes, you’re so much more warm that you would shop as though you’re 100%.
For those people whose colouring is nearer the middle on the cool-warm scale, the Neutral Season folks, they can have slightly warmer and slightly cooler versions of their best colours. “OK”, you say, “how slightly?” That question can’t be answered well with descriptions or numbers. You need to own the palette that the colour expert made for you.
So if you know TMIT, often built into the Season’s name, plus the approximate heat level, the other parameter is a fairly safe bet at medium. Or ‘what I should worry about less’.
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Oh my! Aha moment! Christine, I simply love your writings about seasonal color, and have learned so very much from your site. But, as a light spring, I just haven’t seemed able to really feel comfortable in a lot of my clothes, even if they match up well with my LSpr color swatches.
But, ahh, today… Reading this posting I was totally enlightened: Light! Light in every sense of the word, not simply hue/tint. A lightness of feel, of fabric. So many of my “right”-colored tops are tight-woven bulky, heavy knits at this time of year, and I tend toward the darker colors of my range. The effect is that they sit on me like a lead weight.
Now I’m wondering how one dresses ‘lightly’ in the cold winter months…
Hi Christine,
I think I am on the cusp between a true autumn and a soft autumn. Over the years I have been Colour Me Beautiful analysed as a light spring (on one occasion in 1987), an autumn (prior to seasonal ‘flows’ in 1988) by another CMB analyst, a soft autumn by 2 CMB analysts (in the early 90s) and finally a warm autumn by a House of Colour analyst 10 years ago. The clothing colours I am happiest with fall into the warm autumn category …I can wear oranges and rusts and reds etc and look fab. I also look good in the warmer, soft autumn colours. However, I don’t look good in the overly very orangey make up tones/hair colours..I need blushers which are subtely warm and warm pinks/raisins look better than oranges and peaches. The Revlon foundation you mentioned for most true autumns was too yellow. I am a neutral/creamy complexion with red flushed undertones and a small number of golden freckles in the summer.
I am exploring all this because I want to rejig my wardrobe and hair colour this spring. Friends prefer my hair colour dyed close to its natural dark blonde (6) with just a hint of warmth rather than anything with copper/chestnut tones which is what the hairdresser used to give me. It is apparently more flattering to my skin tones. I think it a little too dark/harsh for a warm autumn and indeed think I need to soften the effect a bir. I am puzzled about this hair colour issue!
I guess I am asking about how to know where you are vis a vis soft or warm autumn when the distinctions are subtle!
Many thanks!
I really love these articles. They help me to understand how color can work for myself and how I can work it into my wardrobe. I love the idea of finding your TMIT. It helps me see what to look for when I even look at my color swatches and to understand what works for others too. I asked my sister to explain color a little bit more in depth because I needed a lot of visuals with it. Thank goodness for picture editing programs! lol Using this entry as a jumping off point she explained things that I have been struggling with for the last few months so thank you so much.
I know that I won’t be able to duplicate ‘every’ color that exists within me through my clothing, but I’m becoming okay with that. Through all of my learning I am starting to be able to see and feel the harmony with myself and the colors I am wearing. It really is a beautiful thing and I do believe that everyone in their own way can reach a point where they find how they fit into the color world.
Now my goal is to not obsess about getting everything perfect, but to just enjoy experimenting with the learning process. I thought that finding my individual color balance would just fall into place as soon as I had my color swatches, now I understand that having the right season is just a jumping off point.
Thanks for the great articles Christine, Happy New Year, and I hope everyone finds their own jumping off point as well.
Great, beautiful writing – is book # 2 a gleam in your eye yet?
About Cobie Smulders – she looks soft to me as well. But she doesn’t have the look of “colors are all close, no big jumps between hair and skin and eyes” that you often hear about softs. What is it that makes her a soft in your mind? Would being a soft with higher than normal contrast for a soft change how she would wear her colors?
Thanks!
Deanna,
Yes, right! Light in every sense. Glasses and jewelry with lightweight hardware, lightweight buttons, light and floaty fabrics and hairstyles, not just colours. So, in heavy fabric, it can look like you’re wearing upholstery or a rug. How to manage warm clothes? Fleece is your friend. So is choosing warmth over fashion. And balance, meaning if you’re doing a heavy fabric, then do it in a light and fun colour or print or style.
Denise,
You’re right, she’s more like Kate Middleton, with more distance between her skin/hair/eyes. Why do I get Soft? Because she looks ghostly in the white – a Winter would dominate that white and make it look actually softer than they are by comparison. The person would look brighter and the white more subdued, or at least not brilliant. On Cobie, the white seems to win and she seems a little ghostly. Also, though her hair isn’t too dark, it seems too saturated. That’s chemical colour and its intense pigment deposit, but she’s lost some dustiness in her hair and it looks heavy. A Winter can take big hair colour saturation. With makeup, photography, I have no idea really though.
How she’d wear clothes might be with more distance between her lightest and darkest, or not needing to insert a medium colour block between a darker and a lighter.
Book 2? Still trying to get out from under Book 1
Kate,
The only real answer is to get properly draped, especially when the person is somewhere between 2 Seasons. Many people can figure their main Season but can have trouble with the Neutrals unless they fall dead center of the Season. If they lean cool or warm, it can be tough to sort even with the best drapes in the world. Hair colour questions are the most difficult of all and need to be addressed one woman at a time. There’s absolutely no generalizing hair colour. I’m not sure what you’re asking here “where you are vis a vis SA and TA” – did you mean how to tell them apart (which is what I answered) or something else?
Christine, Helpful comments about softs, especially about more distance between lights and darks and about chemical saturation throwing the look off – thanks. I think one reason softs are often mistyped is that we have all been socialized to believe that pale skin and dark hair is beautiful and we don’t see the “ghostly” look.
It reminds me that in the old Success with Color Charisma book (I think that’s the name of it), there’s a comment that certain wrong colors can make some women look “submissive” and it’s a look a lot of people think is good/preferred.
The paradox of course is that a real soft woman looks stronger/healthier/younger/more powerful wearing soft colors than any others.
I appreciate your helping us all think through these issues.
I love the top Cobie Smulders picture, especially the eyes, but I keep imagining how much more stunning she would look if the white dress were a cafe latte color.
I have been struggling with my DW draping of a year ago. I was draped 25 years ago between Winter & Spring by CMB (“you have a clear look”, she said), settling on Spring. Then last year I began studying the color systems again and couldn’t figure out what type of spring I might be. So I tried an on-line service (PYW, not SCI/ART) and was computer-analyzed as a SS (cool, muted and soft). I didn’t much care for the plastic swatches, and there were actually too many colors. But I thought OK, I have a lot of soft grey hair overtaking my former med/dark brunette coloring, fair slightly freckled skin, and deepish blue/green/teal soft eyes with gold/orange smudges. The cosmetics girls can never decide if I am warm or cool…Then I discovered SCI/ART – wow, a systematic approach with some theory behind it! (OK, I am an engineer…I can’t help myself!).
So off I went on a day trip to get analyzed. 1st drape: brown was better than black. From then on, many of the cooler colors were winning, but not all. The pure saturated’s were too much, the pastels too little. We decided I was not a true season, and settled in on DW. I know SOME of the DW colors are absolutely wonderful. Can’t come to grips with all of the dark purple/burgundies, but they do look better with make-up on.
Love your website and I check it frequently for articles and comments. I guess you never get too old (I’m 64) to try and look your best!
Thanks for all of your hard work and love.
This is a fascinating article and the photos are enlightening. Your point about Cobie Smulder’s hair color is well taken, Christine–it does look chemically treated because it doesn’t match her face, which does look soft and neither too dark nor too light. Pine green is clearly a wonderful color for her. A soft deep green is too heavy for me, but I love to see the color on people who wear it well. It’s both restful and life affirming.
Cobie Smulder in black and white (and without much apparent makeup):
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3794057728/nm1130627.
And here is another picture
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1777507072/nm1130627
without much makeup either.
Christine,
Many thanks! I was asking about how to tell whether I am on the cool side of a true autumn or the warm side of a soft autumn. I have been draped 6 times and the most recent lady had me down as a warm, earthy autumn (House of Colour). But she did say I was quite ‘mixed’ in terms of my characteristics. I have also had 2 drapings as a soft autumn, 1 as a light spring and 1 as an autumn (Pre all the flow stuff).
So I was just wondering if there were any test colours to help me decide finally what I am!
Kate
Inge,
GREAT photos. Beautiful rendition of S Su’s best hair, that second photo. She sure doesn’t seem Winter in those.
Kate,
You’re getting into very subtle optical effects on the face that require exactly and exclusively coloured drapes for the 2 Seasons you’re trying to compare. In fact, there’s no cool side to a True Autumn. They are all defined by their maximal heat. It’s their no-compromise point. You do sound very warm but if someone saw you as Light Spring, then SA seems more reasonable, but really, till it’s done in an organized and measured way, it can’t really be known for sure.
Christine,
I love reading your website and find it really informative. I haven’t had the opportunity (or time) to be draped, but would love to at some point in the future, as I am quite clueless about colour.
I have very dark brown eyes, almost black unless you look closely, but the other day I walked past a mirror and was amazed to notice that in sunlight, my eyes turn completely golden amber! I have never noticed this effect before, I assume its due to the sunlight.
I was wondering if this is the effect that draping and consequently wearing the correct colours would have?
Melanie,
For sure draping will bring colours out of your eyes that you didn’t know were there, and will find the colours that maximize your eye colour. Many Winter people have a lot of black in the eye and the sun brings out golden amber (my True Winter daughter, for example). Took me ages to get her photo because the eye would always revert to black. Have you looked at the 5 articles called Our Eye Album? Lots of examples.There’s also a post on How Winters Intensify Eye Colour.
Hello Christine,
I really enjoy reading your website. I am pretty sure I am a TW, as I cannot wear any kind of warm colours. Coolness is TMIT, but what about the less important think? Which is better to compromise, value or saturation?
Best,
Virginia
Virginia,
For TW who needs to compromise – TW has many value choices, lots of icy lights, mediums,and darks. Saturation just has to stay pretty high for them to look really good and right. Any kind of fading is not attractive. So I’d say value is least important.
Thank you Christine! I am now leaning more towards being a warm…. I appreciate your helpful feedback.
It is often hard to get ‘warm’ shades in decent styles ..loads of black and cool colours in our UK shops. I need to focus on warming up my wardrobe.
Kate
Christine, I really appreciate how you talk about the people who fall outside the “norm” on each season. It has helped me to pin myself down, to the degree I can without an official draping. Your description of a soft summer with avacado to army in their eye is accurate for me. I look esp good in the med taupes and a rich neutral grey brown. Both make my eyes look large and colorful and “3-D”, something “Color” colors aren’t usually able to do.
Also I figured out one reason its been hard to identify where I fit in the seasons. My coloring is soft, but my shape is extreme. Irenee would call it a combination of triangle and circle, David Kibbes would call it Soft Gamine. Basically I have an angular frame, with a soft rounded shape on top. More Clara Bow than Grace Kelly. So my prints and lines have to be a combination of sharply defined curves and lines, BUT in soft colors. Its taken me a long time to figure that out, because most sharp prints are in bold colors and most soft colors are in soft prints. I could always tell that something was working with each but it wasnt quite there. I just thought I’d share this in case it might spark something for others who are in a similar situation.
Thank you for your excellent work. I check this site daily. Liz
I wasn’t sure where to put this comment – there is a women’s apparel webshop in the UK which seems closely tied to House of Colour. They classify their colours into the four main seasons.
http://www.kettlewellcolours.co.uk
Although HoC divides people into subdivisions of seasons, it only produces 4 swatch books, for the 4 main seasons. The analyst then advises subjects individually as to which colours within these books are optimal for them.
So this is probably more helpful either for people who’ve undergone a HoC analysis, because they will have been told which colours to aim for, or for people who are True seasons. But it’s a start!
[...] You would have to use those colours that nobody else could wear as well. You need to stick close to TMIT for [...]
You said: “Many Winter people have a lot of black in the eye and the sun brings out golden amber”. This is exactly how my eyes look. People often say that they are black, and they look almost black, but I know they are in fact medium brown, looking amberish/honey in sunlight. I almost convince myself I am a sort of Spring, but may be I am a Winter, after all!
About Cobie… now I think she is a True Spring ! look at this green… (http://www.fanpop.com/spots/cobie-smulders/images/31078559/title/how-met-mother-fanart)
Could be, Lorraine. At least, she is another good example of how the Brights and the Summers can seem confusing.