Eyeglasses For The Seasons : Autumn and Winter
March 27, 2010 by Christine Scaman · Leave a Comment
This video will show you some frame choices for a few of the Autumn and Winters.
There are 12 Seasons in Personal Colour Analysis. Those I missed will be featured in an upcoming video on Sunglasses.
You would never decorate your house by adding whatever strikes your eye at the Home Dec store. It would look and feel like living in a flea market. No calm could be found, and it looks cheap and a tad squirelly.
Like the difference between a stereo system using parts from 5 different companies, or one where every module repeats the others.
A kitchen with 7 very different appliance finishes, or one where the counters and appliances all coordinate.
A house where every room has different flooring. It feels uncomfortable and looks slightly deranged to anyone viewing it.
You see what I mean. You feel what I mean.
Walk into a house where every colour and item was chosen to work with all the others, and you stop in your tracks. A whole different energy. Like on Colin and Justin’s Home Heist, when the people walk back into their house.
For the same reason, when you decorate yourself, the effect is so much more arresting when the elements all interlock with one another, and respect the framework of the house itself.
Once you dovetail your best personal colour palette with how you use it, you will look better than your friends. This is YOU, empowered.
Jocelyn’s New Hair Colour
March 25, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 19 Comments
If you read here often, you know I’m a big proponent of looking like your real self.
There is nothing demanding a reaction , nothing saying “HEY!! Look at ME ME ME!”.
You met Joce in Jocelyn Is A Bright Winter. You saw her with more makeup than she normally wears and her hair pulled back.
How does knowing that she is a Bright Winter, from her Colour Analysis, guide us in choosing hair colour?
- No red if it’s not natural in your hair. It is terribly hard to get a real looking red from a bottle. This applies to every Season, except perhaps some Autumns where copper and auburn can be more forgiving. Shimmer, NEVER stripes.
- No heat from orange, copper, chestnut, mahogany, rust, or auburn. Those colours made her skin muddy, so why would we put them in her hat?
- Respect the natural colour. I would describe it as medium brown. Medium dark, medium warm. A colorist’s dream.
- Be very, very careful messing with the natural colour. Winter has this clear skin possibility that is unequalled in its force, but yellow smashes it to smithereens.
- This Season means that Winter is blended with a trace of Spring. If you look at the personal colour palette for the Season, there is a hint of yellow sunshine. You might not even notice it unless you were holding True Winter’s purely cool palette next to it. So don’t go putting buttercup chunks in here. We are still working predominantly in Winter’s dark realm. This feels like when the days get longer at the end of February. It is still a dark, cold, frozen time, but the sun is starting to hold a degree more warmth. Like the world feels right now, in fact.
It is a testament to Joce’s colorist that she pulled off this colour. I have never, even in a magazine, seen such a correct transformation back to natural hair colour. The half-blonde is gone. The natural colour will grow back invisibly. I still stare at it everyday. Nobody could have achieved a more flattering shade.
When it is right, hair colour can absolutely clear and perfect skin tone, just like the right drapes can.
Below are Jocelyn’s Before and After hair colour pictures. You can see how the yellow in the hair clouds the face with yellow and dulls the overall sharpness of the effect. Even the lips and whites of the eyes are too yellow. The gorgeous girl is drowned out by that yellow hair that far too many women have. The hair colour is fine in itself, but what’s the point if it’s not pretty on you? There are way more NON-blondes out there than the number of women forcing this hair colour.
Jocelyn’s hair color correction is so beautiful that it’s hard to stop looking. It harmonizes effortlessly with who she is. This is Jocelyn every day, no makeup. Fresh, young, natural, unbelievably right. Power in the best way, the subliminal way.
I’m sure that if we asked her, Joce would tell us that she feels so much more relaxed and sure of herself, finally communicating precisely what it feels like to be Jocelyn.
Matching The Swatch Book : Blue
March 21, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 8 Comments
Jelena asked a question we can all learn from:
I need some suggestions for shopping with my [Personal Color Analysis Swatch Book]. Some of the colors in the True Summer book (especially the blues) seem quite saturated and (almost) bright. When shopping, I’m always wondering how I can tell the difference between a True Summer blue versus the Winter blue and even the Spring cobalt blue??
Another question is about the cool-ish coral. I found a lot of similar colors when out shopping, but it was difficult to tell if the colors were cool enough. The artificial store lighting complicates things as well. I noticed that some of the things that were perfect matches to my Book in the store were totally wrong once I took them home and saw what it looked like under natural lighting (and the same applies to make-up colors). Do you have any suggestions for making color matching easier?
What to try:
1. Pick a few items in the store of similar color to compare, rather than just 1 item. It’s by comparison that we understand color. I learned a lot about color and textiles at Value Village because they group 20 reds, blues, etc. together, so the differences become easily apparent.
2. If there are no similarly colored items (often stores work with just a few dye lots each season), hold it against a white item, or better a white and an off-white item.
3. Look in daylight. Jelena is very right about that. Even before your PCA, you probably find that you buy something only to find it wasn’t what you thought.
4. Be sure you can return things.
5. Assume the color of the item and the swatch are NOT a match until you can convince yourself they are. For True Summer, ask yourself:
“Do I see any heat (orange, tan brown, dark brown, gold, yellow) in the color”? go through them 1 by 1. I get in a hurry, or I want to believe it’s the right color, so I make myself slow down.
Every time I listen to a dog’s heartbeat, I assume there is an abnormality till I can convince myself it is normal. I use the same approach here.
6. Flip the concept and see if you can come at it the other way. Ask yourself “does it appear less intense than it COULD?” or “could I imagine a MORE saturated version of this color?”
Instead of “is this soft?”, ask “could it be MORE pigment-rich?”
If the color COULD be MORE intense, it’s probably a soft color.
Here are the 3 closest blue matches among True Summer, Winter, and Spring.
From top, True Summer, True Winter, True Spring.
True Summer is not hard to pick out. It’s always some version of faded denim, even the darkest wash. True Summer is not necessarily obviously grayed; it is just relatively less saturated than Winter. True Summer is not dull or drab, and some of the colors have some strength to them.
When you see a highly saturated color, you usually know it. It is more common to see Winters walking around in color that is too soft because saturated color is hard to find and after a few washings, it’s softened.
Surprisingly, it’s Winter and Spring that are closest for this color. It makes sense for blue. Both are saturated Seasons. Blue is darkish at high saturation so this is one of Spring’s darker colours. The Spring is a bit yellower. On the 3 Colour Scales of Light/Dark, Warm/Cool, and Clear/Soft, we’re matching all 3 very closely.
My feeling here is that it’s too close to matter. The difference will come from the other elements of the outfit and how the person wears and combines the color.
Eyeglasses for the Seasons : Spring and Summer
March 17, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 2 Comments
When every element of your clothing, makeup, and accessories works together AND supports who YOU are, you look very attractive.
The colours should be your most perfect. It is just so beautiful to look at.
How you combine them can be consistent with how colours are combined in your person. The harmony and balance with YOU feels very relaxing to the viewer.
Your style of clothing can enhance your colours and your communication with the world. When it looks unrehearsed, you are looking amazing.
Cosmetics should be your supporting player, not steal center stage. The look you create should feel the way it feels to interact with you. Now, your appearance is really coming together. You look organized, intelligent, and uncluttered. You’re getting taken more seriously.
Glasses, jewelry, and purses should replicate your face and body shape and your clothing style. That’s called “Easy on the eyes”.
Isn’t it time that beauty look like it might have just happened that way, instead of like it took a lot work? As my friend Gina says, Lord have mercy, YES!
With 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis, the what-to-buy decisions become easy. Today, some choices for the Spring and Summer colour palette.
Matching The Swatch Book : Light Grey
March 13, 2010 by Christine Scaman · Leave a Comment
Once we isolate your place or Season in Personal Color Analysis, the next step is to look at the swatches in your Colors Book, and those of your warmer and cooler neighbors.
When we’re dealing with 12 Seasons, each with a palette of 60 unique colors, there will be some colors that are very close. Surprisingly, the difficulty is not usually between your Season and your immediate neighbors. More often, the catch will be with a more distant Season.
2 examples:
1. The excellent example of this jacket at Ann Taylor came up on the Facebook page. I took a quick look and thought “light, clear, cool = Light Summer”. An astute reader pointed out that the grey is so light that it should qualify as icy, and so a Winter color. She is completely right.
True Summer greys are easy to pick out because they’re blueish or pinkish.
Light Summer presented a learning moment, nothing I love more to deepen and sharpen our understanding.
Light Summer and True Winter are both cool Seasons. When a color, light grey in this case, is cool AND very light, AND clear, as the Spring element brings to True Summer’s dusty shades to produce the Light Summer palette… well, when does it become Winter’s icy grey?
Summer colors are pastels, which means they are not so extremely light as icy colors. (see Icy Colours And Pastels) A pastel, by definition, has more pigment and is softened with gray. This applies also to gray itself.
Light Summer left, True Winter right.
The picture above shows the closest matches from the 2 Seasons’ Colors Books. Light Summer is yellower, or less absolutely crisp and cool, but it’s subtle. Light Summer also has more pigment, more “color”.
If any of you see the faintest blue tone to the Light Summer grey, you’d be right. This is a leftover from the True Summer greys which has been partially extracted by Spring’s color clarity. Winter’s greys are made of black and white only.
Notice too that the lightest grey in the True Winter Book, basically the color of the jacket, has no similar value (or lightness) in the Light Summer. Winter’s icy colors are even lighter than the lightest colors in a Light Season.
2. The Trace of Autumn’s Brown in Soft Summer and Dark Winter could be confusing because both Seasons have a similar relative position in the order.
For these 2 Seasons, both are one Season away from a pure, cool Season (True Summer and True Winter, respectively).
Both are removed from that True Season in the same direction, meaning both blend with Autumn.
In fact, there are no similar colours in the 2 Colour Swatch Books. I’m not even putting a picture here because not one of the 60 tones is close. Soft Summer’s very low saturation and Dark Winter’s much higher saturation make the choice clear.
The lesson
Shop with your Book. Never think you’ll remember a color correctly or be able to judge it accurately.
Don’t feel overwhelmed, thinking you have to keep 12 Seasons’ worth of colors in your head. I don’t, but I never buy before checking my Book. I still put a lot of things back.
-
Let your natural colouring guide you to your most flattering clothing, makeup, and hair colour choices.12 Seasons of practical, affordable information on the styles, cosmetics, hair colour, and jewelry that each palette wears most beautifully and the comparisons you need to wear your Season perfectly!
Get daily makeup and colour updates. Join the 12 Blueprints Fan Club on Facebook! A Click on the box will take you there.
