With events in each of our lives, we disconnected for a few years. Last August, I bought a grey backdrop from her, which rekindled the conversation. We see each other often now as we select the colours of the drapes for our students. All of us can look back on our lives and mark certain great blessings that crossed our path. Terry is certainly among mine, and today, the dearest of friends. She is one of the kindest, most giving people that I have the privilege of having in my life. Terry also has the most intelligent, accurate, and discerning colour eye that I know.

Terry sees clients for colour analysis and trains students as colour analysts in the Sci\ART system. You can learn more about her services and contact her through her beautiful website at Your Natural Design.

I have always been interested in color. Looking back, I now see the progression of events that brought me to where I am today.

In 1983, I had my colors done by Color Me Beautiful and became very curious about the differences in seasons. Also, my love for working with makeup, lead me to join Mary Kay Cosmetics as a beauty consultant in 1993. During the next two years, I gained confidence in myself and honed my cosmetic application skills. I was then ready for the next obvious step and studied with Color Me a Season and became an analyst. Color analysis and cosmetics went hand-in-hand. I had the best of both worlds. I’d found my calling so to speak. Having the color knowledge, I started teaching my sister Mary Kay consultants about color, the differences in foundation colors, and how to achieve a natural look with the glamour products, and many other workshops.

In 2004, I found Kathryn Kalisz’s  website at Sci\ART. After reading her book, “Understanding Your Color,” I realized that this was the piece that had been missing in the traditional four-seasonal color analysis approach. I was excited about learning something new. So I attended Sci\ART’s workshops, and worked with Kathryn during those visits. While there, she mentioned that she was overwhelmed with creating product and that she needed help teaching. I jumped at the chance and studied with her in 2006 and became her first certified instructor.

I had many happy years doing PCA appointments and teaching. Again, I had the best of both worlds. After Kathryn’s untimely death in 2010, I retired from the color business a year later. But it has left a large void in my life. I enjoyed meeting with clients and helping them understand and learn how to use their colors and teaching students the art of color analysis.

Recently, in working with my former student, Christine, I have a renewed excitement of the business. I now realize that I need to be a part of continuing Kathryn’s work and am meeting new clients and teaching new students.

Colorfully yours,

Terry Wildfong

—–

As you find your private garden and arrange the flowers and furniture to suit you, you ask some excellent questions. L sent me this,

    I’ve been very happy with my Soft Summer colors and they’ve made a

huge difference overall. The issue is though, that my hair color is just so

much warmer than my palette that many of my neutrals don’t look that great.

I stopped coloring my hair a couple of years ago and it’s neutral medium

brown at the base and the lengths are quite warm, perhaps a light chestnut

color would be accurate with even lighter ends.  This warm brown just

doesn’t look that wonderful with all the grayish-taupes which make up the

majority of my neutrals. As an interior designer I wouldn’t put these colors

next to each other, so it bothers me to do so when getting dressed.

According to old pics and my mother, this is my natural color. I had

forgotten that since I’ve been coloring my hair for over 30 years. I’m just

tired of trying to use toners and shampoos trying to cool it down.

I’ve been looking at other companies SS and Summer fans and found wonderful

browns in the CMAS Summer fan, and Lora Alexander’s (www.prettyyourworld.com) Soft Summer fan.

I was just curious about Sci-Art’s and your opinion about hair not being that

great with the palette since you cover it during the consultation.

Overall, I’ve discovered that I lean a bit warm within Soft Summer and I

really wish [the present palette] would give a wider range of neutral browns. I

own the Soft Autumn fan and I don’t need to go that warm, but just a bit

redder, rosier than my [present] fan.

 

Photo: artunet

Neutral to warm? Neutral to cool? Who knows? We’ll have to measure it somehow. That’s what the drapes do. Our eyes alone are not able without imposing some errors, because of how eyes and brains work. And because of the most misleading thing of all…assumptions.

Many of L’s comments could apply to all the Seasons fans. In any Tone, the likelihood of including even half the possible hair colours is less than 50/50 since hair colour is only moderately tied to Season. Why is that? My guess is that it’s because hair colour comes from melanin. Skin colour comes from melanin, hemoglobin, and carotene. Hair colours are an incomplete version of our truth, though what’s there is real and harmonized with us nonetheless. Just not detailed enough to do a PCA with. Hair also doesn’t change enough in response to colour to take accurate measurements. Skin tone does, therefore we use it to guide a colour analysis.

Soft Summer doesn’t tend to vary as widely as some but it certainly ranges in darkness, though it remains on the cool divide of neutrality. In all 12 Tones, eye colours seem to me to be more closely resembling the skin colours contained in the colour analyzed swatch palette, and yet they can appear very warm in persons of this Season. Test them and they still have the best energy in the cool-neutral Soft Summer drapes, not the warm-neutral Soft Autumn drapes. Why isn’t eye colour tightly linked to Season? Similar reasons to the hair, adding in the Rayleigh scattering that makes the sky blue, and other aspects of the physics and biology of an eyeball, such as how it’s pigmented, where its blood layer is located, how it reflects light because it’s in a water-based jelly, and many other factors.

Photo: Krappweis

Soft Summer eyes can be darker, lighter, warmer, cooler. As long you give them what they care about most: colours that are soft.

A warm-eyed Soft Summer must mean that though we see lots of warm colours of yellows, golds, and oranges in the eyes, these are present in their cool-neutral versions and are outnumbered by the greens, grays, and blues of Soft Summer. You would think the two Soft Seasons’ yellows and golds to be quite different until you try to harmonize a colour palette and realize how close they actually are.

Soft Summer is also a Season where the Neutral persons are often quite warm, on the 49/51 divide between the Soft Summer and Soft Autumn. An analyst needs to be on her toes and own a seriously good set of drapes. They say that our hair and eye colours are among our neutral colours but I agree it is so if you know the real colours of your eyes. If you match what you think you see, which is never what colour really is, you’ll go too warm for your skin and turn yourself a little dull and jaundiced.

Photo: Krappweis

Whoa now, that’s a Winter eye! Same colour family, cool-neutral hues, similar value level (lightness/darkness), but what’s different? That third colour dimension. And the type of heat, which appears more Spring-yellow than Autumn-gold. Whole different feeling.

How can True Winter or Light Summer be a redhead? Combine their yellow and their red, I would think. Every Season has both in their own versions. The hair tends not be orange, it’s redder than that. But both have yellows, nearly primary yellow in Winter’s case, which is why their green drape can look so yellow in some situations.

L. is colour savvy enough to sense the best solution, which is to move very slightly to a warmer place without losing the harmony. Soft Summer skin is happy to negotiate on warmth of hue as long as the colour stays soft and dusty, not intensely saturated. In my Sci\ART drapes, there are 3 drape colours, identical fabrics, that are used in 2 places. The Soft Summer and Dark Winter burgundy red test is the same. The Soft Summer face is not as flattered as it could be. The client notices that. Seeing the difference is a better learning opportunity than if I just babble on about colour dimensions, because the client sees that she needs to buy dark&dusty, not dark&densely pigmented, and that darkness is not her shopping challenge issue. Saturation is. It’s a strength of the drapes, not a weakness. Makes me now wonder if I should put a few ‘don’t go here or here’ among the Test and Luxury Drape sets that I assemble. But no, you saw those during your 12 Tone colour analysis session.

Photo: dododront

Ah, back to Soft Summer eyes, neutral but cool, and soft soft soft.

Only dyed hair is, or approaches, all one colour. Natural hair has many colours to make an overall tone. You might see one colour but the rest of us don’t.  How it reflects light and shows its colours requires its true colours to reveal the correct tones. Soft Summer has a drop of gold in her hair, not yellow. She is not a great blonde. A True cool Season in even slightly warm clothing or makeup has yellowed, dingy colour. If it’s silver hair, it looks like smoker’s yellow-gray instead of their beautiful clean silvered gray. The foundation colour must be accurate, hard to find in today’s overly yellow base makeup selections.

Others don’t see the discrepancy in our hair as we ourselves might. We don’t see hair as an object of one colour like a wall or a pillow. You might not pair those objects but they’re not coloured with hemoglobin, carotene, and melanin. We sense that living things are  not coloured in the same way as objects, and that man-made objects are  not coloured in the same way as Nature’s inorganic objects. Despite the difference, we are able to find the harmonizing colours and the relationships between them, as us and our clothes.

We can bring colours into our harmony too. Because it’s applied to our face, makeup interacts with the pigments in the skin. A lipstick that swatches on paper as Light Summers might fall flat on some Light Summer and be lovely on some Light Springs. This is called Making The System Work For You. Clothes don’t change so much. No question, in the same way that the drapes have an effect on us and we have an effect right back on them, so do we change our clothing colours somewhat, just not to the extent of makeup because of how it’s used. A Bright Winter can change True Summer’s beautiful, cool yellow into a grayed piece of cloth that’s been washed too many times.

Photo: Krappweis

What kind of eye is this? Soft or saturated? Neutral? How Neutral? Spring’s yellow heat or Autumn’s gold? Of the 3 colour dimensions, which one matters above all?  I have no idea. This is why I can’t look at photos and know Season. I have no comparisons and no ruler. All I can say is what I always do, whether I’m shown a photo or a real person in front of me: “Could be this or could be that.” If it’s a real person, I can say, “Where’s my drapes, lights, and gray background when I need ‘em?”

L. knows that I would never advise any woman to colour her hair ever. Her natural colour will always be her best colour. Sometimes we can decorate up a little and keep the balance, and that’s good too. My advice is to save herself the time and money and wear her natural hair. Once  her hairs grays, she’ll only look better. Gray is what the Soft Summer does better than anybody because gray is inherently cool, as they are, and they start off with more of it in the natural colours that define them than the other colouring types.

If L.’s discerning eye prefers to warm a few of her clothing browns, excellent. She has to feel well in what she wears. There will be no repercussions as long as the harmony is maintained (more on that in Getting More From Your 12 Tone Swatch Book). There would be more substantial repercussions if she tried to alter her hair colour.

What about L.’s question about the colours present in the Sci\ART palettes? Without stirring up a nest of hornets that have finally gone to sleep, I’ll take a guess. Only a guess. Please don’t come after me on this, I have no valid opinion to offer so I won’t say much. I do not know what was in the head of the person who designed the palettes. I’ll take a shot: As I understand the history, at the time of her passing, Kathryn Kalisz was adjusting the Season palettes, as she probably did a few times over the years for different reasons. She deeply wanted people to feel comfort in their colours, but some of the feedback sometimes said that the colours were too much, probably more in the saturated Seasons. Part of the reason for the choices may have reflected this, though I doubt it was the bigger part of it in this particular instance.

There was (is) also the question of whether the Neutral Season colours should be closer to the parent Seasons, as Soft Summer to True Summer, or to the other Neutral with which they share the most important colour dimension, as Soft Summer and Soft Autumn. Is one right and one wrong? Does there need to be a hard rule? I would say No and No as long as the dimensions of each Season is respected, though I’d be thrilled to talk about it. Where does one cloud in colour space end and the next begin? Is there an overlap? How big is it, what’s the rule? How big should it be, different question? You have thousands of colours. Maybe one day, someone will make 4 Colour Books of swatches for each Tone, not just 1. Smart woman that L. is, she found other options that contained what she was looking for and she knew how to select those that applied to her.

This completes my long-winded way of saying that L. made great choices and decisions on her own Nothing I love better than a woman empowered to work through the many choices about her best self, in any context, and come out right. Discernment is a beautiful thing.

—-

I thought I was an Autumn of some sort. I told anyone who’d listen. Nobody disagreed. Who wants to get into an argument that has nothing in it for them? Who knew different if they never saw me dressed as Summer, Winter, and Spring?

2007

Compliments can tell us the truth of how we are seen by others or what others think we want to hear, but we can’t tell which. We train everyone around us to treat us in a certain way to maintain the relationship on an even keel. Nobody wants to deal with rough waters. The purpose of compliments is to make you feel good or better, from people who care about your feelings more than your looks, even if you told them not to – except for children. I reward mine for straight up truth because it’s such a difficult thing to give.

P. said something brilliant about magazines – I love this woman.

I read them because they told me how I could be fixed up. I knew I had to be fixed up because they told me so and gave me tips on how to do it. It never crossed my mind that they were wrong and I was ok. I was too busy being too much of this and not enough of that and didn’t look at all like…..

2010

The top one looks chubby and out of focus. The lower photo is wearing the same amount of makeup, weighs the same, and is 2 years older. Who owns her life and her choices? Who is in control? Who’s dulling herself down and playing it safe? Where is the impact? Which one made any impression? You answered these 5 questions within 2 seconds of reading them.

Within 4 seconds of meeting me, you’ve decided if I appear to be worth my fee. Based on what I look like, our whole relationship will be influenced by how my appearance feels in that 4 seconds. Internally, you hear, “I’m not getting a good feeling here. How committed am I to this?”, or, “This person, this place, this activity, they make sense together. I’m open to seeing what happens.” We want people to be receptive to us, and us to them, not closed down. Why not just get to the good stuff?

Which woman would garner more trust? more money? In the assault of information and imagery we live in, we are immune to the word empowered. But which woman is has stepped into and claimed her power?

May 2008 (I had my colours analyzed in April 2009)

Folks think I’m trying to decide their Seasons when we first meet. That’s the last thing I’m doing or any analyst should do. I used to, in the beginning. The client comes in, you visit, you think, “You look like a Winter.” Then the black drape goes on, and you think, “Uh-oh. Problem. Not Winter. Am I going to be able to pull this all together?” And you begin subtly shifting the facts, adjusting what you see, rearranging the priorities of the correct process, to suit a flawed theory that was based on nothing real – because nothing about colour is real until our eyes get context and comparison. What I am thinking about is, ‘How can I fit into your life in ways that you don’t know about yet?”

I spoke with a True Winter. She tried to pare what matters to her down to one word. Fairness. It impressed me so much that she knew herself with such clarity. The True Winters I know will go after hypocrisy like heat-seeking missiles and they pull no punches in pointing it out. They stick up for the underdog. They hate that it’s the popular kids with the good grades and the big money clothes and toys that are the worst bullies, not the kids with the tattoos who skip class and sneak a smoke at noon, and the teachers don’t see it.

I thought about my one word, about what matters to me above all else. Fame, money, and the mainstream don’t excite me. I think the word is excellence but I have to think on it some more. This is a very good exercise. Once you know it and dedicate yourself to never compromising that one thing about yourself, life opens up more.

me on the left with the blonde highlights that cost me money and time for more years than I want to think about

A Dark Winter is blonde right now. She’s sort of buying the idea of dark hair to go with her black-brown eyes but it’s a big leap after 20 years of yellow hair. You can’t out-argue Winter. They believe what their own eyes see. They’re as hard on themselves as they are on everyone else. Show them pictures of other Winters. They will live by the same rules that they apply to others. If she’d tell a friend that blonde isn’t the best choice, she’ll walk that talk herself.

Autumn seldom has far to move. She’s the one woman who usually has her main group figured out if she knows about Seasons at all. She tends not to carry one event or interaction into another. It’s hair, nothing more or less.

still too warm but better, more real, more knowable, more see-able

Spring is an optimist. They see it, it works, “I get it.”, and they’re off and running. Every picture you get is cuter, happier, and prettier.

Once she sees herself in her own colours, Light Summer laughs and cries to release the relief. Her skin can breathe and relax and so does she. Her skin can go from dry and lined back to moist and plump just by changing her blouse! Adjustments are usually small, because blonde highlights and silvering hair are such a natural fit on this natural colouring. Hair may be too blonde and need some cooling off, or may be too golden blonde and need to be switched to beige blonde.

next to my (Dark Autumn) Dad, I appear to be not in focus, as if I’m not fully present or positioned further back than he is, because our visual system expects closer things to be clearer

True Summer’s strong sense of other people has her asking all her friends to be sure the result is right. She is very willing to believe what the eyes of others see. If you’ll drape anyone twice, it will be a True Summer. God, but she’s gorgeous once her hair silvers. The deep rose petal cheek and lip colours, the blue-green lake eyes, the dangling silver earrings, she’s the woman who runs the Children’s Hospital Charity Gala every year.

Dark Winter hair at 11 years old

The Soft Seasons’ most likely adjustment will be to cool the hair colour (it’s too tawny) or darken it (it’s too yellow). They’re usually close and they’ve worn every colour anyhow. The wrong hair colour is magnified though, because our visual system will take two adjacent colours that are close and make the differences between them seem bigger than they are. Masters at the subtlety that these Seasons excel in visually, the original whispers speak louder than words gestalt, this is an easy fix for them. What’s harder is shutting down their heads when someone tells them blonde was better (because they’re comparing her to the media-packaged ideal). Some may read this and see me as a better blonde. That’s OK, there’s no such thing as wrong taste.

I always get the feeling from this photo that my dog, Jesse, is more connected to my real colouring than my own clothing choices; colour analysis is so NOT about what you spend, it’s about what you choose among items that all cost the same

Don’t wear makeup for the right reasons. If the makeup counter is scary, and believe me, the sales staff is often scary to me, then that’s the wrong reasons. Decline having your colours analyzed, but for the right reasons. If it feels too vain, you missed the boat a little. That’s not really the point. It’s about not placing inadvertent barriers or sending out wrong signals about who you are. When we have so little time to know one another, what matters is that we’re honest.

still finding my way, still not sure, which you can see instantly from my face; at times, my hair went too dark or it went too red; I couldn’t see myself well but I forced myself to try; between this and the one above, which is better? which woman is fully in the room? this is a very different eye colour from the first picture

The receptionist in Business XYZ office has blonde highlights, turquoise eyeliner. I can tell something doesn’t ring true but I have stuff to go do. I’m not sure who she truly is. Through the disguise, like me in candy lips or bubblegum perfume that would be in the way, though perfectly real and right on someone else, I can’t get a read on her. I’m not going to share anything about me if I can help it. I’m guarded and distracted. I adjust myself to not give anything away. The interaction is stunted and just gets the payment done so I can leave. My response to her is flat. We will not have been memorable to one another. Tomorrow, I won’t know her name. She’ll be, ‘the one who sits far from the door with the blue eye makeup’. I’ll be, “who? did she come in before lunch or after?”

Next time we meet, she has let her blue-gray hair come in and wears silver gray eyeliner. Whole different deal. I tell her that her hair is awesome, she asks after my kids, and I’m happy to share. The next day, I tell a client how great her hair is. My awareness of her is focused and friendly. We instantly move to a higher level. Communication is cleaner. Less stuff is taken personally because you get more reliable human data on how it’s intended.

Pat said the most meaningful thing anyone could have in response to the drape picture (previous post), “You keep moving forward.” For me, it’s that. Living to my highest potential, keeping my 80 year old self pleased with me. Pat and I are friends, we have sat in the same room together, and I really felt seen by her words. That feels good to humans. It’s very authentic and moving to be accepted for our truth, as we really are. Colour analysis puts you in touch with that possibility, with every person in your life.

——–

One Picture, A Thousand Words, A Million Feelings

They’re magnificent. I can hardly believe it myself.

More information down towards the bottom of this post: The PCA Training Course.

———

Besides covering grey, I can’t think of a time when chemistry improves base hair colour from what Nature gives us. That’s the colour we had at 25, before we darkened with maturity. It’s the most believable, flattering, low maintenance colour we can wear.

I don’t agree with the first sentence, or how I said it. I am thankful that it was pointed out to me. I still agree with the second sentence, having not been given better evidence to the contrary. Like this entire website, I await and welcome all evidence to the contrary of anything I write to help me find truth. Maybe that why Winters are so often colour analysts, because we’re so convinced about our own judgments. Not necessarily a good thing but very willing to change my mind.

Photo: Nuavar

Kate* saw two issues with my words:

1. Improvement? Says who?

2. 25? Why 25?

For some women, the result of a colour analysis doesn’t come as a big surprise.  It didn’t for Kate. She had figured it out herself and just needed to join the ends on her entire palette by understanding what all of her colours and her colouring have in common. As all women with their natural hair colour, the road to wearing her colours and bringing the whole picture together will be shorter and easier.

When hair colour needs adjusting, as it did for me, the road gets longer. There’s this crazy thing going on where your brain can’t believe what your eyes just saw, you’re pretty sure you look like a clown in the makeup, being a Winter, you’re ignoring what everybody around you says, you know You best, and after all, your colourist is a colour expert, it can’t be, it can’t be, and yet, there is your phone in your hand with your finger dialing the hair salon before you’re out of the colour analyst’s driveway. Your colourist fits you in, miraculously gets the colour right the first time, but you can’t see that either yet, you’re questioning the whole deal now. Your husband is trying to help, he sees your Feng Shui is in a mess, but he can’t remember the words Feng Shui, he knows it’s not Shih Tzu because he said that one time and you laughed at him for days, so he tries again, “Don’t let your hair screw up your Shit Zing, you look gorgeous to me.”, and you want to drive your fingers into his eyes and rip off his nose. Useless, he’s just useless. You ask your friends even though you know there’s an element of performing for each other, which as a Winter, you resist, but such are life and compliments. They’re swept up in making you feel better, I could go on for pages because this does go on for months, do you send your analyst an email? will she be pissed? she might as well be because you sure are, so you see, it’s easier to start off with easy hair.

Meeting a Soft Summer who recognizes the perfection and specialness of her inherently dusty hair colour is always such a pleasure. This hair is as special as Bright Season hair in being misunderstood, under-appreciated, and difficult to get right from a bottle. Without that dusty quality in the hair, the harmony of the whole image is elusive. Kate’s hair had a few silver strands. Not only were they hard to see, once you did notice them, they absolutely added to the perfection of her own colouring, as if she’d reached a higher level of her colours, not just Lavender Smoke, but Lavender Silver Smoke.

Photo: lock-e

Kate said to me,

It feels like everything you say flows organically/logically from the Sci/Art system, except these conclusions about grey/silver hair, and that your best base colour is when you were 25.  I know you state in different ways that our nature-given colouring is never less than perfect, the genetic paint box is the same for skin, hair and eyes. That makes total sense to me – but seems to be contradicted by a statement that the hair colour we had at 25 is the most perfect? How can that be? The genetic coding that determines our paint box also determines our hair silvering pattern/tone/rate, and as well, the softening of our skin colour as we age, no? So, provided our hair and we are healthy, and the colour is not artificially affected by chlorine/sun/ hot iron damage etc, would not our current natural hair colour at whatever age, truly be our most perfect hair colour for us? I think it’s the casual/automatic assumption that covering grey is an improvement, as a fact, that is the most problematic for me.  If we could see how young many people are when get silvers, we really would lose that association.

It’s important to me to be exact in the words I choose. In no way do I believe that covering gray is always:

A. More flattering – Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not. Many (like me) are not ready for partial gray because the white hair is obvious on the dark background. Transitions are not always easy. On lighter heads, the white hair virtually disappears and hair colour would gain the woman nothing.  To my eye, it absolutely does look younger and more exciting to have the right hair colour on about half the women who colour. On the other half, no colour, even their own at 25, would look better on them than gray.

B. Necessary – My statement above, “Besides covering gray, I can’t think of a time when chemistry improves base hair colour from what Nature gave us…” should be followed by, “…if you don’t want gray”. In that case, chemical colour is an improvement on base hair colour, as in the case of me, because it’s getting me something I want. My situation is therefore improved, if not my hair’s colour.

Photo: ywds

Summers gray very easily. But nothing applies equally to all women, not even within a Season. Women need advice they can use because they’re going to colour their hair anyhow. I sure am, whether my natural hair colour is theoretically perfect for my genetic colouring or not.  I lift my face with makeup and I’m going to lift my hair. I can fully agree that it should not matter to me, that I should welcome the gray, and that many real people gray quite early in life. But the fact is that I am not willing to put my money where my mouth is on that topic. I should be glad to have one lipstick when women in Africa don’t have food. Yes, but I don’t live in Africa. I buy a box of $5.99 colour and invest 20 minutes every few weeks. The payoff outweighs the inputs. If 3 hours and $120 every month were my only option, I’d rethink it, I promise you.

I may not be the right person to talk about the silvering of hair. There are topics about which  I feel more strongly. On hair colour, whatever rings your bell as long as it’s a good colour for you.  If I ever sound defensive, the women I’m (over)reacting for are those for whom silver hair, or silver in hair, would not be the best choice.  For instance, the woman who had children in her 40s and is tired of being asked if she’s their grandmother. To her, leaving her hair silver is someone else’s crusade. To the woman who had an illness after which her hair came back gray/silver, who felt that she’s missed a decade of her life in illness, silver hair makes her feel like she’s missed two. When life spins you too hard, hair colour, like tattoos, is a way of saying, “This one thing, this one part of my own flesh, I still control.”

Many of our choices are redirected from another problem. A cat is ticked at the stray that gets into the garbage Tuesday nights, so he attacks the other cat = redirected aggression.  A person taking it out on you because they’re having a major Bad Hair Day has nothing to do with you. They’re redirecting aggression. A woman colouring her hair because illness stole part of her life isn’t making a social statement about Colour Is BetterYoungerPrettierSexier Than Silver. She’s trying to get back some time. Redirection of energy towards distant and seemingly disconnected outcomes consumes huge behaviour resources, the intention as much a mystery to the redirector as the redirectee. I guess this is what psychologists do all day. It’s not just appearance, it’s healing.

Photo: Artgeek3K

A colour analyst sees people closer to undisguised reality than many professions. You just never know someone else’s story. How much of it they want to share is their business but there is always a story, and often it’s a truly hard and heartbreaking one. Humans are vulnerable enough and carry around enough hurt. Sometimes laying the gray hair card on the table along with all the others is one card too many. I’m not defensive of my own hair colour, but the discussion does seem to spark some need to protect all these people I see. And yet, I know that nobody is even remotely attacking them. Quite the opposite.

From Kate,

There are online groups most of them are only too aware of their view of grey hair not too long ago, and besides, they just want women to do what makes them happy. The banding-together/sense of sisterhood comes about not because they think their way is best /only way, but rather because of the sense of being judged by society / many women who colour.

Silver Sisters is one of these groups. Google will find you news articles here and here, and facebook groups.

I try to speak to all sorts of women and I try to keep it real-world, no pretty or ugly, no right or wrong. I don’t judge or control your appearance, I just want you to choose from many options demanding equal time and money and be able to pick out those that will really help you.

Anna* is a True Summer in her late 30s with fine hair, a spot on her face that won’t go away, weight that won’t move despite all the work at the gym, trouble sleeping, a recent divorce, and a personal commitment to live up to her greatest potential. To run her company and appear in front of young women, to meet men, to feel like a powerful leader, she feels better with coloured hair. Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter, she looks younger, more vital, and much stronger. On that woman at that stage of her life, her life will not change for the better with thin, white hair. She’ll age visibly and she’ll age mentally. I wonder if hair can lose colour before skin. It’s only coloured by melanin, not hemoglobin or carotene. Anna’s skin is not a day over how our culture perceives 30.

June* is a True Summer with silver hair. It’s magnificent. She is magnificent with it. She’d be out of her mind to come near it with hair colour.

It’s a choice. I so often come back to this great, great question Darren asked: What is it that you want to communicate and to whom? That’s where your answer lies.

Georgette* is 18 with some early graying. Should she have the moral fiber to just wear her real hair colour, despite having heard “What a shame” once too many times, which is to say, once?  18 is shaky enough. If I were Mom and she wanted to colour it, I’d drive her to the store and help pick the colour.

Photo: nkzs

Why 25?

No firm basis, except thinking it looks good on most women. Once dye came along, this 25 colour is often the last looked one that  looked just right on most heads. It is a time when we are shown our custom-colour. Sure, our silver is our custom-colour as well, but now we circle back to the top. When women show me their grad photos, I love the colour I see. If I’m being asked for hair colour advice, I request the grad photo, and there are the hue, value, and chroma for your head. It is a specific and more interesting colour, not ‘medium to dark ash brown’. It’s a colour that stylists can use to get that woman right and happy, not wrong and even older looking.

Kate said so well, that

Any diminishing in vitality with silver hair is a perception in the eye of the beholder, driven by society. I get that many women feel differently from me, that it is a personal choice, that lots of women will colour and therefore direction on that is good, and I cherish that each woman has the choice… just so long as it’s not a choice driven by fear, to quote you about not using makeup.

 

To me, accuracy requires the word silver instead of grey, because each hair that loses pigment is silver/white/colourless, so the overall colour we see on the head depends on the colour(s) of the still-pigmented hairs, and % of silver. Society uses grey for everyone, but that is so not correct. I, for example will never be literally grey, as I don’t have the black hair needed to add to the mix to make grey.

Photo: saavem

Other Questions

Q: I am curious what happens when silver sisters take off that grey cap at the end – is there a sense that their hair doesn’t belong, the same as many women with chemically-altered hair experience?

A: I wouldn’t say that silver haired women need to adjust after the cap comes off. They adjusted long ago. They’re just looking at a picture they’re used to. Even on True Autumns, the gray is stunning against the warmer clothes. Stunning and strong and interesting. I love these unexpected contrasts and comparisons. They are visually so inspiring.

Q: Once hair begins to silver, do the grays of the palette become better neutrals in clothing, even replacing black for those whose palette included it?

A: Depends on the person and the colour of gray. What colour are the eyes? What type of gray is the hair? A Dark Season with a strong iron gray hair and black eyes remains striking in black, with makeup that looks better than ever. Every feature is like a rhinestone. A Winter with a lighter, softer gray hair may find black too dark. She is more regal, yet still austere, in sharp gray, wearing black in smaller areas if her eyes appear black. At any age, black does define, refine, and outline the colouring and features of Winters, it’s part of how you came to be Winter in the first place, but the amount of it you wear will vary by the woman, even inside a Tone.

For the other groups of natural colouring (Seasons, Tones), for everybody, wearing your hair colour looks good. It looks organized and connected. Your clothing makes perfect sense on you. It feels good to look at. Wear more gray. Should it replace your taupes or beiges? Again, it depends. A Light Spring with creamy silver beige hair still look gorgeous in her ivory and milky peach beige.

In beauty, even within a Tone, there is no one-size-fits-all. If there were, it would mean that there are 12 types of women. Nope.

Photo: echiax

—-

Below, the basic info.

 Method

You will learn the 12-Tone method developed by Sci\ART founder, Kathryn Kalisz, as taught to me by Sci\ART trainer, Terry Wildfong, who was certified personally by Kathryn Kalisz.  I have added certain interpretations and explanations to better define my understanding and practice. The process itself has not changed from the one I learned four years ago.

Study Guide

The Training Guide will be in the form of an 8×10 twin-wire bound book. It is called Discerning Our Natural Colours. It will be mailed to you once the deposit is paid 6 weeks prior to the date the course begins.

At the moment, it is only available with the course, which is how it will probably stay (therefore only to my students.)

It is also still a manuscript. I’ll mail you the final book at my cost once it’s printed. For now, you’ll receive a pdf of the manuscript in a binder by mail.

Here is the cover.

Location

The course will take place at the Comfort Inn, 1100 Richmond Av., Chatham, Ontario, Canada.

Please mention that you are coming for the colour analysis training course when you book your room.

http://www.comfortinn.com/hotel-chatham-canada-CN262?sid=x4sFJi.0-pTHg7Ie.9

Price

Until December 31, 2013, the price is $3000 Canadian. Of that amount, $250 is required as a deposit. The amount must be paid in full before the course begins.

Course availability will go on a first-deposit-first-served basis, though I’m happy to hold a place for you unless someone else asks for it with a deposit, in which case, you’ll have first refusal. Money can be transferred at www.paypal.com to the account at 12blueprints@gmail.com. You do not need a PayPal account. It will be easiest to navigate the site if I send you an invoice.

This amount does not include drapes or any other materials, food, or accommodation. It covers the Training Guide and the teaching only.

Refunds

Should a circumstance in your life require a cancelation, I will refund 90% of the fee up, but only 80% of the fee in the 72 hours prior to the beginning date and time of the course.  The deposit is not refunded.

Should a cancelation be required because of a circumstance in my life, I will refund 100% of the fee, as well as $150 of the deposit (the remaining $100 of the deposit will cover the Training Guide and shipping fees).

Should a cancelation occur because of weather and flight delays, I will refund 90% of the fee at any time and let you decide about the $150 of the deposit, in case you wish to take the course again in the future.

For all types of cancelation, I will hold the price of the course to whatever it was when the deposit was paid for one year, after which time, the price will be what is current.

Payments will move through the PayPal account at 12blueprints@gmail.com.

Schedule and Activities

The precise scheduling will vary depending on availability of draping models. We will drape 8 people in total, of which 2 will be the students. I will do my best to ensure a variety of ages and colouring types, but I haven’t draped these people myself (in fact, I haven’t met many of them beforehand), so you won’t necessarily have seen a full set.

We will spend about 4 hours working with colour matching exercises in Munsell charts, the 12-Tone palettes, and textiles in solid colours and prints. These exercises will involve the practical use of hue, value, and chroma progressions and developing the skills to recognize, analyze, and feel harmony before it is applied to a human face.

We will also place cosmetics into their best Season. Please bring a sheet of paper with about 5 products of any sort except lip gloss swatched down one side of the page, leaving a good inch between colours. Swatch it heavily in an area about 1 inch square.

Our 3 days begin at 8.30 AM and end at 8.30 PM.

Certification

An 8×10 certificate of completion suitable for framing is included.

The HTML code to display a 12 Blueprints Certified banner on your website will be provided. The banner will link back to this page when people click on it. It will look something like this:

Travel

This has been covered in the previous update articles. Nothing new to add except:

If you’re flying into Detroit or Toronto and taking the RobertQ Airbus to Chatham, consider only packing carry on luggage so you’re not waiting on your luggage while the bus is leaving.

DRAPES

If you are buying drapes,

Drapes will be available for sale to my and Terry Wildfong’s students only at this time. Eventually, if supply and demand are plentiful, I would be happy to supply the Sci\ART community.

They have been harmonized with the original Sci\ART palettes and those from True Colour Australia. Instruction on how the drape sets are structured and intended to work together will be provided. There are 6 colours in each of the 12 Test sets, compared to 3 in the original Sci\ART drapes.

The drapes are beautiful, interesting, amazing, and complex. Like your computer, they can do more than you can, or at least, more than I can. The colours have been selected to do a lot of thinking for you. You’ll understand how to use them with our training and will grow into all that they will tell you. Terry  consulted with me on the colours. We knew the strengths of the Sci\ART drapes and where they could be stronger. We wanted to create colour choices that would be unambiguous, very plastic in terms of how you  choose to use them, provide you with abundant comparisons within the same colour family, and never repeat a single drape in any set.

If possible, I will have a full set of drapes here when you train, which you may choose to use. If not, you will learn with mine, as I did with Terry’s, which were quite different from my own. The transition was seamless. Two  months went by between training and having my own drapes, also a non-issue.

If you might want to buy a set of drapes while you’re here and take them home with you, or wish to purchase them within 2 weeks of training, 8 weeks notice minimum are required.

If you’re not bringing a computer to transfer the payment on PayPal, then bring a Visa or Mastercard. We can run the payment through an iPad with a Square (www.squareup.com).

Bring carry on luggage to take the drapes home. The Test Drape collection weighs 23 lbs./ 10 kg inside a medium sized backpack. It takes up about 17 inches square of space.

If you want to defer the purchase decision for the drapes until you can see them, that’s perfectly fine. If there are sets available, they will be held for you and shipped only with receipt of the full payment. If you’re undecided about the purchase, any available sets will be sold right away. If sets are not available at the time and you decide that you’d like to buy them, expect an 8 week wait between deciding to buy them and having them shipped. Not to worry, production will be continuous if demand is there.

Fabric samples of the drapes will be shown to you when you are here for the training if I don’t have full sets. The sets include 4 Key, 20 True Season 4-Test, 16 Red Test, and 72 12-Test.

The cost for the Test Drape Complete Collection of 108 drapes is Canadian $2929.00, which does include tax, but does not include shipping. Drapes are sold as complete sets only. This is of crucial importance, as they have been planned and tested to work together when compared to one another.

It helps to be aware of your country’s maximum import limit. Dividing the shipment into parcels below that limit keeps the paperwork simpler on your end.

Drapes measure 18 x 34 inches each.

Luxury Drapes will be available in time, as in approximately 2-3 months. Because the Test Drape sets are so generous in number, you’ll be well equipped to begin draping.

I am happy to address any other questions by email or in person when we meet.

If you are NOT buying drapes,

Please, reconsider taking the training course. The analysis system doesn’t work with other colour palettes, other  colour analysis  philosophies, or colour selections that have not been tested and measured to be extremely precise in accordance with how they will be used.

The option to sell the course and drapes together as a package is not my first choice, but in reality, that is how they should be for your clients to get what they will expect.

What I work towards all the time is the creation a system that’s exact and consistent such that within the system, women are  no longer being told they are various different Seasons. If you don’t use the drapes intended for this analysis system, you will get incorrect results, different results than your colleagues, and dissatisfied clients.

Swatch Books

The books of swatches by www.truecolour.com.au and www.indigotones.com are excellent. Both will be here for you to view.

Before you arrive, please send me, in a single email entitled The Facts:

1. Your street mailing address so I can send your course package.

2. Your name exactly as you want it on your certificate.

3. Your arrival and depart times in Chatham if you’re taking the Robert Q so I can pick up you, save you taxi $.

4. Which size of analyst coat is best? S-M or M-L ? Until November 1, 2013, this is included in the course price and yours to take home. I will try to have both sizes available, more certain if I know ahead of time.

5. Are you agreeable with an intro to your future fellow student? DON’T DISCUSS YOUR COLOUR HISTORY OR SEASON!!

Once you get home, please send me:

1. If you’re writing a press release for your local paper, or even if you’re not, I’d love to do a blog post introduction article  for everyone I train and their new business. Since I can’t say what you want heard, it would be grand if you’d write it and send me a photo of you. We don’t have to do this if you prefer not, entirely up to you.

2. The URL for your website once you have it, to add to a 12B -Trained Analyst Directory. It will include the contact info you want posted, a link to your introduction article if we do one, and a link to your website.

3. And in the coming days or weeks, if you have time to write a few sentences by way of testimonial for a Course Testimonial page, I would surely appreciate it.

Additional Course Dates

No courses will be added to the calendar posted in the right column. I can only ensure drape supply for the students already registered for 2013, and even they may experience a 4-6 week delay if fabric colour availability is incomplete.

2014

I will gladly continue to offer the training for colour analysts, as long as drape supply is sustainable, which will be determined in the fall of 2013.

Projected costs are CDN$3600 for the training course and CDN$3900 for the Test Drape Complete Collection.

Please send me an email if you would like a place on a waiting list to christine@12blueprints.com

—

You head straight for your favourite clothing store. Within 10 minutes of being there, you notice that matching those swatches to real clothes isn’t quite so straightforward. Is close enough good enough? It wasn’t when you were sitting in front of the analyst’s mirror.

The harder you try to match those swatches to clothing, the harder it all gets. Maybe there’s another way to go about this. Forget about the little swatches. Look at the entire palette all at once. That’s how you look to others, all your blues, reds, yellows, browns, whites, all churned together at once.

One of the greatest gifts in my life, one that humbles me because I feel I did nothing to earn it, is the woman who trained me. Four years later and I’m still learning so much from her. She is an amazing colour analyst. Terry took a break from PCA. She’ll soon be seeing colour appointments and training again (in Western Michigan). You’ll meet her in an upcoming post. She showed me this most excellent way of appointing a colour to its Tone or Season.

>> Fan the Colour Book all out.

>> Lay it on the fabric.

>> Better yet, look around the store or your closet for two items in similar colours. Even once you get practice at this, without a comparison, our visual system just hangs there, thinking, “So? I’m waiting for your next move here.” Give it a comparison, any comparison, and it gets (gets both in the senses of ‘to understand’ and ‘to fetch’) what you want. We have no idea what a colour is anywhere, in a fabric, in an eye, or in a person’s face, how cool, how dark, how anything, until we compare it to something.  If you happened to compare the colours of a face to a calibrated colour ruler, why, now you have a Personal Colour Analysis worthy of the capitals.

All those salespeople who feel they have enough experience to match your foundation by eye, who can “just tell by looking at you”, are the last folks I’d purchase from. That’s not because I don’t trust them from a theoretical POV, even though I don’t. It’s because I’ve wasted more $$ on those cosmetic purchases than any other. They may be the North American Head of Training for Whatever, doesn’t matter. May have more experience but they have the same eyes as everybody else. I’d buy from the new person who would feel better if she tried a few to compare. The more experience a colour analyst has, the more they’ll insist that you have a seat in front of the mirror and watch some drapes change.

Let these random thoughts float through your head:

>> Do these two things belong together, even if the exact colour swatch isn’t there? Often, it won’t be.  Why not? Because you have many blues. If the book included them all, there would be no space to show you your span of greens. Or reds.

>> Does the palette look like more than the fabric, as if the swatches are separating from the fabric, or the reverse, where the palette looks dull and easy to ignore on that fabric colour? They should bring out the best and the most in each other. The eye should feel rest and ease, aware of both palette and fabric equally and happily.

We’re looking at a True Autumn 12-Tone Colour Book (from www.truecolour.com.au) on Light Spring fabric. Even though neither the swatch nor fabric colours are exactly as they appear to an eye, you can see that the Autumn colours are rendering the fabric to might-as-well-not-even-be-there. Overpowering clothes do that to us. As you see, they are not bringing out the best in each other. The swatches are separate, pulling up off the fabric, not blending comfortably with it.

>> Look at the reds. Could you make some beautiful lipstick combinations?

These swatches come from the Light Spring book. Again, the fabric in the photo is far more grayed than it really is. Still, they belong. They feel good on the fabric. The lipsticks work, both warm and cool options. Did you feel yourself relax when your eyes moved from the upper photo to this one?

>> Find the oddest, most extreme colours for that Tone.  Do they work well with the fabric colour or would you never wear them together? When the harmony is right, there are no unpleasant combinations.

>> Are the neutral beiges/whites/taupes/grays really enhanced or boring? Or changed in some way, like greeny?

These are Light Summer swatches on that Light Spring fabric. Me, I wouldn’t wear the mauve taupe with the yellow green fabric, and it’s way more yellow green in real life.

>> Look for the complementary colours to the fabric colour. The pairs should be downright exciting.

>> Make some colour schemes. Monochromatic, analogous, contrasting. It should be easy.

Light Summer swatches again on Light Spring fabric. Close but no bell ringing. Those greens aren’t great together. That’s not a monochromatic scheme that works.

Are you thinking, “There are no right or wrong answers here. How am I supposed to know if I got it right?” How very astute of you. In French, they say, “Les gouts et les couleurs, ca ne se discute pas.” It means, “There’s no accounting for tastes or colours. Let’s talk about something else. How about religion or politics?”

It means that you can’t be wrong. And from there, you will settle in and get better. If you know your  Season and have a coordinated closet, practice seeing harmony  there before taking it into stores.

Beauty and belonging are where your eye sees them. Do you know what a split complementary colour scheme is? It begins with the usual red-green, blue-orange, or purple-yellow pair and shifts one of them just a little on the colour wheel. Much more interesting, dimensional, and stimulating than the straight red-green formula.

From your colouring to your Munsell positions on the 3 colour scales to your Tone’s book of swatches, you create your very own piece of art.

Art is partly a formula. Without some feeling, individuality, or expression, it just stays a formula. That’s where you come in.

——-

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Course feedback

The first session of the course has taken place. From my perspective, it was all that I hoped it would be. I think that the student, now my friend and colleague, would agree but would not presume to speak for her. She has graciously agreed to speak with anyone who would like to know her impressions. After three days with me, she knows that I insist on brutal honesty instead of compliments and flattery, which just make me suspicious. She’ll tell you the truth because I asked her to.  e-mail me and I’ll pass on her contact info. If you call, needless to say, be sure that it’s on your dime.

Photo: cliodna

From the previous update:

The Training Guide info still applies. I’ve decided to have it bound into a book. More waiting. I’ll send you the manuscript and replace it at my cost with the finished book. It is wordy. So am I. It is written for left and right brain learners, which means that your reaction to large parts of it may be, “I have no idea what she’s talking about.” That’s a good open-minded starting point. You will have plenty of ideas by the time you leave and learn more each time you re-read it. If you’re a person who learns better by paring things down to bullet points without all the flowery words, you will be happier with a different trainer than me.

The Course Schedule still applies. We will spend about 4 hours working with colour matching exercises in Munsell charts, the 12-Tone palettes, textiles, and cosmetics. These exercises will involve the practical use of hue, value, and chroma progressions and developing the skills to recognize and feel harmony before they’re applied to a human face.

Certificate, same. I NEED TO KNOW your name exactly as you would like it to appear on your certificate at least 4 weeks before the course.

Lodging is still at the Comfort Inn on Richmond Avenue in Chatham, Ontario. When you book the hotel room, tell them that you’re coming for the PCA Training Course with me. Let’s work together to give future students the best rate and service possible.

Food when traveling is never easy. I’ll gladly take you to a grocery store to stock your room (fridge in it) with your preferences. You’ll need to arrive early enough the day before, between noon and 5 PM if possible. We won’t have time once the course starts. We’ll always have a kettle and access to tea and coffee. There are quick and easy restaurants within 5 minutes walk. My tired, hungry student ordered in a hot meal. Smart idea, comforting result.

Cost, same. The cost of the course is presently $3000. This does not include the drapes or any other supplies or equipment. The price can change at any time unless you have reserved a spot (the deposit need  not have been paid but canceling without giving 2 months notice may mean a long delay before another spot opens up).

Photo: winchild

Change some $ at your bank to CDN currency for taxis.  Merchants here often take US money but the exchange rate isn’t reliable. Your Visa can be used for most things including food but your ATM card may not be recognized.  If you have extra US currency when you leave, I’m happy to buy it back at a 1:1 exchange for amounts under $50 when the exchange hovers at 90 cents to $1.10 for both currencies. Banks can change it more fairly probably.

Photo: rubenjob

The RobertQ airbus will bring you across the border, and into Chatham from Detroit or Toronto. The taxi ride from the Chatham  drop-off to the hotel is expensive ($15). If you get into Chatham between 8 AM and 8 PM, I can meet you and bring you to the hotel 5 minutes away.

If you do need a taxi, when you get here to the Truck Stop of the Robt Q, taxi phone numbers: (dial all digits in Ontario; first numbers in SW ON are 519 unless otherwise indicated)

Chatham Radio Cabs: 519-351-1232

Courtesy Cab: 519-352-2300

Ace Taxi: 519-352-1000

Photo: Ayla

Expect a modest farming town. We are on the edge of an industrial park. There are million dollar homes but not where we will be.  Expect also lower prices, no traffic, no distractions, no temptations, and short distances. If you were hoping for shopping, shows, restaurants, or any other fanciness, you may be disappointed.

Photo: Alfi007

Travel Buddies

You need a valid passport for yourself and anyone you travel with.

If someone is traveling with you, they can come in the room with us and watch the analysis and they would be welcomed as draping models, or they should bring some reading. I have a magnificent hair stylist. I get Guided Facials from a woman who can plug into where my life is at that moment and what I need to hold in my thoughts and heart to feel and find the right path. Love her, love her product (www.nancykbrown.com). We have an awesome used bookstore. I buy 2/3 of my clothes at our Value Village.

Photo: anitab0000

I NEED TO KNOW the URL for your business website. There will be Directory of 12 Blueprints Analysts on my website. I’m not sure yet if it will be set up like the present Analyst Directory for Sci\ART analysts, or differently. Open to all ideas to make it nifty. We’ll cross-link our websites.

Photo: xvoltagex

I will have a neutral gray analyst coat for you to wear. You can try on two sizes of those for sale. There are samples of neutral gray fabric in your course package if you prefer to purchase clothing or have some made. Caps, capes, and headscarves for clients are also available, or you can make your own. Be sure to get the colour right. It can’t tend pink, blue, yellow, or green. You should be able to see no colour in it at all.

I  NEED TO KNOW whether you fit into a size US 6-12 (S-M) or US 12-18 (M-L).

Photo: fds

Being able to say to every single person, “You are fine just the way you are. If you never change a thing, I would love you just as much.”

Releasing every single person from, “If you make yourself the way I want you to be, I’ll like you more.”

Until we get there, we can’t say the same thing to ourselves. Now we’re cut off ourselves off from being a happy human and a free one.

When the client leaves, they do not want to be anyone else and neither would you.

Happy and free humans.

This was a right brain digression. You can only live in one brain hemisphere for so long.

Photo: lfelton

Draping Classmates

With your permission, I will introduce you to the person taking the course with you once the deposits are paid. Please don’t share your Season if you know it or your colour story. Each of you can pretend to be the client for the other.

We will drape a model or two before draping you. As my first student said so perfectly, “You should continue to do that. They will know what to look for, and they will be able to see themselves more objectively after having opportunity to encourage others to do so.”

We will drape both students (2 max per session), which means appearing without makeup for a half-day. I understand if you would prefer to schedule this when we’re not meeting clients, while others won’t care. I’ll need to schedule draping models around your own analyses. Please LMK if you have a preference, for instance one evening or first thing in the AM before we meet the public.

Draping Models

These private individuals have kindly given three hours of their time. They do appreciate that this is your training, not their draping.

They have been asked to discuss their real situations with you. Feel free to ask if you can take pictures for purposes of later study only, with absolutely no sharing of the photograph. Ask the question before the draping session begins. It is the models’ choice to agree or decline.

Should one of these photos ever make its way onto an online colour site or anywhere else but your private library, this privilege will be retracted for everyone, as will any personal or professional respect or support from me for the person who shared them.

Photo: pla_men

Recordings

No recording of the training or draping sessions is permitted, neither audio nor video.

You are free to use a digital camera to photograph equipment and set-up. Once I got home from my training, I couldn’t recall all the details of the lighting adjustments, the chair design, etc.

Photo: ChillaII

Intensity (Or How To Merit Distinction)

The student said, “You should probably warn them of how relentless this will be.”

She’s right. What a fantastic analyst she is now and will grow into.

We will work from 8.30 AM to 8 or 9 PM for 3 solid days. We will take a one hour break for lunch and supper.  You may visit nearby restaurants, and they are not fancy, or have food in your room. There is a fridge in the hotel room at the Comfort Inn. Coffee and tea are available all day. For these 3 days, no time will be available for dining out or sightseeing. You will not need to rent a car.

You will be physically tired. You will be on your feet for hours on end, meeting strangers.

You will be emotionally drained. Among my intentions is to blow any leftover stereotypic ideas about how each Season looks to Kingdom Come, among the greatest gifts my trainer gave me.

You may or may not arrive figuring that you’ve read all the books on colour and the training is a formality – and you may have to accept that it isn’t so. You may be someone who takes a look at an arriving client and consciously or subconsciously decides what Season they look like. We’ll see how deadly and deeply wrong of a pattern that is.

If you thought they were a certain Season, we’ll work to disprove that one above all, for you and for them.  Within a week of being back home, the folks online or the aunt who did colours in the 90s will get into their head with, “Oh, you just can’t be a Soft Autumn. That lipstick is too strong.” Your client will be able to say, “I know what I am and you’re wrong.”

And when we drape you and you get back home and the folks online get into your head…but they won’t. You’ll never listen to them again. If you do, I’ll revoke your certificate (just kidding) (half-serious). They don’t mean harm. The problem is that they have never seen a thorough analysis or enough real, regular, everyday people who have been correctly analyzed. They have an excuse. You won’t.

True story. On the phone, I once asked Kathryn Kalisz how she responds when asked what the Season of friends might be. She laughed, “I have no idea.” That’s the only correct answer. To know an amount of something, the choices are to guesstimate or to measure against something calibrated like a ruler. Suppose the amount in question is the hue, value, and chroma in a human being, which is the Tone, after all. Hard enough to judge one at a time in a paint chip, wait till you try to do all three at once in a face.  You can guesstimate, but after enough apparent Soft Autumns leave you a Bright Winter, you’ll be laughing too. Or you can measure. The drapes are the ruler.

Am I relentless? Maybe. I hope your training is rigorous. If my name is on the certificate hanging on your wall, I want the public to know that your training was tight and meticulous. Sloppy is not how we will work. I’m not rude or harsh. You don’t need any special aptitudes. Success is 90% perspiration, right? All you need is love, passion, willingness to be wrong, and commitment to learn truth.

You can do this. Part of doing it with excellence, or even competence, is to know when you’re being careless. We’ll examine ourselves if we slip-slide into carelessness. If the public expects any human or machine to be 100% accurate all the time, they need to get over that unless they want to be righteously indignant all the time. I want you to be known for excellence. In your town, if someone wants a PCA, I want the word to be out, “Just get her to do it.”

As a colour analyst, you will notice that until you deconstruct everything your client believes she knows about colour and herself in colours, she can’t release wrong beliefs and the process can’t move forward. Everybody’s stuck. I’ll do the same to you. Until you can say, “I can accept any outcome. I do not know what is going to happen next.” you can’t be open to every possibility equally, 1/12 for each one.

We’ll learn to fight back when assumptions (“Her hair is so light, she can’t be a Dark Season.”) drive decisions. That’s when theories twist facts. If the facts are, “Her lips are good here, her skin there. But that can’t be, can it?” we’ll learn what to do and what to never do.

We will learn to never skip steps, figuring that you can anticipate a result – what if some of our previous facts were actually incorrect? You can’t know what you don’t know but you can learn to know when you don’t know. It will make you 1000 times more accurate in the end. The world of PCA is fraught with error because we look at what the person’s colouring should be or resembles or reminds us of. We ignore what it is until we are shown how to see.

You will be mentally drained. There is value to you in working through challenging situations with me while you’re here. I’ll set up logic roadblocks and you’ll learn how to navigate through them with me to help you. We’ll practice the algorithm in as many of its permutations as possible and put you in real life situations that we can work through together so you can be clear and correct once you get back home doing it alone.

You will leave convinced of how very dissimilar people of the same natural colouring group can be, in looks, personality, size, everything. Our genetic code doesn’t read our colour textbooks. A doctor will tell you that maybe, maybe two in ten cases of pancreatitis will present identically. Some will have 4 of the 20 symptoms in the books. Some will have 0. With experience, you develop an innate feeling for the disease but will misdiagnose cases that didn’t read the textbooks unless you remain aware of our human tendency to pigeonhole and then convince ourselves afterwards that we were right to do so.

We’ll see that personality is irrelevant and misleading to guiding a PCA. We don’t know anybody well enough, least of all ourselves, to pre-judge people. The character of the colours is one thing and it is relevant in terms of the language and responses with which they communicate to us. The character of the person is neither here nor there in helping find their Tone. Neither are the keywords in each Season chapter of RTNYC (blue book in right column on this page)

Photo: Irkata

Together, we will learn to look at each new person, beyond outward appearance, and find the true colouring they hold.  Help them imagine a different tomorrow. Imagining sparks excitement and possibility. This is a life of service to others in doing something that you love, and discovering that your own growth is wrapped up in the same package. It is only in helping others that we can help ourselves.

I am asked, “Do you only know beautiful people?”

Yes, I do. And so do you. I will show you how to discover that they are more beautiful than you or they ever dreamed possible.

—-