A Soft Autumn Case Study
April 30, 2010 by Christine Scaman
You find yourself telling this person your dreams.
They integrate Autumn’s open minded acceptance of new personalities and ideas and Summer’s gentle kindness. Autumn’s very natural disposition, completely without airs or pretense, is still here but tempered to lessen the more abrupt honesty. One feels so comfortable in this presence that our own masks and guards fall away. There is no threat, no tension, and no judgement.
For us all, our best appearance happens when our truest inside is projected on the outside. We find a profound peace in that place. The Soft Autumn’s eyes/skin/hair are of similar colour intensity, which is to say very muted. There are 2 concepts here and we wish to repeat both in personal decoration:
- The colours of the hair/skin/eyes are themselves very muted and soft.
- The transitions between the colours are very muted and soft.
Hair color analysis
For both Soft Seasons, the natural hair colour can be a medium gray-brown. These women feel much more alive with hair colour. Done right, it can amplify everything sensual, almost organic, about this palette.
Hair that’s too pale and yellow, the ubiquitous blonde highlight of which there are too many out there, doesn’t even look like their hair. For too many of us, it began as a few highlights, and pretty soon nobody can remember when they weren’t blond.
Too dark is very severe. It competes with the skin, and wins, setting up shadows and aging effects.
They often have a copper subtlety in the hair or freckles in the skin, and someone along the way will have suggested some shade of red. This can be wildy successful, but red is also tough to get perfect from a bottle. It has to be extremely gentle, so the viewer isn’t even sure if it’s there. Full on True Autumn’s molten, burnished heat isn’t here yet. This is the end of September. (See How The 5 Autumns Add Brown To Hair Colour)
Don’t get frustrated with the hair colour, it is the biggest struggle of all. It takes most of us 4 times to get a shade where we go to the colorist and just say “same as last time”. You really do learn interesting things with each hair attempt. This hair (actually the same colour as in the first picture) may be a bit dark and red, but it has found the warm copper in her eyes. Nobody can do metallic color in the eye except Autumn and it is remarkable. You’d want to keep some of that, either in the hair or in clothes.
The color mistakes
1. Black. It is dark, cold, heavy, dense, everything this group is NOT about. Even black mascara looks fake. Their better-than-black is milk chocolate or maybe a bit darker.
2. White. Stark and draining, it adds years. Like black, white is at the extreme end of the contrast scale, in opposition to the basic concepts of this coloring. Their neutral opportunities are enormous, with the coolness and heat both present. From eggshell and sand, through buff, honey, and caramel, mocha, dove grey, endless choices.
3. Dark lines. Eyeliner, lipliner, eyebrows, any sharp colour transitions. All you see is the dark line. The most dominant colour block will draw the eye. Everything else will recede. Dark lines in makeup, like dark details in clothes, look severe and aging.This Season looks very good in flesh and nude tone lips. On most coloring groups, lips need more definition to add youth on mature faces. Here, softer tones look warm, glowing, and natural even on older women, since that is the basic energy of the group.
4. Avoiding the feminity. Though they certainly look more Autumn, their nature is nurturing. Rather than the soothing feel of Summer, this trait is more about fostering and encouraging the growth and happiness of those they love, very womanly aspects. Their husbands have stopped asking who they’re making asparagus quiche for this week. They know the SPCA staff by first names. Heirloom “it was my grandmother’s” jewelry or floral prints combine the more Autumn personal colour palette with these very loving, deeply female characteristics.
5. Only using metals in jewelry. Antique and vintage jewelry, heirlooms, pearls, hair accessories with flowers or natural beads and stones or scarves are fabulous here. Even textured metal is inherently hard, though it certainly can work in soft gold and copper.
6. Missing out on a gentle bronzer. Their look is not made up. It is natural and real. Bronzer can be so flattering and warming. Much of what’s out there is dark, red, orange, or dull. This should be a light golden tan colour.
Lipstick
You’ll be wanting to know what lip colours the model is wearing. The first picture is Bobbi Brown Rose Brown. The second is Chanel Incognito. You’re not staring at the makeup, right? It is neither stronger or weaker than the face. The skin is calm, even, and real. The harmony between who she is inside, how that is depicted in the color story on the outside, and the all the colors she has added is so perfect that it becomes fascinating. An effort is required to pull your eyes away from hers.
We all have about 4 lipsticks that will look custom-colored for our face – more if you get into subtleties, but most of us would be beyond happy with 4 perfects. A Neutral Season, with both warmth and coolness, can play with this in makeup color (the Colour Analysis cosmetic colours are precisely rendered in the Colours Book, easy to match at the makeup counter). A warm pink is one of Soft Autumn’s choices. A more orange (but not peach, this is an earthy Season) light terracotta, is the other, the pink-orange of a flowerpot in the late afternoon sun. Lips like these cost the industry big coin and a lot of Photoshopping.
Eyeglass Frames
We wondered about eyeglass frames. This is an old pair she sometimes wears.
How about these choices?
These frames repeats the copper-red now in the hair, so effective at intensifying eye colour. There are no hard horizontal lines to diminish a large round eye. There are no hard lines or corners at all.
Great shade of copper. Softened frame shape. A little groovy chic with the upward flare of the corners, a nice soft flowing curved line (the Summer element integrated! coincidence? I think not). Not heavy at the temples. Unobtrusive but elegant, delicate but strong, an addition to Adriane rather than a fight for attention.
In our model’s own words
Anyone who has experienced a Colour Analysis learns that looking your most beautiful and genuine is not about what you do or don’t spend. It is about what you do or don’t buy.
My friend is a writer and an eloquent communicator. She sent me these thoughts (you can read her comments in full on the Testimonials page):
In a culture eager to financially capitalize on women’s (and increasingly men’s) insecurities, we are constantly vulnerable to manipulation by the clothing and cosmetic industries. Christine’s analysis brings a halt to this grinding exploitation. Equipped with a new way of looking at color; with, in fact, utterly retrained vision, we are able to say “no” to that which does not serve our authentic selves. And when we say “yes,” it is with self-assurance devoid of indecision and guilt.
Christine often mentions how wearing our true colors makes it easier and more relaxing for others to engage with us. There is an ease; a sense of effortlessness; a lack of obtrusive striving for that which does not inherently belong. I think we all want to experience this “naturalness of expression” in our both our professional and personal lives. We’d like to give it and to receive it; we are social animals, after all. Christine offers the gift of this life-changing awareness. It is a shift-of-consciousness that is transforming and freeing, all at once.
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Christine, This article was really helpful for me. I was mis-typed (Sci/Art) as a Soft Autumn and later correctly typed as a Bright Winter. Seeing these pictures helps me understand what may have happened. My eyes are my best feature and look incredible in soft autumn colors. And my skin gets a very even look. Unfortunately it’s an unnatural/unhealthy yellow. In soft autumn colors my eyes look great and my skin either looks yellow or flat.
My skin never looked as beautiful as Adriane’s does in any soft autumn color.
The soft autumn personality profile is a natural match to how I approach my work as a spiritual guide. Although bright winter suits the workshop leader/teacher/presenter part of my work. I’m still exploring what bright winter might mean for me as spiritual guide. I do feel subtle differences in how much easier relationships feel when I’m wearing my right colors.
This is fascinating and transformative work you are doing!!
Wow! Wonderful to see you do a Soft Autumn. Adriane is a vision in these colors. I can’t stop looking.
I just ordered the B.B. Rose Brown after examining additional images of it. (I risk buying colors without trying them because I have little time to shop.) I’m searching for my perfect Soft Autumn lip color, but haven’t yet found it. Some, like Maybelline’s Desert Bloom, are a tad too pink and too light; some, like E.L.F. Malt Shake & E.L. Vintage Mauve, are a smidge too warm.
One color that *is* perfect, but only if I apply a teeny tiny bit of it, is Revlon’s Raisin Rage. So I’m dreaming of a less intense version of that shade. Is it just me, or does B.B. Rose Brown look like it might fit that description? And do you have an opinion whether a hypothetical Raisin Rage Lite would be appropriate for a Soft Autumn? If doesn’t strike you as a Soft Autumn color, perhaps my two virtual analyses were incorrect (*sigh*) …
That is interesting Denise. I was also mis-typed as a Soft Autumn (Caygill system and Pretty your world) but when I had a proper draping consult, I came out as a Cool Winter.
It makes you wonder how accurate all these systems are……
Denise,
As much we try to make PCA completely objective, there is always an element of human interpretation that can’t be removed. Slight degrees of neutrality (coolness+warmth) in the skin can be confusing. There are many times that we have to look at a draping result and think 3 things
- is there a yellow, grey, or some other undesirable cast
- if I could erase that unwanted color, is there something good this color offers, like an easing of the lines, for instance
- I usually ignore the eyes until much later in the process; it’s very easy to connect the brown drapes with any brown eyes, or the turquoise drapes with blue
In the article, Jocelyn Is A Bright Winter, a similar thing happened as did with you. Bright Winters often have lighter colors in their body than True Winter. Though her eyes are black-brown in right colors, in True Autumn and Soft Autumn’s browns, the lighter browns were connecting with the eyes.
Ineke,
It can happen. I suppose, as with a doctor trying to diagnose every single patient correctly, as long as the analyst gets 90% or more correct, that may not be unrealistic until this is done by robots or skin spectrophotometry.
One might think, how on earth does a Soft Autumn get confused for a Winter, but I have a daughter who is very much that type. Until her hair is physically covered in grey, her real Season could easily be missed. My husband is also a True Winter, with the same reddish hair but a much softer brown eye than our daughter. You can see him at http://www.agreenertea.com/meet-the-family/
Which system coded you as Cool Winter?
Christine, the lady who analyzed me, Katlyn from Belgium, didn’t use one specific system. When I contacted her to make an appointment, this is what she emailed me
……… This way I’ll get a first impression of which type you might be: this can be an absolute type (spring, summer, autumn, winter) or it also might be that you are a mixed type (cool, warm, soft, clear, light, deep). After this, I’ll put 30 drapes of your season on you (or the drapes of two seasons if you’re a mixed type) to get a clear vision of your palette, with top (wow) colors, neutrals and accent colors. This method will also make clear a possible dominance within the 12 seasonal system. I work with two systems: a ten seasonal (autumn, spring, winter, cool, warm, soft, clear, light, deep) and a twelve seasonal (spring: clear, light or warm, summer: light, cool or soft, autumn: warm, deep or soft, and winter: cool, clear or deep). It depends on the person which palette I use.
It turned out that I need cool and clear colors, but some Winter colors are too deep and some contrast is too high. However, Summer colors were too muted. Luckily she made some photo’s of the draping process, so that I could look back on it and see for myself how colors works! I’m very happy that I met this lady. She was able to let go “the rules” and she made me a perfect fan. I have been analyzed so many times – you wouldn’t believe! – and with so many different systems, but this elimination process with the drapes was the best.
Ineke, I’ve also been analyzed many times – winter, summer, golden summer, spring, soft autumn, high contrast summer. I think Christine is right that neutral skins are confusing. Maybe other systems work fine for the 4 true seasons, but not so well for the rest of us.
Christine, I’ve felt that winter was closest but I definitely have lighter colors than the true winter, as you said about bright winters. Bright winter makes sense to me, and was clearly best when I was draped. I love the resulting simplicity.
Rachel, when I thought I was a soft autumn, I liked Clinique’s Golden Brandy lipstick. I don’t know if it would work for a real soft autumn, It might be worth a look or Christine might have a better read on it.
Christine, it is great to see a Soft Autumn. Adriane looks great in the green/olive. I can see those glasses frames working for her.
I too am a Sci\Art analysed Soft Autumn. While I can see some similarities as I too am quite fair I am much more ‘golden’ in colouring & eyebrows a bit more distinctive. I have that metallic (amber) look in my hair & olive/green eyes you mentioned.
I’m not sure if the lipsticks Adriane are wearing are my colours. A lot of Rose Browns don’t have enough warmth for me. Some lipsticks I find are great that other Soft Autumns might like are Mac Honey Flower & Plastique, Estee Lauder Burnished Bronze & Tiger Eye and Loreal Lipgloss in Mocha Obsession & Everlasting Melon.
For glasses, gold frames or tortoise shell or apricot/light copper are good.
Denise, I don’t have neutral skin: I’m a cool winter!
Never the less, some color consultants have analyzed me as warm.
I believe this is the consequence when you use a method where your body colors (hair, skin, eyes and lips) are taken in consideration.
It’s also because some color consultants stick to what they have been taught and don’t have an open mind to other possibilities. For instance, when you test black on me, you know that this is an avoid color for me. Many have been taught that when a person can’t wear black, he/she can’t be a winter.
So, they move over to another season -most of them put me in summer- but sometimes that is a warm season. It depends on the system they use. Systems that are based on wearing your natural body colors, like Body Beautiful by Carla Mathis, or the Suzanne Caygill method, are the ones that turn out to be the most inaccurate.
Well, for me anyway…..
You’re right about cool winters not being neutral – that shoots down that theory ! (smile) I think you’re probably right that the color’s effects on skin is harder to see when distracted by eyes or hair. My eyes have warmth and black is an iffy color for me too even though my hair is extremely dark, black is too strong for my skin when I wear it near my face. Body Beautful put me in muted summery colors and Caygill called me a spring.
Interesting. . . .
Are the Soft seasons absolutely low-contrast seasons, or can they handle some contrast?
Ashley,
Do you mean in the way they combine colours? Or in the colours themselves?
The Soft Seasons have the colours that are of lowest saturation, much more greyed (very easy to see with Soft Summer, harder to appreciate when looking at Soft Autumn’s palette). Some might call that low contrast, but I realize that you understand the difference.
When they wear colours together, how much contrast between the colour blocks? Well, certainly some, in that they don’t wear a flow of analogous colour as well as True Summer. They mix different hues together better. Since every colour in their palette has the same degree of saturation, almost any combination will still automatically work. They can even wear their darkest hues with their lightest, since the darks are not extreme, and it doesn’t set up a very sharp contrast. I still think they look better in their lightest or darkest tones worn with a mid-range tone.
I’m on the warm side of soft autumn and I don’t suit rosy lip colors either. I’ve been wearing MAC Freckletone, which is soft and warm and subtle. Sometimes I wear NARS Belle de Jour, which is similar to Freckletone but a tad lighter.
Any recommendations for a light golden tan bronzer?
Caroline, I’m also a Soft Autumn on the warm side and rosy lip colours are no good for me either. I’ve seen MAC Freckletone and thought it looked good but have never actually tried it, but I think I will check it out. I have & love MAC Honey Flower and Estee Lauder Burnished Bronze.
Interested to hear any Bronzers Christine recommends but I use Clinique Bronzer in 02 Sunkissed. I’m fair and it suits my skin.
Hello,
?
I was wondering about my season for a long time, and I have a question. I’m typed as summer (don’t know which subtype) and was sure that it’s my type after all. but then one day I was trying on glasses and all the pastels like grey, lilac, light blue looked very bad on my face (although they seem to work as a blouse or scarf). I looked best in brown frames – I’m not sure if it was cool brown, at least not typically. All in all, I have mousy hair and eyebrows, blue eyes (some say it’s grey-blue, some say that it is the purest blue. they are very bright), pale complexion, and freckles. Sunbathing doesn’t seem to work for me,I stay white or get freckles. can you help please
Tina,
I like a peach-gold bronzer on the Lights and Springs. I like a tan-honey on Autumn, Rimmel Sun Bronze is a good one.
Honey Flower is sheer in its deposit, but I have it on my Dark Autumn list. There’s a big personal preference component to this, of course.
Paula,
I wish I could help, but even if you sent me a perfect photo, I cannot tell you your Season. I only do the analysis in person. Have you visited Lora at http://www.prettyyourworld.com? She is very good. She used to do the analysis online for clients from a photo (for a fee, of course), not sure if she still does. She posts lots of great celebrity photographs and articles, may be very helpful to you.
thanks. I will look at this site. But I wonder if it is possible that a summer would look better in brown frames than pastel pink, blue or grey? and what about dilated capillaries, if I’m a summer? rosy colours make it more visible. why some people offer an analysis from a photo and you don’t? I mean, is it reliable from a picture? best wishes!
Christine, yes MAC Honey Flower has an element of sheerness so perhaps that’s why it looks good on me (as an analysed Sci\Art Soft Autumn). Even though you have it for Dark Autumn I don’t find it dark on me at all. In fact I have used it all within 4 months so obviously a colour that works for me. I think this is very telling that it is a good colour for me. I mean how many lipsticks do we think will be good but end up hardly using because it’s not quite right.
With regards to bronzer I need some goldness in it (as I am golden) but not peachy. The colours need to be earthy.
Adrienne looks like a Soft Summer to me.
Susanne,
If Soft Summer is Jennifer Aniston, does Adriane feel warmer than that? But not as warm or dark as Susan Sarandon? Somewhere in between?
Soft Autumn ladies: Bobbi Brown Rose Brown, shown on the model in the first photo, is perfection. I ordered it in May and I’m halfway through the tube. I use it on lips and cheeks both.
Christine, I love this case study! This is really what it’s all about, isn’t it? Although your descriptions are beautiful, it makes all the difference seeing all the different aspects of appearance: makeup, clothing, eyeglasses, put together with a person. Can you do this with Soft Summer?