Our Eye Album: More Beautiful Eyes
July 30, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 3 Comments
I’ll begin with a sincere thank you to everyone who contributed eye photographs. When I began looking more closely at eyes, my reaction was “How in the world have I not seen this before? Is this magic in everybody?” And you can see that it is.
The first pair of eyes is from the same person, a right and a left. Notice that the colour detail is more varied in the left eye. Our strongest eye pattern is usually on the dominant side. This person began life left-handed, changed over at some point, but has retained many left-hand dominant psychomotor tendencies.
Right eye.
Left eye.
These are the eyes of a Light Summer, so the Summer person who incorporates a smaller fraction of Spring. We see the relative absence of strong lines and designs. The random flecks of brown in the left eyes are often seen in Autumn eyes. Many people probably contain traces of other Seasons that are either not present in the skin, or not enough to shift the most perfect colour palette.
We might all have secondary Seasons and tertiary Seasons in PCA, but it can be hard enough telling colours apart with 12 Seasons. Adding more categories would render the colours impossible to tell apart, so the process loses in usability.
—-
And finally, a selection of just plain beautiful eyes and colours.
You may read about an Aztec star around the pupil of Dark Autumn eyes. As in the eye below, the colour is dark bronzed-brown hugging the pupil, with the points of a star round the edge. In some people, the points of the star are very clearly defined.
The eye below came with a story. This woman has been draped as a Cool Winter (I think that’s about like Sci\ART’s True Winter, but the systems do have differences). She doesn’t feel right in the blacks and darks. The only way to resolve this would be to drape again, staying very open to the possibility of a Summer, from the open circle round the pupil and absence of intense pattern in the iris. The gray-blue in the open circle and the yellow in the skin, and beige (not brown) lashes could suggest Light Summer.
Now, I have no idea, right? The eye seems gentle (Summer), not intense or relentless (True Winter), but I haven’t even seen the whole face in a photo, let alone IRL. Sometimes, the PCA result is correct but it takes some time, practice, comparison, and convincing to have the woman herself see it. Sometimes, the result is off because some people are just really tough to analyze. There is nothing wrong with a mistake, we all make them every day to help us learn and get stronger. An open-mind is a beautiful thing.
Each of us carries our own personal rainbow within.
Our Eye Album: Winter
July 24, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 13 Comments
Many Winter eyes.
Dark Winter
This colour appears mostly cool, not a lot of warmth in the eye. The petal shapes are undoubtedly Winter. The brow is light. The woman draped out most fantastically as a Dark Winter. One of the most amazing transformations I have seen.
Freckle colour is not useful for determining Season, but they are interesting. Below, the brown is netural (not orange), and as often happens, similar shades appear in the eye. The natural hair colour is dark cool brown with red glints in the sun. Notice the coolness of the skin – the magic of the Dark Winter, cool skin with warm effects in hair and eyes.
I put the eye below here because it feels like it belongs, though the woman has not had a PCA. There is darkness here in brow and hair, and a feeling of slight muting in the skin.
In the next photo, you see the Dark Autumn influence, the eye of the tiger. The determination in the straightness of the brow (look for it in Soft Summers too, or anywhere Autumn is found), the hint of orange-brown in the skin. This woman draped better as a Dark Winter.
Below, me.
—
True Winter
Once you stop wondering what brand of mascara this woman uses, notice the blue-whiteness of the white of the eye.
Lots of geometry, lines, patterns, usually means Winter.
Remember how Summer had that well-defined line-free ring around the pupil? Notice that in Winter, that space has lines going right to the edge of the pupil and its edges are not as clear.
Wow. Ice princess.
Below, my daughter, whose eye I’ve tried to capture for years. In every shot, the brown seems to snap to black. I had to lighten this shot so you could see anything and it’s still not easy. Many Winter people have black in the eye that comes out in Winter’s blackened colours.
—
Bright Winter
I have only one. If you had to pick between yellow and orange in the skin, which would you choose? Note that this is a man’s eye. The pigmentation in men is often more intense than in women of the same Season.
A new Bright Winter, below. Intense concentration of pigment in the hair, high contrast with the eye colour, the promise of early sun in the iris and in the overall appearance.
And another. This woman must look simply striking in her colours, with the unexpected ability of what seems a gentle colouring to balance a palette that is anything but gentle.
The eye below is as interesting as it is beautiful. The iris has certain properties that could be seen in a Light Summer eye – a space around the pupil, the hint of light beaming out from around that space – but there is drama, intensity, and darkness that would make you take a closer look for Winter. At the 10 oclock position round the pupil in the center, you can see the line pattern beginning right at the margin with the black. At 3 oclock in the iris is a petal shaped formation in the blue that is often seen in Winter. The similarity between Bright Winter and Light Summer is reasonable – both begin with a pure cool Season and both integrate the same small portion of Spring.
Our Eye Album: Autumn
July 18, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 11 Comments
Are you starting to see certain patterns repeated? And also that in every Season, there is variability in colour and line pattern?
Soft Autumn
I have to talk a little, I can’t seem to stop myself. The Soft Autumn eyes above and below, notice how the colours are soft, meaning quite greyed. There is heat round the center, but it’s not intense. It also happens to be the same colour as the freckle above and is a terrific colour for hair or highlight. Your best, most real and natural hair colour is often in your eyes, unless they’re blue, of course. Look in there and find it.
A most interesting colouring below, from a woman who knew herself to be a Neutral Season, but with her dark hair, expected a Dark Autumn result from the draping. Soft Autumn can be quite dark, but we forget because most lighten their hair. On some it looks better, but not all.
—
True Autumn
Very muted and very warm, says Autumn to me.
The eye above is True Autumn, with Dark Autumn below. They’re similar in that the heat (orange-brown) is now clustered round the pupil, an effect that gets stronger with more Winter. Though photographic conditions are different, the orange of the eye above seems hotter than the eye below. Dark Autumn is cooling off, since it contains a small portion of Winter, and the brown is more neutral.
With the orange-brown gathered near around the pupil below, this eye suggests a person whose colouring is closer to the darker side of Autumn. Compare the patterns with the top eye in this True Autumn group, which has the line-free ring that surrounds the pupil and the lighter and cooler colours, probably signifying a person closer to the lighter side of Autumn, or Soft Autumn. In both cases, the skin is still perfected by the True Autumn palette so they are both True Autumns. What seems fairly consistent among True Autumns is that the degree of contrast of the eyes relative to the entire person is medium, completely consistent with the degree of contrast in the overall swatch collection. The colours of skin/hair/eyes stand out from one another more than they do in a Summer face but less than in a Winter face where eyes are usually more intensely coloured and so seem more distinct from the face. In a True Autumn, the eyes are more part of the face. The overall appearance is fairly blended, still a medium saturation and darkness group. What sets them apart is the maximal warmth of the colours.
All the eyes above have little definition of lines and spokes in the iris. As Winter comes in, more of these lines become evident, as can be seen in the Dark Autumn section below. Notice that the hazy smudged line patterns (or near absence of them) is becoming more defined in the Dark Autumn eyes and the colour is beginning to clear.
Dark Autumn
Brown eyes exist in every Season. I love them in Autumn, the Season that perfects repeating hair and eye colour, a very magnetic combination. Brown eyes are also harder (for me) to deduce line patterns. I see the spokes of Winter coming in below. I see heat as orange over yellow, and muted over beer bottle clear (might be same colour as a beer bottle, but without the transparency you’ll see in the upcoming Bright Winter eye). The beauty of this eye colour with this skin colour is quite remarkable, as the bronze intensifies at every level of appearance. How unbelievably gorgeous are the colours Nature put in us?
The eye below belongs to a woman who has been analyzed as a Dark Autumn and a Dark Winter. These distinctions can be very tough in some people, even in when draped in person. You are seeing such improvements in both Seasons that it’s tough to decide which flaws (because those are there too) will be the deciding choices. I make my decisions based on certain parameters, but a different analyst, a different day, could come out different. Someone who straddles 2 Seasons this closely has big play in flattering colour. If I were her, I’d own both Colour Books. She has great flexibility within the boundaries of those 2 Seasons.
I gave this eye to Dark Autumn because the Winter lines and shapes are not as clearly defined as in many Winter eyes. There is still some muting of lines and colours, feels more Autumn.
Our Eye Album: Summer
July 12, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 22 Comments
The previous post, Our Eye Album: Spring, contains a few introductory notes.
Many wonderful Summer pictures. I’ve put them in Light, True, Soft Summer order. Hovering the cursor over each will give you the Season.
Summer eyes are the most predictable, unless they’re brown, in which case I find it very tough to read anything. Look for a flower or ring-shaped space around the pupil that has no lines in it. Look at the iris and notice the gentlest rippling water type lines, no definite serpentines, stars, or petal shapes. The 3rd eye from the top is an exception in that it contains a lot of lines and patterns, like a kaleidoscope.
I’m not getting all worried here that lighting and focus may not be perfect. My explanations are just fun observations. I never look in an eye before or during a PCA, because I don’t want any nagging second thoughts if eye patterns and skin don’t match. The skin absolutely is the deciding factor.
—
Light Summer
Can you see the faintest pale yellow light coming out in a ring, out in the iris?
Notice in the above eye that all the colours are soft, light, even watery, and that the skin is faintly yellow(Spring) and pink (Summer)?
Below is the eye of a 12 year old girl whom I draped 2 years ago as a True Summer, with true pure blue eyes. Yellow has come into her skin and her eye has changed dramatically. The overall colour has warmed and the yellow ring is present in the iris.
She’s presently cleanest and freshest in Light Summer, but so very close to tipping over into Light Spring. There were so many beautiful effects in Light Spring that my decision was something of a compromise. By the age of sixteen, I expect she’ll be a Spring of some sort. She’s been able to adjust her own wardrobe accordingly, as children often can. Her hair is yellow-white and has not changed.
The pair of eyes below belong to the same woman. She is a Light Summer, with True Summer as second best but lacking in the ability to refine the features or add a creamy, even-coloured quality to her skin. She wondered if seeming dark to look at, at least from her hair colour which is a darker grey, would exclude her from belonging to the Light Seasons, but she already knew the answer: No!! What matters is which colours make your skin and face the most perfect. Hair colour is only loosely tied to Season.
This pattern is fantastic. It reminds me of being underwater and looking up at the sun, especially the lower photo where the yellow seems to serpentine through the iris. In the upper eye, the sun is mostly seen in the points, arranged in a circle out in the iris. This leaves the appearance of a grey rim round the outside of the iris, a very frequent Light Summer effect, which is very striking in person and can be heightened a lot with right-coloured clothing and makeup.
The eyes have that open, line-free, very distinct floral shape round the pupil which is Summer. The ability to see some lines and the more defined geometry from 8 to 10 in the upper eye are not uncommon in Spring blends. Both contain a lot of yellow (Spring). There is some orange but it’s clear, not clouded as Autumn’s is, and it’s not uncommon to see it in Spring influenced-eyes. A Spring effect can put irregularity in the eye patterns, I find them the least predictable, maybe because I haven’t looked at enough Spring eyes. The lashes are light and have warmth. Also a fair bit of yellow and pink in the skin.
The thing that would surprise you most about the Light Summer people to whom these eyes belong is that about one third of them are dark haired. They may be iron grey or medium dark brunettes, not the stereotypic blonde and light beiges you expect. And yet, the supremely beautiful eye below is classic for Light Summer, though the woman’s hair is fairly dark brown. The overall colour is watery with lots of grey (Summer), the lines are like gentle ripples in water (Summer, not Winter’s heavy spokes and serpentines), and the faintest yellow sun is coming in as a wreath in the iris close to the pupil, to signal the Spring presence. Light Summer is the doll’s face come to life, the big, round eyes and small, beautiful mouth. The woman below is the dark-haired doll, petite face with girlish features, big eyes, smaller perfect mouth and chin. You can see Spring’s faint yellowness and youthful perfection in her skin.
Below, you can see an eye with truly exceptional colour. Not only is the blue actually a cool turquoise, you can see the yellow beams of pure sunshine coming out from the ring around the pupil. Imagine Nature giving one person so much in common with the planet of water and sunshine we live on. On its own, you might think this eye belongs to a stronger Spring. The clarity of the blue and the upward tilt of the eye would certainly feel that way. On the other hand, the skin has yellow but it has more pink. The brows are an ash brown, neither very pale nor yellow, hinting at some coolness. The face in which these eyes live is seen in the photo beneath the eye. Isn’t it amazing when it comes together? You can see a cooler skin and the incredible effect of the Light Summer blouse at repeating many of the blues in her eyes. I wonder if her eyes look more green when she wears green. I find that the Spring-type eye changes colour according to clothing more than any other.
—
True Summer
Classic True Summer, the eye above. The open space, the greyed colour, the pink skin, the medium sandy brown lashes. The camera picked up the odd orange fleck is floating around, an Autumn influence, but there is no heat in the skin.
Blue, blue eye, no apparent heat, pink skin and blood vessels. The brown around the pupil is cool greyed taupe. I don’t see any heat here.
Below, we see an eye with a lot of line pattern. This woman would probably be overwhelmed in Winter’s blackened, intense colours, but she has some darkness in her. The white of the eye is a soft white, not the intense blue white you see in the Winter Eye Album. Nonetheless, we would have to drape carefully for Winter.
The eyes below are those of a woman who draped as a True Summer. Sandy brown lashes, a soft white of the eye, and beautiful clear water effects in the iris corroborate that. What’s special is the amount of heat (meaning warm colours like golds and browns) that have found their way into the iris. Like the eye just above, there’s also a fair bit of line pattern and the lines begin just at the edge of the iris, effects seen more in Spring and Winter. As magnificent as it is, these are a lovely reminder of why we don’t do colour analysis by eye colour.
—
Soft Summer
Very muted colours, little line pattern, could be similar to the 4th Light Summer, except the skin seems greyer, not sunny.
More warmth in this eye. This woman wondered if she was a Soft Autumn, and the heat is coming in, but she drapes better in Soft Summer.
The 2 photos below go together. This very beautiful woman was recently analyzed (online) as a Soft Summer. 20 years ago, an analysis said Soft Autumn. A later PCA said a Dark Winter, but the makeup and colours felt too dark and aging. This threesome of Seasons is one of the most commonly confused. The eye supports one of the Soft Seasons. I’ve talked before about the particular facial geometry of many Soft Summers, with the delicately carved cheekbones and jawline and the very symmetric and beautifully fine-edged outline of the face. Here you see a perfect example. No other palette than Soft Summer will reveal these. In Soft Autumn colour, the edges are far less defined and the features seem blunted, not nearly as delicately clean as this.
Are you finding that Soft Summer eyes are fairly consistent? Though the ring of warmer colour right round the pupil varies from taupe to light amber, from a distance the eyes look cooler than warm – just like the person and every colour in their body. Eyes are pure magic.
Our Eye Album: Spring
July 6, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 8 Comments
No aspect of human form or colouring do I find more beautiful than eyes. The more photos I looked at, the more it seemed that such collectively splendid human truth should be compiled.
This is our family album, a celebration of the miracle of Nature’s creation. Let yourself be uplifted by the intricate simplicity of her use of colour, in our home planet as in our own body. I payed no heed to which PCA system determined Season, or how perfect the photographic conditions.
I am not attaching words except to say that eye colour and pattern are not sure guides to Season. Season, hair, and eyes come in any and every combination. As well, train yourself to look at everything in the photo. Notice the colour of skin, lashes, blood vessels, the rims of the eyelids, and the white of the eye.
A special tip of my hat to Color Me A Season founder Bernice Kentner who was first to deduce the eye colour and pattern association with Season. Her book, The Magnificent Eye, contains all the explanations you need to get started.
If you have pictures like these and know your Season, please do send them to me at christine@12blueprints.com and I will gladly add them.
Spring eyes have been a fascination to me in that they are barely ever what I expect. I cannot come up with a consistent pattern except the presence of yellow. Quite in keeping with the unpredictability of Spring. Line patterns in the iris may be very defined, to the point of crossing into Winter’s eyes. Lines radiating out from the edge of the pupil are more defined than Summer’s (often barely discernible), though less than Winter’s. There is often a lot of yellow, but not always, and not always organized as a ring in the iris. The yellow is usually yellow to strong peach, seldom an earthy orange-brown (which belongs to the Autumns), but sometimes the distinction isn’t so obvious.
Light Spring
Pure cool colours in the eye below, much more definite lines, Winter characteristics. But the skin is light yellow and so are the lashes.
See the yellow ring out in the iris?
Below, on a Summer base blue (little line detail, line-free ring around the pupil) there are brown flecks that seem Autumn, lots of yellow that’s not organized into a ring, and petal shapes that could suggest Winter. Eyes can be as misleading as helpful. They can give away too much about the real us, as we well know. The skin and lashes seem light, clear, yellow, and pink.
Notice what is so uniquely beautiful in the eye below: there are two rings of sunshine! One at the outer edge of the brown spacer round the iris and another at the outer edge of the iris, with many a sunbeam connecting the two rings. These eye photos just get better and better. The eye belongs to the very beautiful Light Spring woman in the light coral drape just under the eye. She and I both find it interesting that her facial structure resembles Louise’s in the article Louise And Stevan Are Light Springs (Light Spring eye 1 at the top belongs to Louise.) The haircolour you see is her natural colour. Her skin could not look more perfect.
—–
True Spring
True to everything else about this Season, the eye pattern are the most unpredictable. What the cameras are picking up is amazing.
—–
Bright Spring
Eye patterns can seem so confusing, but in retrospect, once you know your Season, it can be so obvious. Bright Spring … the Season that combines a lot of Spring (seen in the yellow ring out in the iris, separated by a small distance from the edge of the pupil) and a little Winter (you can see that the spoke lines begin right at the pupil edge and go out to the outer edge of the iris). This skin isn’t very yellow or warm because Winter puts a lot of red here. But there’s Spring clarity in that eye, like beach glass.
—–
-
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.
