Wearing The True Autumn Landscape
October 28, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 36 Comments
In 12 Season personal colour analysis, there are 4 main Seasons, or True Seasons, named after the 4 natural seasons. True Autumn is the homeland for the most flattering colours of the person whose natural pigmentation is made of colours that are:
- absolutely warm; even the colours we think of as cool have been warmed by comparison to their appearance in the cooler Seasons; like True Summer, True Autumn is more saturated than people think. Most folks’ ideas of True Autumn and True Summer live in the Soft Autumn and Soft Summer palettes.
- muted, but not nearly as much as the Soft Autumn; yes, True Autumn’s salsa and curry are muted compared to True Spring’s fruit punch and citrus, but we don’t think of them as grey ; we do think of Soft Autumn’s cactus as greyed; True Aututmn’s entire palette viewed at once looks like a hot glow, well beyond rosy blush; to emanate that kind of heat, we are moving away from pink and into red
- medium to dark in value; most colours are medium, few are very light, and none darken all the way to black ; the overall look needs some darkness to give the feeling of richness and depth, too much lightness looking too powdery
This series of landscape articles (True Summer, Soft Autumn, True and Bright Winter , and Bright Spring have been posted) serves as an opportunity to see ourselves with objectivity. Unless we transfer colour and clothing decision outside of ourselves, objectivity is too far to far reach for most of us, certainly for me. We are far too invested in our complexities to have any idea how we look to others.
The world is full of odd psychology, a common one being to inadvertently reward ourselves, our kids, our pets, for the very behaviour we’d like to be rid of. We want to look like our friends or like celebrities, but what if we’re imitating them and not really loving how they look? Buy a magazine aimed at your demographic and mark the pages of the women you would love to look like. How many have complicated hair? sparkly eyeliner? sparkly purple eyeliner? frosty pale lips? Is their hair and makeup like yours?
It’s also interesting that in trying to look like our friends, we end up looking less like them and more like us. All those blonde highlights out there accentuate the differences between us rather than making us more similar, which only works in your favour if yellow in hair is flattering to your skin. If you put a room full of women in the same red dress and really looked at the women and not the dress, the differences between them, meaning who looks good in that red and who doesn’t, become easy to see. What looks good on our friends doesn’t help us know what enhances us.
Finding people of similar colouring to ours to try clothes, makeup, or hair on can be very useful if that person can be found but there’s such variation of appearance among members of the same Season that our counterparts are not always available. Or, the celebrities look like the average for the Season and we don’t. Still, some retain enough of themselves to have good real world comparison value.
Keri Russell could be a True Autumn.
So could Susan Sarandon. You can see that their overall colour effect feels toasty, medium on a darkness scale, and glowy. Their natural coppery heat just looks better surrounded by warm, muted, medium dark colour. Scan their Images and decide how dark their best hair is to flatter the face. It’s fairly dark. Many True Autumns wear their hair too light (Kathie Lee Gifford) and the glow be long gone. Red hair is by no means a necessity but these women are very seldom beautiful as blondes or in ash hair tones.
We belong to our planet home at such an organic, elemental level. We each hold wondrous beauty and the divine unknown within us. We each represent a painting of a scene that we know, love, and trust, but we can’t always see the resemblance with ourselves. Like music, colour is a language that tells us information about the world we live in. Like technology or medicine, the value of the language is so much broader when we can use it to live better, happier, freer, stronger, and more connected to the people that matter to us. Oh, and live cheaper, let’s not forget that.
What’s the world feel like for the very timely True Autumn Season? In Canada now, we are given these:
Melinda feels it this way, from this photo:
I love the traditional pictures of fall leaves and sun shining softly through a canopy of colors, but for some reason these pictures just stir up something else in me that I feel so connected to.The first set of pictures, the rocks and bronze river, reach into some deep emotions for me. Warmth, intensity, passion, strength, and solidarity all come to mind. Such a range of emotions that are rooted deep in my soul.
The pictures below speak to my surface, if that makes sense. The bright vibrant trees and the gentle softness of the sun echoes an almost tangible warmth, comfort, coziness, and welcome that you just want to walk into. The leaves add a crispness that just makes you feel like dancing. Joy lives there and you can feel it.
What they all have in common:
- warmth: well, yes, we know this, but replace the word with passionate heat for this article; if your mind says greyed before it says richly glowingly warm, hand the item over to Soft Autumn.
- darkness: it’s getting darker; daylight hours are shorter; in the overall effect of an outfit, there’s still enough light to read by.
- dryness: cooler air holds less water; the grass is browner, the harvest is dry enough to bring in ; not very shiny or reflective, no sparkles.
- dustiness: the Earth is busy and dry.
- productivity, we know there’s cold on the way and we need to get our house in order, but the sun can still warm our back and make colours and faces glow.
- a sense of depth, which you’ll recreate with layers, darkness levels, and patterns
- the overriding presence of brown in every colour we see; a petunia would stick out like orange pop at a coffee shop ; Autumn is Spring, oxidized, the wine and the nectar, not the fresh-squeezed juice.
- there are no cool blued colours; the reds are not direct red, but indirectly lit as rust, muted red-orange, and browned reds; even the light seems indirect, as though it’s coming from lower down in the sky, which of course, it is.
- texture: Melinda loves several photos that are stone based and I see True Autumn that way too; the glint of metal is not here yet, not till Dark Autumn arrives, which is still not very flashy, but it’s ramping up, and ramping up more in the Dark Winter, the least flashy of the Winters, and then more as it gets colder; True Autumn can work in small metallic elements well because they look metallic but too much is too hard on a person who really isn’t.
True Autumn Clothes
- never met one who likes clingy fabric, possibly related to age
- that blue cardi in the center may be too muted, may be Soft Autumn, not warm enough for True Autumn, but I like it and I could adapt it here because of the darkness; shopping ain’t perfect; you might love an item that’s close enough; there are swatches that can look pretty similar between unrelated palettes; at the mall, make the very best match you can and know that the rest of the outfit will situate the colour into your Season; makeup may be a bit less forgiving because it’s painted right on the face
- if Winter’s fabric extreme is the scuba suit, True Autumn’s is burlap, the ultimately brown colour, the utilitarian feel
- the camel is really oranged; I like the way a turtleneck frames the face and hair and even better if it’s a great colour that distinguishes it
- coloured and textured and opaque tights should be worn, they’re good
- not quite cute enough to be cozy to me, though many people do get that feeling from these colours. I find them too hot to be that benign, but the colour heat is still comfortable, not reckless. You can touch it without being burned. In fact you can hold it as long as you want.
- about white, remember how it didn’t really fit well into Soft Autumn’s landscape? , it will add yet another 5 years here
- about black, it’s too cold to harmonize with anything, and many colours don’t get that close to black, so I hope that skirt to the left of the amber beads is chocolate; the overall darkness effect should leave enough light to read by; having said that, concessions will make shopping more fun ; if you found a perfect faux leopard short jacket and it happened to have black buttons that were not enormous and the overall effect was of rich caramel, gold, and chocolate brown, and if your hair were medium dark or more, that coat might be absolutely lovely
- red is by nature a warm colour and I love a red coat, it gets noticed and manifests the very strong lifeforce of these persons; seemingly low key, they have some of the strongest moorings I know, levelheaded and reliable as the stone we saw earlier, absolutely nothing darting, fleeting, sporadic, or flighty ; I love neutrals (black ,white, grays, beiges and greiges in the U.K. 
) a lot, but on both True Warm Seasons, I absolutely love lots of colour, personifying people that are so alive, busy and loving their life, not fussing, just getting on with it
- not the military style that suits Dark Autumn better, who is a much more straightened out, direct, vertical person, approaching Winter’s stationary vertical line (Bright Winter’s line will shift to the diagonal, Spring’s is becoming horizontal, explaining why horizontal stripes look so good to me on a Spring, and in my head, Summer’s line is horizontal wavy, like a ruffle) ; this character isn’t so “with intention” as the Dark blends, who lock onto a target; that rigidity is muted in True Autumn, as the colours are, so you have a straightforward person no doubt, but not shot out of a cannon
- what’s the theme song? It’s a steady beat, not as threatening as the Jaws movie theme, a Winter gets that, more defined contrasts and all, Dark Winter, I’m guessing. I’m looking for a steady drum, maybe Adele Rolling In The Deep? Close, but not hot enough…The Circle Of Life, maybe… heat makes molecules agitate and move faster. Thinking. Not Spring’s reggae. Hotter, darker, tribal, smoked light, uncontrolled heat (this is the part where the True Autumns say “Who me?”) Hotter than Soft Autumn’s Hot August Night. This is pretty hot,
Dhoom Again
Once Dark Autumn arrives, Winter will put the cold clamps on and there will be heat but it won’t be on such display.
- what do they drive? A Dodge Ram 1500? Too truck. Classier? Cadillac Escalade? Too flaunty. A Navigator? Better. A Jeep Wrangler Rubicon? Feels about right. Dark Autumn drives a Jag XJ. Dark Winter drives an Audi A6 Avant after they trade in their 2010 Nissan Maxima, having found an Audi that comes in Batmobile black. True Winter? Black Porsche. Bright Winter? Lamborghini with the doors that flip up. Bright Spring? A Merc E Class convertible in a smart and snappy colour. Back to our topic.
- I like the bow in the jacket at the mid-top, it’s not too ribbony, it’s solid and square in a very browned neutral; strength and femininity together are curiously magnetic, I feel
- no real pinks present; mix pink with pumpkin puree and that’s True Autumn pink, looking much better in clothes than makeup where browned colours are better unless the pink is very golden
- no pinkish reds; if you take tan leather and dye it red, that’s the cool red, maybe like a red Frye boot ; that’s the red lipstick too, like paprika, not as dark as chili powder ; I like a browner day lipstick – if Soft Autumn’s was the rosy cinnamon stick floating in the warming pot of apple cider, then True Autumn is the cider itself, and Dark Autumn is the clove
- Spring thought about peach, blossom, and candy; Autumn thinks of the jars of preserves, not the raw salad (Spring); Autumn thinks about strong, heavy, straighter now that Summer has gone, mead and liqueur, Bailey’s, Kahlua, a duller finish but lots of touch information (fur, flannel, corduroy, tweed, leather), nectar (colour is getting thicker, more opacity), the hive, the honeycomb (repetition, industry, work = functional (Spring=fun, Winter=flash, Summer=feminine); the bumblebees of the world, going about their business, these are the builders; think of blocks, bricks, order, structure, steps, strength, progress
- colours start at medium, not light; only the beiges get very light and they’re still browned, like vanilla whipped into cream, like brown buff, light wheat, light brown peach; cottage cheese is too light and mozzarella too yellow
- I find it harder to know if I have lots of golden heat when I assess a possible True Autumn colour vs. Spring, where I can always tell max yellow heat. What I look for is a bronzed brown glowing feeling, like hot copper overlay, which how the person’s skin tone looks. I want to sense abundant sultry heat, not greyness, not lukewarm, not summery, though still very hospitable, nothing hostile.
- very little blue, just one bronzed colour; the blues are quite greened because the yellow contribution harmonizes better in warm coloured outfits while cool blues don’t; I love purple with the warm hair tones, it’s unexpected and not very red because Winter isn’t here yet
- there are warmer and cooler greens; the cooler greens really are green, not teal or avocado, and a little dull, like Green Bay Packers green
- as more distance between colours on the wheel are fabulous when combined, we get a very rich cornucopia effect; profusion was Spring’s word, abundance is Autumn’s
- animal prints in small surface area supports the lifeforce without looking swallowed; Dark Autumn can balance a whole item better and same with metallics as Winter’s hardware orientation arrives; this woman isn’t that decorative and feels overdone in glitz, she’s got 1000 cookies to bake for the Cookie Exchange, is hauling the boat out of the water by herself, wants to fit a bike ride in this day, has a pie crust to roll out, and would love to hear about how you’re doing once she’s finished what she set out to do; she sure looks gorgeous with a metallic thread in a scarf, a copper glint to her lipstick, a gold or brass buckle on a belt or purse, or stripe in a shirt
- using matte and dull finishes makes the odds of getting the colour right higher automatically by creating some muting, as some of the shoes below; the green heeled sandal at the top of the Polyvore below may be too emerald but in sueded fabric, it could look like dull teal and fit into this painting
Here are the shoes, the belt, the bag, the HAIR!! (See also True Autumn’s Best Hair Colour). Warm, rich, lustrous, and brown. There is nothing faded about this palette.
She wears a purposeful watch, maybe a menswear style,
to go with solid functional bag, square like a briefcase or at least not completely slouchy,
shoes you can live a real life in,
and a necklace with weight.
Supremely business stylish, this lady is up-to-the-minute, resourceful, and lives in the present. Autumn is grown-up, self-sufficient, and mature. Her male counterpart is Indiana Jones, though they dress him as a Soft. U2′s Bono sans glasses seems True Autumnish.
Think about the quiet light and stony strength of the pyramids, not the blinding jackpot glare of El Dorado. Marketers have a much better handle on what young women want and how to sell it to them. If True Autumn has trouble finding clothes, it’s because the styles in shops are too young and her colours are often limited to brown and green. Imagination belongs everywhere.
The pieces have some weight and bulk, not Spring’s hearts and lucky charms, not Summer’s lacy water, or Winter’s hardest-substance-on-Earth jewels. To add interest, touches could be Egyptian, Bollywood, hot stone-lava, old coins, wood, jade, brass, enamel and ceramic which remind of firing and heat, and natural semi-precious stone. Even stones should be noticeably browned down. Leather looks great, strong without being hard, in Southern Comfort colours.
She can accessorize endlessly, with items from many categories at once. Scarves were made for this woman because they look textured and warm and give the impression of depth. What she does best isn’t really to accessorize, like Bright Winter who can wear jewelry on her neck, ears, and wrists, all at once. True Autumn layers.
It’s easy enough not to stumble into Dark Autumn, just keep black out. Colour can go pretty dark but you should be able to see that it’s not black in all but the dimmest lighting, and this applies equally to shoes and eyeliner.
Reptile can work if it’s quiet, not too cold and slithery. True Autumn is more plain-spoken. Dark and oily don’t belong in this brew, they look like a black panther marching up the forest path in the photo above. Panthers don’t march, they prowl. She might do crocodile, though Dark Autumn better. Snakeskin is best on Winter, but if the colour is very gentle, even a Soft Autumn can look great. The texture offering is good, it just needs adapting because of the message the wrong version can send.
Periwinkle is supposed to be an Autumn classic but it doesn’t send thrills through me. I do love the Soft Autumn in their version.
Going back through this to pick out random keywords that could define this colouring: abundant, deep as in plush, deep as in layers, medium-dark, texture, strong but not maximally hard, work, build, structure, browned, coppery, golden, matte, small to medium metallic or fur or animal element, functional, opaque, molten, rich hot glow.
Spring may be excited, but more than any other, oooee, baby, True Autumn is exciting.
Sci\ART Colour Analysis U.K. January 2012
October 25, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 1 Comment
Colour analyst Nikki Bogardus brings the Sci\ART method to London, England. As request for appts increase, Nikki is now traveling to the UK about four times a year.
The next visit is scheduled for January 19 – January 22, 2012.
Nikki is available to answer questions and schedule appts at www.mycolorrx.com
Susan Is A True Winter
October 21, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 6 Comments
Before we begin, I’d like to recognize a friend and colleague whose work I hold in the highest esteem. Lauren Battistini of Color My Closet is the Sci\ART analyst who performed Susan’s colour analysis in Houston, TX, about three weeks ago.
I’m a person who believes that our passage through this existence is just one in a chain of energy forms that we will know. The purpose of this one is to gather as many spiritual riches as possible, to weave the thickest, fullest, strongest tapestry we can in the time we have, to fill up that bank account as much as possible for the next part of the trip. It is simply amazing to see someone make a huge deposit. Susan’s PCA was one of a chain of events set into motion a few years ago, that has continued to build on itself.
So, we arrived. And because we were late, we did not waste any time jumping into it. Lauren asked me about my previous PCA experiences. I told her, and she said, “Well, I think you might be some kind of winter, but whenever I start a PCA, I throw everything I expect out the window and start like I don’t know anything about what season you might be.” Good advice for many endeavors, I would say.
The warm drape was obvious – I was NOT warm. No big surprise there. Then the neutral drape. Hmmm, not as good as I expected, but then, we started with the lightest colors, so difficult to tell. Then the lighter cool drape. I tried to be open-minded from the start and give the cool drapes a chance. Hmmm, not bad.
There were four sets of test drapes for warm, neutral and cool, and cool won out every time. By the time we got to the deepest cool, a beautiful purple, I couldn’t deny the clearing of the skin, it looked so smooth and even. Though I (and I’m sure Lauren, too) was pretty sure of the outcome by then, she still ran me through all the paces of each season, showing me how BAD the autumn drapes were, even compared to spring drapes, and how BAD the summer drapes were compared to true winter. It really wasn’t much of a contest, but I’m really, really glad I got to see the evidence with my own eyes.
After the draping, we got out my makeup. Lauren went through all the colors, and finally decided on the brightest fuschia lipstick I owned, Revlon wild orchid, for my lipstick. Bobbi Brown pale pink (not really pale, actually, quite hot in my opinion) would be the cheek color, and we used hardly any eye makeup at all, partly in the interest of time. Still wearing the grey gown, I looked at myself in the mirror. Was that me? Did we get it right? But I knew we had. I had seen it with my own eyes.
Then Lauren began draping me again with the true winter drapes and the makeup. And I’ll admit, I looked into the mirror with that lovely pine green drape and the tears came, unbidden as always, and with some measure of surprise. What was this? Why was I crying? Was it the relief of finally knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt? Or was it that as I looked in the mirror, I looked different, and as I have said before, different just looked too different to be good? After the emotional moment passed, I looked again and thought, “Who IS that woman? Is that really me?”
Well, of course it was me. I knew that. My bottom hadn’t budged from the draping chair, even when Lauren graciously offered me a water and bathroom break. No thank you, I’m good, I replied. Keep going. This is fascinating. Besides, I’d waited a long time for this experience. No breaks needed, please.
But still that face … that reflection, did not seem mine. Pale skin, practically glittering eyes, deep pink lips … that reflection possessed a combination of delicacy and radiance I certainly wasn’t familiar with. Very high contrast. Striking I could deal with, and often felt on some occasions. But delicate? Radiant? I was reminded for a moment of the makeup colors used in films to depict geisha girls, only this reflection possessed an energy and strength more vibrant than any Oriental stillness.
I couldn’t decide … was it the eyes that surprised me? Or the pale skin? Or the vivid lip color? I decided it was the eyes more than anything. I had on so very little eye makeup that my eyes felt vulnerable, center stage, almost. And even as I write this, I am reminded of a winter trait I read that true winters don’t mind being seen except when they don’t want to be 
. Very accurate, that one.
So it was the eyes that threw me, as they had others in analyzing me. Those eyes that had learned to be sensitive as a child, to read the signs around me, and act accordingly. I learned to play it safe, because being good, fitting in, being perfect = being safe (maybe). I became, underneath all that poise, the anxious child who learned early on at the appearance of negative emotion to “fall back on her safe but limited repertoire. [I] did not take chances ….and turned my back on the unknown” (Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness).
I won’t go into my history here of how these dynamics played out in later life, as daughter, wife and mother. It is interesting to me, however, to notice the times in my life I lived and felt in harmony with my TW colors vs. the times that I didn’t. Many women have written eloquently here of those stories. They are worth reading! But suffice it to say, looking back I do notice a pattern of how color mirrored my perceived expectations of how I should act and be.
And now, here I was, face to face with a woman I knew, but not in her fullness. I come from a long line of strong women, but their strength is more in what they endured and not necessarily in the strength to be their authentic selves in a consistent manner. My mother was fortunate enough to enjoy that kind of freedom in her later years. I am so proud of her for that.
I realize that sometimes we get so busy and on auto-pilot that we become vulnerable to outside expectations. We forget the power of choice is still within us. We forget the lives of intention we dreamed about as young women. We just get on that treadmill and go. (Or maybe this is just a true winter thing?)
I left my draping feeling freed yet vulnerable at the same time. I think one reason I subconsciously wanted to be DW was I felt the autumn colors would ground and empower me, as well as make me more approachable with their warmth.
I wrote to Christine that evening: Way back when we were making collages with the Style Statement book, someone mentioned the phrase ‘vulnerable strength’ in regards to mine. At the time, I was struck by the phrase but didn’t want to own it. After seeing the drapes on me today, I realize my vulnerability, that delicacy, is one of my strengths, when I allow it to be. But it is also what I have most feared … I still can’t believe that kind of delicacy can balance those strong true winter colors, but it does … there was NO denying the drapes.
Christine replied: But ultimate vulnerability and ultimate strength DEFINES True Winter. The most extreme opposites must exist at once. That’s the contrast that the colours speak of. It must have been a beautiful experience for you and a big leap towards making peace with yourself, what we’re all trying to do.
Well, I would be lying if I said I am ‘already’ totally at peace with myself and my true winter colors. In clothing, I think TW is easier for me to embrace than in the makeup, perhaps because I have always loved makeup and enjoyed using it to achieve a certain ‘look.’ I’m sure I’m not alone in this … it is the mindset, the foundation, that cosmetic sales are built on.
A template, or model, is usually helpful, at least when one is trying to visualize a season IRL. And I found one in the most unlikely of places … Christine’s mention of Elizabeth Taylor as a possible true winter. That example just clicked with me, which is odd because my husband and others are constantly telling me I look like Sela Ward, but even DH admits Sela has a hardness about her when compared to me. He says my demeanor and expressions are more like the French actress, Marion Cottilard, whom our own Rachel feels might be TW.
So, why Elizabeth? I look nothing like her, I am built very little like her, but I found in her the epitomy of extremes that define TW. If you look closely at her acting and the roles she chose, there exists the ultimate in vulnerability, and strength, and oh my goodness, the range of emotion that woman could access and display! And it was in being true to that range of emotion that she was always herself. She was vivid, radiant, even striking at times, but also, undeniably human, so she felt just a bit more accessible to us in her films than she would have otherwise. We trusted her because she was Elizabeth, always.
So, I ask the question again, Why did I cry, beyond the relief of finally KNOWING after a year and a half of WONDERING? I understand and live every day the notion that winters are about control, and oh, the relief and elation of knowing moved me. But I also felt a LOSS of control as I viewed myself, at least initially.
I knew, even before I walked into that room, that I would have a choice to make. I could fight the results, or surrender. And I had already made the choice to accept whatever the outcome might be. On reflection, I think I cried at the sheer beauty (and relative newness, at least for me) of the experience of surrendering to what was. I’ve lived long enough to know that it is only through accepting and validating what is that we can move on to what can become.
I’m not sure how this newfound sensibility of BEING true winter will impact my life with myself, my husband, my children, and others around me. I’m done with being something I’m not, whether consciously, or by habit, or to remain safe. No one really liked me that way, anyway. What’s that lovely Dr. Suess quote? “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind.”
So, as I review the pictures of myself and remember what the drapes told me, I ask, “Is all that delicacy and strength and vitality and radiance mine?” You betcha. And nothing can change that. Not to be overly dramatic – but I am a true winter after all, so here goes — it’s a part of me no one can take away. I’m feeling less than myself? I’ve got my colors to remind me who I am. Someone is messing with me? Yip, colors still there. Struggling with a problem? My colors are there to remind me of how to access my strength and creative, even joyful, solutions. We all need that tangible reminder sometimes, of the energy that is ours, that energy that is part of our unique offering to the world.
In his book, Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman wrote: In a commencement address to a Canadian girls’ school, Robertson Davies asked, “As you come up to accept your diploma, what is the word in your heart? Is it no, or is it yes? The last twenty years of my work are summed up by this question. I believe there is a word in your heart, and that this is not a sentimental fiction. I don’t really know where this word comes from, but one of my guesses is that it forms drop by drop from the words we hear from our parents. If your child hears an angry “no” at every turn, when she approaches a new situation she will be anticipating a “no,” with all the associated freezing and lack of mastery. If your child hears an abundance of “yes,” as e.e. cummings sings:
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds”
So, given all this, I choose to say yes to my colors. I say ‘yes’ to those extremes of feeling vulnerable, and being strong, and all the places in between, because it is only through acknowledging my vulnerability that I can develop compassion for myself and others, which compassion I believe to be the root of all strength. I say ‘yes’ because I CAN – yes to playful and serious, soft and strong, wise and confused, sassy and kind. I say yes to these things because they are ALL me and because the choice is mine, radiant little control freak that I am . The choice really was mine all along, but PCA provided me with an undeniable experience of seeing how I could live with more intention vs. living in the shadow of my and other’s perceived expectations. I think PCA helped me to let go of living in that shadow because my PCA so didn’t turn out how I expected. But what did materialize was even better …
Pretty Your World 12 Season Cosmetics
October 15, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 7 Comments
On New Year’s Day 2009, I ‘met’ Lora Alexander online through her blog, Pretty Your World. It wasn’t long before our love of makeup and colour had us considering a number of projects that included a book, a 12 Season makeup line, and a 12 Season line of women’s clothing. A few months into the planning, I figured I’d better get some colour analyst credentials. I discovered Sci\ART, where would we be without Google. Our philosophies took diverging paths (Lora’s practice follows the Color Me Beautiful system) and our projects fell to the wayside. I’m very happy to say that our friendship didn’t. As she and I continue to build and define the areas we love most and where our gifts lie in this field, I hope that a project we can work on together will resurface.
Lora is more generous, artistic, with a better eye for colour than you can imagine. Many of us check her blog regularly to read her most recent celebrity colour analysis and admire her taste in the outfits she puts together for the Seasons. When she loves a project, she loves it with all her heart and will give to it tirelessly. When a person pulls together a life dream, something special just happened. I was there for the early days of this dream and the makeup line that Lora is presenting today is leap years, light years, ahead of that. The quality, the beauty of the colours, the sophistication of the presentation – can you tell that I’m really proud of her? When we are all old women, our pride will come from the things we built. PYW Cosmetics is an impressive feat of building, to say the least.
For helping out with a fundraiser to launch the makeup line, Lora offered some products as thank you. I chose an all-Season eyeshadow, a neutral lipstick, and some blush and lipstick for my True and Bright Winter and Bright Spring supplies. True Winters, you’re seeing Hot Lips, Glama, and Fast Track below, right? The link to the PYW Cosmetics Color Shop is here.
(A note to distinguish neutral from Neutral: ‘neutral’ in makeup means flesh tone; ‘neutral’ in clothing means white, black, and grey ; ‘Neutral’ means a Neutral Season, those 8 that have shared colour properties between 2 True Seasons, who have warm and cool pigments in their pigmentation, and have warm and cool choices of the colours in their personal swatch book.)
What’s to love:
> the colours were exactly as expected from the verbal descriptions
> the consistency of the powders is silk; they’re of medium dryness that lasts at great colour intensity over the day without creasing
> the pigments are clean and vibrant
> the colour payoff is fabulous in a lightweight application; there’s enough colour in the lip gloss to do something, not so much in the blush that you have to be real careful, very workable and buildable in the lipsticks, and just right in the eyeshadow
> I agree with Lora’s recommendations for which colour goes with which Season; the CMB palettes are different from Sci\ART’s, but the makeup crosses over perfectly, certainly for the products I looked at
> the Compare option under each product works really well; Lora has added some Notes about which Seasons each colour would work for
> matte choices in every product!!! thanks be to Jesus, as they say on the Rock (if you live in Texas or Israel, you might not appreciate that that means Newfoundland)
> many colour options in every product
> the lipsticks are not so intense that you feel conspicuous or too colourful; bright colour often comes with too-heavy or too-opaque application, not in this case, a blessing for the Springs
> there are many options for the Dark Seasons that are not too dark, thanks be to Jesus again
> the neutral blushes and neutrals for lips will suit those who don’t favor a very colourful makeup look, prefer a more nude look, or a light lip colour
> the navigation of the site is easy; the Seasons are listed down the side, as well as the neutral blushes and lipstick choices
> the packaging just works
> all PYW cosmetics are made in Canada (except pencils, which are made in Germany), hypoallergenic, fragrance free, allergy tested, non-comedogenic, and never tested on animals!
There is no way for a website to show colour accurately, whether by showing swatches or product. It just can’t be done. The product colours are at least as good as the written descriptions. In fact, in all 6 items I looked that, they were a pleasant surprise. Lora will gladly answer any questions here, at the blog site, and will soon be adding a Contact option at the store.
I understand that more products are still to come. I completely trust they’ll be as good as those now available. Lora is as practical as any Autumn and knows what women need and what they don’t. Helping us find beautiful makeup colours that treat us as individuals, using a system designed specifically to maximize the beauty of our natural colouring, now that’s something we need.
3 Great Colours On The 12 Seasons
October 8, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 50 Comments
These are the colours that my eyes like to look at best on the 12 groups of natural colouring, what we call Seasons in personal colour analysis. The serviceable greys and browns evoke less reaction, but they’re the scaffold the colours hang from. They matter a lot, though the colours below might be more interesting to look at. They seem to translate the meaning of the person into a new language form, like you suddenly see them in three full dimensions, almost extending beyond the boundaries of their skin.
Since I hang my drapes in this order, let’s look at the colours this way:
Light Spring
- a very light yellow green
- a clear blue, not purple enough to be periwinkle
- purple, which transforms Springs into someone you’ve never seen before
- with note that the aqua-turquoises for any Spring blend are a sure thing, just like teals are no-brainers in any of the 5 Autumn blends.
True Spring
- the home of Jello colours
- every green is beautiful, but pure golden leaf green is such a proclamation of life on this planet, the interaction on True Spring colouring is phenomenal
- beige yellow, one of the hair tones, it affirms the delicacy that Spring always has in their behaviour and their face, like Joni Mitchell, so spiritual and creative and never ever over-bearing. Lovely people. In The Emmas Are True Springs Part 2, Emma 2′s face always reminds me of these qualities (and that artist).
- sunny orange red, and this is the lipstick intensity that’s needed or this person will dial less vibrant colours down to greyer and boring
Bright Spring
- intense teal
- sharp mid-dark grey, which looks elegant and interesting as can be because the person is quite colourful, so it’s intriguing when the clothes play the role of quiet counterbalance without reducing the overall thrill
- the u-tone (undertone for future ref) blued rose
Light Summer
- their marshmallow white
- violet-washed sky blue
- clear red; muted colour can be hard to show in this format; it’s the cherry Popsicle
True Summer
- swimming pool blue, a happy colour as Ashley said so well, lovely and young on this skin
- pure rose
- dark stormy sea blue is very powerful, an essential in a business suit; add the whitecaps in jewelry, like filigree silver
- with honourable mention to the undertone, forget-me-not blue
Soft Summer
- antique turquoise, try to find it in pearlescent, it is simply beautiful in fabric
- muted dark pine (the best eye colour intensifier on every single person, if this trick doesn’t work, I’ll doubt the Season)
- pale mauve, it looks very pretty with every suit, feminine without being girlie which this Season does not identify with; it takes only a mist of pigment to have enormous effect when natural colouring is very gentled with grey, colours as soothing as the person (Light Summer and Spring are not soothing, they’re more get-up-and-go, somewhere in the sunny>> jolly>> spunky>>bouncy spectrum) (now I think of it, True Summer isn’t soothing either, or not soothing to me; if Winter wants control, True Summer wants precision)
- with runners-up burgundy and pewter, both very sexy masculine on the men
Soft Autumn
- brown; I like brown on this Season best of all, not a favorite on the other Autumns, though they certainly have brown
- some form of warm willow green (can anyone think of a better name? avocado, I guess?)
- warm muted yellow, they glow in this colour and never seem to have any idea, I find it really captures my attention
True Autumn
- chili pepper red
- their very green teal
- glowing hot gold, add a metallic thread
Dark Autumn
- blackened colour is so good; sometimes, the person seems darker than a Dark Winter, whose whiter whites and pinker pinks can make them seem lighter because they’re clearer; DA has light colours but they’re hard to find, would almost need custom-dyeing ; it’s amazing to me how the colour is quite coal grey and still so intensely purple
- my favorite being the black tobacco; the dark grey brown of loose black tea is also great, makes a fabulous eyeliner
- cherrywood brown, very defining colour
Dark Winter
- battleship grey is always here, maybe because I love it, it’s the eyeshadow, it’s an essential neutral in a Season that wears them more than anyone to reduce the overall number of colour elements, and it looks real good; I’ve been thinking a lot about how the colours are made lately; interestingly, I made this one by making a balanced R-G-B-equal grey, like duct tape grey, then decided DW’s heat is Winter red and Autumn orange, but more red, so I raised that setting. So that’s interesting to some of us.
- those who read here know that saturated purple-brown-more-purple-than-brown is where my thinking of where DW’s undertone lives but undertone floats from warm to cool, depending on the position of the person in the Season. This deep currant is the warmer position. To make it in lipstick, use Lauder Mulberry Double Wear. Bite Balm in Claret is an outstanding way to brown colour without darkening it, something I spend a fair bit of time doing. This will get you to lunch, even with a cup of green tea and a client every 20 minutes.
- black-navy showcases the majesty best, but iced violet had to be here
True Winter
- it’s B and W, not B or W, and more B than W
- dark purple blue, the u-tone
- icy pink, not sure why I always like this, perhaps it insinuates the high contrast of the extreme of youth and innocence in colour on a person that is ageless and enduring, solid and hard, the extremes of dazzle and hard rock reality
Bright Winter
- sweet, funny, cute people, they need sugarplum purple
- always dimples or mischievous eyebrows (interesting, I see this more in the Spring/Winter blends, not the True and Light Spring), and BIG colour capacity, fantastic in electric blue, not too dark, hard to look away from; worn in a tank top with a white tank beneath, it looks really right
- the lightest of the Winter group; Winter red + Spring yellow makes an icy peach, my favorite of the icy lights on this colouring; they look great in iced white gold gloss over every lipstick, iced peach eyeshadow highlighter; to me, it’s gorgeous
True and Bright Winter Landscapes
October 1, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 23 Comments
Imagine leaving the house at 6 am and walking along a street where you live on a freezing cold morning. What kind of things might you notice?
1. Tightness. Your skin, the ground beneath your feet, your emotional range, and every texture around you is compacted. As that happens, things becomes smoother, shinier, stiffer, harder. Fabric is smooth, not rough. It can go from uniformly smooth for True Winter to so slick it looks wet for Bright Winter, like patent leather, shimmer, a wet seal. Dark Winter was crocodile (textured danger) and its best black was matte. True Winter is shark (monotone danger) and its best black, its best everything, is featureless, constant, and even. Seals are the least dangerous, the most cute, and the most quirky. Makes sense, Spring is on its way.
In 12 Tone seasonal colour analysis, True Winter represents the natural colouring of people whose inborn pigments are
- maximally cool, without the slightest heat from yellow, gold, orange, beige
- quite dark to black
- icy light to white
- highly saturated pure colour, not foggy or dusty, not even a speck
The colours that pre-exist in Bright Winter‘s skin are similar to True Winter and influenced by the mixing in of a small amount of Spring’s yellower, lighter pigments. They are
- not max cool; the earliest sunbeams of weak pale yellow shine on them, so it’s a Neutral Season, with a warm and a cool version of most colours
- quite dark to black, but that sun lightens them a bit
- icy light to white
- highEST saturated pure colour, powerfully pure pigment
2. Darkness. When you started your walk, light was absent. For the most part, you couldn’t see colour at all so the shape of things became really important, like the shack on the frozen lake. This is True Winter. Form matters. This person looks good in solid blocks of single powerful colour set off by neutrals, especially black and white.
To see a colour, it had to be brilliantly strong. Often, it appeared alone, like the last leaf on a tree, the single red berry on the shrub, the blue deck chair left out after the snow fell. Use one colour whose importance is amplified by its aloneness and empty surrounding. This colour doesn’t go ping, it’s not a series of taps, it’s one solid punch to the gut. The wind is knocked out of you. You’re pushed back hard, you have to react strongly, the colour’s violence gives you no other choice.
3. The night is the constant in a world that keeps changing. Regardless of species or century, we are forced to pause and submit to life’s right to balance light by letting darkness pour through and around it. Like state and ceremony, True Winter is timeless which is why trend looks so odd on True Winter, even the young ones. These are old soul types, for whom mermaid hair, beach hair, and mapped hair were not intended because they are defined by a specific moment in time. True Winter doesn’t heed time or any other man-made thing. Mind, the shape of the haircut is very important.
4. Dark colours recede. They seem out of reach. You behold but you don’t come close, like the Ave Maria. True Winter is the single star, glory only known from afar. Like Cher, she was probably a grownup even as a kid. I could never see Elizabeth Taylor as a Bright, one, because I could never see any heat, but secondly because she was so classic, so untouchable, old world glamour, not at all cute.
Bright Winter is the star shower, or maybe the shooting star, still Winter’s oblivious indifference, still unto itself alone, but a friendlier feeling. More approachable, maybe it cares about you just a little. The carefreedom of sprinkles is still far, far away in the Spring group, but there’s a distinct lightness of being coming in. Let sweetness creep into clothing but with a lot of control. That’s what Winter likes best, even over power.
Mod can be more of a Peace&Love Spring esthetic, but Winter can fake it really well if their character takes them there because colourblocking looks so good. It reminds of the glamour of old James Bond movie stars. Bright Winter can be incredibly cool, the white tuxedo jacket, the black pant with the sequin stripe down the seam, the choker with the red rose pinned to it. These are people who hold a lot of red and a little of Spring’s magic and movement. Below, the BW undertone (as I see it) and why the palest golden gloss in lipstick looks so good.
5. The sun is rising as you make your way home. Your lashes are still frozen together and every attribute of coldness still applies but you feel less guarded, more expectant. Stop reading and think about what the faintest sunrise feels like compared to the complete darkness of night. Have you ever watched the sun come over the horizon or anticipated seeing it as the horizon began to lighten? Every living thing turns towards that light and feels the surge of hope down to their bones. Energy skyrockets to fuel the day. The colours around you take on that faint yellowness. The styles you wear express that optimism. This is Bright Winter.
6. With more light, you see more detail. Much of this world is based on frozen water and we become aware of the delicacy of ice. Frost looks like lace. The sun glinting off the snow blanket looks like glitter on fabric. Bright Winter is that, but the hardness is still here because we feel that words like shatter are appropriate.
True Winter’s ice is a solid block, very little detail. No taste, no smell, no motion, forbidding, uncomfortable, uncompromising. Minimally interactive, unforgiving, it just is, always has been, always will be.
5. You don’t go to the gala every day, or at least I don’t. But both these groups should dress like they might be. Adding a shot of luxe only looks better. It’s hard to find this apparel on a budget, hard to find stuff you can throw into the washing machine, hard to find non-slouchy clothes in these powerful colours. So much is made to blend with the crowd, using textiles that don’t hold a dye. And then to find a shoe with some reason for being besides shredding sheets, explaining the delay for this post.
The Bright Spring and True Winter are the only Seasons where I will agree that shopping is a challenge, both makeup and clothes, unless you have significant disposable income and time, or you go to the opera every day of your life, or are willing to wear horizontal stripes till friends ask you to stop. What they have to suffer through to come up with one outfit… no wonder they all wear black or revert to Summer and Autumn. Dark and saturated clothes are made so flamboyant, like the designer couldn’t get stopped with the details and the stuff, the ruching on every seam, the bells and whistles, like life is a Christmas party, glitter required. This obsession interrupts True Winter’s unbroken, inviolate quiet.
6. Learn your purples and wear them. The Winter Season is based on red and darkened with a lot of blue, a lot. The result is a huge purple group. True is bluer because it’s darker, so more royal purple, blue purple, red purple, pink purple, and cold fuchsia. BW is a lighter Season with there’s less blue to darken it, so less blue purples, but much more red, red purple, and pink purple, sugarplums and candy canes. True Winter left, Bright Winter right.
7. Tailoring. Cozy on Autumn looks like schlumpy on Winter. It’s fitted and it’s perfect, period. Winter doesn’t compromise. This is for whom all those black, tuxedo, and dark pinstripe suits were made. The transformation of Anne Hathaway’s character in the movie The Devil Wears Prada is perfect illustration of True Winter’s potential and how I see that woman at her absolute best. This trailer shows the before. She’s everywoman. She is wearing jewelry, lipstick, clothing, but she might as well not be. The woman at the end is a unique entity who has heard the beat of her own drum.
Always with the high contrast, the shirt is white or icy. One can never overdo contrast on Winters. Big, big, big distance between the lightness of the light block and the darkness of the dark block. Not every colour is at the dark or light extreme, of course. That’s not the most important thing. For True Winter, the crucial thing is to not see one degree of heat.
8. The superlative True Winter look remains black and white in a quiet, symmetric layout. Add one colour and consider that the lipstick is enough. Know when to stop.
9. More makes these two Seasons the same than makes them different. All Winter is very formal, but True the most. Leave raw edges to Autumn who does that better. There is no boppy feeling, no schoolboy/girl effects, no Peter Pan stuff, goodness mercy, Wonderland is Spring’s eternal youth playground. True Winter is very grownup, no tiny pockets sewn here and there, no cutesy stuff, these bodies don’t move that way, nothing loose and falling off. What would the Ruler Of The Kingdom would show up for work in, even with the ruby silk-lined cape? Do I even dare say the word Dracula?
10. True Winter faces don’t move much when they talk, no big eyes and big expressions. Jewelry and hair should be that way too. Keep your hair still, or at least don’t touch it all the time. It may look graceful and ladylike but that’s not your deal. It detracts from your power. True Winter is unspoiled, almost sacrosanct. Surfaces on the jewelry are smoother, though the facet of a precious stone isn’t out of place, like the face of the iceberg. The scale is unbelievably big. Much of the jewelry could go to both Seasons, but for True, I looked for glacial coldness and hardness first. Or do I have it backwards? Is this fire so hot it burns white? True Winter left, Bright Winter right.
11. Hold on to the most important thing for your colouring to look its best. Bright Winter’s is purity of colour, colour taken its most extreme possible level, blinding colour. The blues are bluer than even True Winter’s. Pure white pants are too blingy for anyone but the Bright Winter, and every other item should be dark.
12. Bright Winter also has Spring’s youth and irregularity. Patterns are more random, colour shots are added more spontaneously, though in small areas because Winter’s muscle is still strong. One line of purple eyeliner is plenty.
Spring is younger than Winter. Where Winter was never a child, Spring is always a child, the magnificent paradox of the Bright Winter. Youth brings in the modern. True Winter is classic glamour, Bright is modern glamour and textile but still formal and way more serious than frolic. Bright Winter’s jewelry is not crystalline or bead, it’s still sharp enough to hurt you, we draw points on stars for a reason. That bejeweled snake only looks pretty.
13. Spring brings in more fun. The dazzle, the glitz, the ruffle. True Winter is the crowning ceremony, Bright is the party after. Bows and bells can work and should be all-out fabulous, not prim, sweet, small, fussy, or anything else Winter isn’t. The Stars and Stripes is the magnitude we’re after.
True and Bright Winter evening by christinems featuring jay godfrey dress
14. If Dark Winter is the Russian empress, then Bright is the Manchurian empress. Asian effects look good on many, especially with those with that eye shape and colour. Chinese Dragon colours.
Those with transparent bottle green and turquoise eyes will work other effects. In a discussion on facebook about how Winter faces look good when all the features are very distinct on the face to respect the enhancing power of contrast on this colouring, we thought that bold lips with lighter eyes is another way to introduce that contrast. Bold lips could mean dark, to work the light-dark contrast. It could also just mean vivid and bright, the Bright Seasons being the natural home of the colour pop.
Note that we visit here because we all agree that it is more beautiful and more relaxed for everybody if your work with yourself rather than against. If you have pale brows, be grateful for the gentleness and flexibility this gives your overall look. If you feel crazy in scarlet lips, get to know Dior Addict or the many other sheerer lines of lip colour. Karla Sugar comes through with one of the most accurate photographic representations of Addict lipsticks, or any makeup, that I know, here. You might try Perfecto and Fashion for True, New Look and Rose Shocking for Bright. Wish there were more violet purples, please do share any with us that you love.t
For those new here and hoping for more on seasonal cosmetic colours, you may be interested in the recent post How Winters Intensify Eye Colour.
15. Mechanical stuff looks good on all Winters, silver better. Zippers, snaps, jewelry. Really, nobody does this as well. It’s too hard and cold for the Lights, Softs, Warms. Consider that the Darks and Trues wear orderly items better, like zippers. Bright has more hip, more flash, they’ll wear aviator glasses, heavy silver wire, grey to black lenses, an extra wire across the bridge for weight, and a black bar.
16. Last words : all black outfits = shooting blanks.
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