Handbags for 12 Color Analysis Seasons
July 10, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 18 Comments
This may be as close as we’ll get to the dream of all going shopping together.
These are obviously my own taste. I don’t care for very slouchy bags that are just one big hole to rummage around in endlessly. If I had my way, handbags would be full of zippered pockets and would light up when you open them.
I like a bag to have a certain size to it, because I carry a lot of stuff.
The images are linked to their source websites. Hover the mouse over the image to see the store. Nordstrom’s site never takes you to the product page, so you may have to search it. LMK if you can’t find any of them.
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True Spring
They call this color “cream”. I liked it because it is light and the color gives the eye a place to rest. Springs look so good with color on their body, even 3 at once, that a quieter accessory still coordinates without amplifying the “color riot” effect.
The tassels bring in a little movement. Spring is buoyant with movement, happiness, and enthusiasm. With both legs in a cast, they’re still smiling. Their serious side can come and go very suddenly.
Any Season with a Spring element would do fine with this. True Spring somehow felt the most unexpected, which drew me to it.
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True Autumn
In mocha, this bag sold out the first time round, but seems to be available again.
Not dark. That’s a big thing for True Autumn. Warm, yes. Bit drab, yes.
Nice heavy fixtures, it’s practical, comfortable, natural, and strong – all Autumn.
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Soft Summer
No words needed. Uncommonly chic.
“Quietly fabulous” is the particular radiance of the Soft Seasons.
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Light Spring
It is one big hole, but it’s so dang purdy. I kept coming back to it.
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Dark Winter
It’s like a dream come true.
I’m going to be fighting Dark Autumn for it.
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Bright Winter
I don’t normally wear logos, they can pay me if they want me to advertise. Logos are blingy, and can look cheap on anyone but the Bright Winter. Even Bright Spring looks intimidated by them.
This bag is avant-garde, it’s edgy and exaggerated, and it’s cold and shiny. All very Bright Winter.
The details and charms add Spring’s movement and fun. If you’re not comfortable with knock-out glamour on your body, do it in your purse.
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Bright Spring
Check the bright pink on the site!!
The simplicity of the bag allows the color. It’s not for the office, but the the patent gleam, the light shiny gold metal, I’d notice this bag.
Problem is that no Bright Spring I know would buy this. They have far too much Winter reserve, much more than you’d think, considering they’re primarily Springs.
Would they do this?
Doubt it. They’re usually toting something black and frumpy, when they themselves are anything but.
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True Summer
In a quieter color, you don’t notice all the interlocking C’s. There’s an elegance and restraint here that doesn’t require the spotlight, all Summers have it. There’s none of the excess that True Summer so dislikes.
This is a smaller purse, but I like the circles as Summer’s essential shape. The textured silver is nice also. It comes in many styles.
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Soft Autumn
We can use words like muted, grayish, low saturation, soft, all day long. Until Soft Autumn gets their head around the word “dull”, they don’t totally get the palette.
The Light/Dark and Warm/Cool positions are medium. There is not a single extreme in the Season.
And I love this bag. Quiet, steady, calm, balanced, everything Soft Autumn is.
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True Winter
Simplicity incarnate.
True Winter often look a bit Asian. This reminds of a pagoda shape. It’s contained, but it is dark and has drama.
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Light Summer
Again, one big hole, but I have a rose-gold obsession for Light Summer. The horizontal fabric reminds me of waves. Every color may not be perfect, and Light Spring could do this as well, but I like the bag.
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Dark Autumn
Chanel meets Vuitton.
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Wow. This was as much fun as shopping with someone else’s money.
If any are sold out, call the company and bug them.
Turquoise For 12 Seasons
June 15, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 12 Comments
Turquoise is an IT color this year.
Q: If there’s a shade than flatters both Reese and Julia’s skin tone perfectly, what is it?
A: Trick Q. There isn’t one.
Better to find the precise shade(s) that looks riveting on you. Have an accurate 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis, and you will know for sure, forever after.
The colors shown are by no means the only turquoise option you have, whatever your Season (except True Winter). Since this is a blue and yellow based color, Seasons intimate with those colors, the Summers and Springs respectively, have more choices among their Color Analysis swatches.
Turquoise is warm and cool at once, so every Season has at least 1 choice.
True Spring’s colours are juicy and intensely happy. They’re ripe and dripping with pigment.
Bright Spring’s are clean, crisp, and pure. They are found in compositions that are the same, like this dress. These persons are deceptively Wintery in their appearance, and they wear clothes that are not-quite-Winter. The overall effect is light, not dark.
Light Spring is a Carribean shoreline on a sunny day.
True Summer is gauzy sheer, but not particularly light. Refreshing but gentle, like Blue Fescue grass.
Light Summer’s are icing colors.
Soft Summer is very grayed. When you add Autumn’s brown to Summer’s blue, you’ve mixed complementary colors. The result is gray, like sage.
True Autumn turquoise is greener.
Dark Autumn’s turquoises are dark enough to be teal.
Soft Autumn turquoise is how color appears in the desert.
True Winter only has the one. I wonder why. No heat-from-yellow (or heat-from-orange) tolerance? No, because Summer has many. Because yellow is light? Because there are other ways to make turquoise?
Dark Winter is bluer and sharper than Dark Autumn.
Bright Winter is electric acid turquoise.
Valeria Is A Dark Autumn
June 11, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 11 Comments
Valeria’s Personal Colour Analysis and makeup selection/application was performed by Maytee Garza. Maytee is the owner of Reveal Style Consultancy , located in Morristown, New Jersey. I thank Maytee for allowing me to use the results of this long-awaited PCA. Thank you to Maytee and Valeria for permission to reproduce the photographs. (Photos were taken in a mirror, if you notice a slight background texture).
If Dark Autumn announces that they’re going to build a boat in the garage, move the car out. With Autumn’s energy and quiet determination, and Winter’s opulent appearance, these people are predestined to create goals and reach them. The rest of the world knows enough to get out of the way.
Valeria saw herself as a Soft Summer for a long time. A restlessness with that conclusion caused her to visit Maytee. As she says, the experience is “amazing and traumatic…but I could not argue with what I saw in the mirror”. One of the best things about a Sci\ART PCA is that you will SEE your face change with the drapes. EASILY. It is not mystical and does not require an ounce of imagination. In our mirrors, you will see yourself look as bad as possible, and better than you ever have.
In 12 Season Colour Analysis, this person is essentially an Autumn, with a daub of Winter. Autumn’s palette is respected, in that the colours are mostly warm (though foundation is often neutral) and muted down. Unlike True Autumn, these are dark colours. Much darker. The most important thing about these colours is their darkness. Even the light colours are darker than anyone else’s.
I have found this Season hardest to pin down and generalize about. It’s not in the appearance, but in the person. They’re variable in character, always evident in the Neutral Seasons, but they’re elusive. There’s a mystery in the darkness that I don’t perceive in the other Seasons, even Dark Winter.
Sensible and straightforward as all Autumns, but direct in speech, and quick to absorb change with good evidence, they speak honestly and bluntly. What I love most, I believe, is that they are not one bit threatened or defensive about new ideas. The person may demonstrate more of Winter’s reserve, or more of Autumn’s passive and natural way, but there is always an element of fire.
Hair
Dark Autumn can look very Winter. The hair colour is often a most interesting bronzed black, easily just looks like black-brown. It’s the dark colour in this dress. This girl looks great. She combines Winter’s simplicity in the absence of neck and ear jewelry, with a dramatic effect at the wrist. She can balance what would be excessive weight and clutter on someone else. Even the shoes are great, substantial, stirring, and essentially the same as the hair color.
Avoid a cool red highlight or rinse. Though a Neutral Season, with both coolness and warmth in the skin, this is predominantly still warm skin. Auburn if you feel you must have red.
Avoid blonde highlights. They look like you’re frosting your hair with gray. The whole impression should be of luxuriant darkness. Highlights of any sort can break up the full-on, sensational dark force of this look.
Use a laminate to heighten the hot shine.
You’ll say Valeria’s hair looks good. Yes it does, but this woman has extraordinarily good skin. That can make an analysis much more difficult, because like children, it’s very forgiving. But, do the eyebrows seem a bit dark by comparison? Not only is there an imbalance, like something is being forced, but dark eyebrows can look very severe. Severe=aging.
This is my hair color visual for Dark Autumn : a coffee bean. Flip her hair color in your head. Did you feel the pieces click into place? You could even hear it. Could you see the bronze depth emanate even more from within the eye? The synergistic power, where the whole is so much more than the parts, roots you to the spot. Pick the lighter or darker roasts, choose the shade on the bean that matches the intensity of your look, but it’s those rich bronzed browns. Even in the almost-black haired people, there is a bronzed quality to the hair color. Find the colorist who can do that.
The Superlative Dark Autumn
…needs time to get comfortable wearing colours that should strike and excite the senses. The darkness mixed with the heat can feel volcanic. Just as the clear brilliance of Bright Winter’s palette should accelerate the viewer’s heart, so should Dark Autumn’s look evoke the distinct feeling of a controlled furnace.
…Like the sensation of hot sauce in your mouth, this is not a comfortable heat. It’s peppery and strong and undeniable. Valeria’s most telling comment, coming off of a Soft Summer self-image : “I nearly fainted when I saw the turmeric.”
The moment Winter appears in the picture, it tries to take over. A sharp feeling is in the air. In Bright Spring, where a hint of Winter is added to Spring, we see this powerful Winter effect again. Winter’s signal, inside and out, is power. But with Dark Autumn, there’s heat to contend with too. Like temporary containment, the pressure valve won’t hold forever.
…can wear black because they can balance the darkness, but can’t fully balance the coldness. Dark Autumn needs to heat black up. Wear gold or bronze jewelry instead of silver. Add flame colors, hot metallics, rich neutrals (from brown sugar to eggplant), and hot spice colours.
…do texture and weight better than anyone, and not simple tweed or corduroy. Oh, no, we’re talking velvet, leather, suede, metallic. Autumn’s strength and Winter’s wealth.
…can add theater, because it looks like tension and feels like excitement. Winter is never easy, it demands space and attention, just as Winter in personalities is not always easy. Everyone else has to adjust a little.
Dark Autumn’s palette is the feeling of dealing with food that’s almost burnt. Your attention is high, your movements are urgent while you ignore everything else. Red is already here now. Black is almost upon us. Something is about to happen. You feel it happening? You’re reading a bit faster. A reaction is demanded. There are only moments left till Winter’s black coldness descends. The viewer ignores everything (everyone) else. They feel the need to do something. We need a moment to catch our breath, dab the sweat, and calm down.
Pure Winter classic, gypsy fortune-teller, Aztec priestess, military command, jungle exotic, Middle Eastern bazaar, Spice Island queen, are all so good and so seldom played up enough. These are your best skin, your youngest face, your slimmest body. So much more than appearance, here we actually react to colour as flavor. Every sense organ seems invoked.
…look 10 years older in white. Every line is deeper and darker. In Summer’s light pastels, their skin looks like cement, and that’s not just me being descriptive. The skin looks like grey, rock-solid stone.
…grey the hair well. It heightens the drama. They look even better in the greys and the cooler choices in their Personal Colour palette.
…strive for a bronze glow in makeup, though not necessarily through use of bronzer. When you know your Season, you know your cosmetic colors. In right makeup, the colors diffuse away into your skin because they are already there. The ultimate in polish and sophistication, perfect balance, this is your best and healthiest (healthy=young) “no makeup” look.
This makeup is so gorgeous, I asked Valeria for the products used:
Maytee matched my foundation (not sure what brand she used but she mixed several for the right shade). Then she applied a sheer brightening powder on my cheekbones and if I’m not mistaken, a brownish/reddish/peach-ish blush, just a touch. On the eyes, she used: all over the lid, Navajo from Bobbi Brown; on the lid, Ash by BB, and in the crease, Hot Stone, a neutral matte brown, by BB. She then lined my eyes with BB’s Espresso eye shadow (especially good liner color on Dark Autumn) and used black mascara. On the lips, she used the Whirl pencil by MAC (its a mauve brown shade the same as my own lip color) and Givenchy Gloss Interdit in Coral Frenzy.
In Valeria’s Words
“My experience with PCA was wonderful. The process itself was great fun. However, anyone going into it with preconceptions: be prepared to have them shattered. Be prepared to trust your analyst, trust their training and years of experience, and be prepared to let go of how you used to see yourself. In this sense, PCA can lead to some profound revelations. For me personally, it was about more than just color and style. PCA gave me the answer I’ve been searching for, and with it, it gave me confidence and brought me to a new level of self awareness. It both empowers and releases. It also inspires.
Seeing yourself the way you were intended to be, being at your best and most beautiful, is a wonderful thing. Everyone should get the chance to experience it. There is nothing like it.”
Best Makeup Colours : True Autumn
May 28, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 20 Comments
True Autumn’s colours might be unexpected. At least, they are to me.
True Autumn is one of the 4 True Seasons. Far more people fall into the 8 blended or Neutral Seasons. This is 12 Seasonal Colour Analysis.
I keep reminding myself that the colours are not very dark, a little darker than True Spring’s.
What these colors are, above all else, is warm. That’s the pivot point of the whole Personal Colour Analysis cosmetic colour and clothing colour palette : warmed by gold (not yellow).
Gold is grayer than yellow, hence the blunted or dulled colours relative to Spring’s. Are the colours drab? Only if you consider pumpkin, curry, warm teal, and deep periwinkle dreary. There is way too much heat and glow to be monotonous. True Autumns are often practical women who run from excessive show, so they need practice to get comfortable in their color temperature.
The color I most typically think of as simple brown is not here. It’s in True Spring, in Soft Autumn, and other groups, but not here. Most Autumns love brown, and wear a lot of it, but very often some other Season’s version. These browns are greyer, greener, redder, or more orange. There is a browned effect to all the colours, compared to other palettes, but brown per se is only here in the darkest tones this Season has. Quite fascinating, really.
Frost over 40 is usually a mistake. Still, the skin of True Autumn can look like a recent dermabrasion, the skin tone is so smooth in the right colors. Seems a shame not to work that a little. Matte bronzer is a fabulous way to heighten the warm burnish of the skin. These are not really pink blush people, but a touch of warm gold blush along with the bronzer is hard to beat.
They also can have metal colors (gold, copper, bronze) in the iris, a most amazing effect. A warm gold eyeshadow, placed as a dot in the center of the upper eyelid, just above the eyeliner, then covered with the usual matte eyeshadow, adds dimension and accentuates that impossible gold in the eye. It’s like fire inside the eye. A particle of MAC Woodwinked gives an antique gold impression.
Their makeup looks like this. Are there other possibilites? Sure, your Colours Book gives you about 15 eyeshadow/lipstick/blush choices.
Are you a True Autumn? Look at Clinique lipstick in Paprika, Lancome Couture Suede, and Revlon Sandalwood Beige. Do they look too bright? Is it because your hair color is too light/blonde/cool?
Choosing The Ideal Bridal White
May 24, 2010 by Christine Scaman · Leave a Comment
The colour of bridal satin is as important (more important!) than the style.
The yellowing effect of ivory on Summer skin…
The drained, tired skin of an Autumn in soft white…
The disappearing Summer bride in Winter’s aggressive, hard, cold, frosty, sharp white…
Know your perfect white with a Personal Colour Analysis. Achieve your skin tone perfection on this of all days. Your wedding gift to yourself.
Have your Colour Analyst send 3 e-mails.
One to your dress shop, so they can choose the perfect color and style.
One to your makeup artist. If she works with a PCA, there is a cosmetic colour palette and particular radiance in her head instantly.
One to your florist. If he understands PCA, he makes a composition, knowing the flowers to use and not use.
Your jeweler, your hair colorist, everyone needs to know. When the team works together, you become extraordinary.
Are you getting warm? I am.
We look at the colours of satin for the 4 True Seasons. In correct Seasonal Colour Analysis, there are 12 personal palettes. The other 8 are Neutral Seasons, or blends of the 4 Trues.
(I do not own the Sci\ART Bridal Drapes Set of 12.)
Did I say grey when I should have said white? Yup.
Did I say Summer when I should have said Spring? Yes again.
I was trying to be animated, you see…
A Soft Autumn Case Study
April 30, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 20 Comments
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.
Skin Undertones
April 15, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 58 Comments
You may want to skip this post. There will be no concrete answer at the end. It will be a thought repository for my ramblings till someone helps me understand this. If you can’t stand the nitpickiness, I’ll understand entirely.
I realize that I’ve been referring to “undertones”, as in the Eyeglass Frames videos too randomly. I said that the dusty plum of the Soft Summer frames was essentially the undertone of that skin.
Traditionally, undertones are thought to be either cool, neutral, or warm, not coloured.
Overtones are the outside colour of the skin, like the names of foundation, porcelain, bisque, buff, natural, warm beige, etc. Light/medium/deep also refers to overtones. The overtone must be in the top epidermal layer, presumably the relative melanin/hemoglobin/carotene amounts.
You can get any combination of undertone and overtone. So warm undertone + ivory overtone, or cool undertone + ebony overtone, etc. Porcelain and ebony overtones can share the same cool undertone.
Worth noting too is that you can have a false overtone. The red flush in the skin of women with too-yellow hair, or the yellow overtone in the cool dark Seasons when they wear too-warm colour, these are just effects created by bad colour.
Where is the undertone and what exactly is this colour that we are calling cool-neutral-warm? I mean, cool what? Cool grey? Cool blue? A cool colour that varies by Season, but is of the cool classification?
I looked for input from respected sources.
1. Bernice Kentner of Color Me A Season, always ahead of her time, describes undertone as a real colour, a combination of 4 variables. From her book, The Magnificent Eye, she describes undertone as the result of an equation made up of 4 variables:
. the thickness of the skin which varies by Season and determines which colours show through
. the yellow-brown colour of all skin, beneath the top layer
. the meshwork of oxygenated (red) and non-oxygenated (blue) blood vessels beneath the skin
. the velocity of blood flow in those vessels; so Autumn’s faster blood flow shows more red of arterial blood
I don’t know about the blood flow velocity. I would think that ultrasound would have detected those differences among people. If she means how fast the capillary beds are cleared, well, I don’t know.
I absolutely agree with her that Seasonal Colour Analysis is not about overtones. If it were, women who wear the same foundation would be of the same Season. If it were, yellow skin would wear warm foundation, but it often does not (or should not).
2. Lauren Battistini at Color My Closet makes the fundamentally important point in this post, that undertone refers to how skin reacts to color. If your skin is most perfected by cool colours, then your skin’s undertone is cool. Not certain if I can extrapolate Lauren’s words this far, but maybe this means that undertone is not a real colour at all, and isn’t located anywhere in the skin’s biological layers. It is a reactionary term.
Personal Colour Analysis is about identifying the precise degree of darkness, warmth, and saturation in the colours of your body, and so in the colours that perfect your skin when you wear them. It has nothing to do with overtone really. We’re looking for the skin’s reactions, or undertones.
In the Comments, Lauren says that each Season has a “core color”, using the example that Autumn is orange. Each Season does have a signature or core colour (Winter=red, Summer=blue, Spring=yellow), but that is not quite the same concept as skin colour, though there’s some overlap.
3. Imogen Lamport at Inside Out Style Blog writes an excellent blog with practical real-world advice. In this post on skin tone and makeup, a client writes in with a question. Imogen offers several examples from her experience as a colour analyst.
If I understand this right,
Now you may be more obvious and have a warm yellow or goldish undertone and overtone and therefore warm colouring, or you may have a pinkish undertone and overtone and be cool.
…means the pure Seasons are those where overtone and undertone accord. She cites examples where the two may conflict – but I’m still confused.
4. Beauty School Blog is written by makeup artist, Jen. I find it a fresh take on makeup blogs, with good lessons, a genuine voice, and a wider spectrum of topics. I found this article very thorough. But I’m still confused. If the undertone is a real colour, then which colour is it exactly, and where is it?
5. The colours of melanin. This, at Dead Dog Cafe, doesn’t fully attack the topic but does implicate different forms of melanin.
Pheomelanin, yellow to red-brown (ie: orange) : small quantity + blue vessels > green or sallow of some cool Seasons.
” ” ” : large intensity + blue vessels > warm gold of Autumns and Springs
Eumelanin is the black/brown pigment of non-Europeans.
6. The 12B concept of undertones. The pictures posted along this article show how undertones appear in my head. There is no scientific testing here, only what I see when I look at this skin. (Dark Autumn could be redder. Bright Winter could be lighter and yellower. Light Summer, I couldn’t decide. Close enough to make the point.)
What use is it?
Foundation is matched to undertone (cool/neutral/warm) AND overtone (ivory to ebony). These images don’t help with that.
But these are your fundamental lip and blush colours. These are your from-within, most intrinsic colours. Using them for eyeglass frames, ties, scarves, and accessories looks good, though the viewer would never know why.
Am I way off? Have I over-simplified or over-complicated?
I’d surely love to hear your opinions. This feels like a linchpin in my understanding of skin and colour. It’s really just a theoretical point, but I think about it.
5 Sunglasses For 5 Seasons
April 7, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 2 Comments
Some sunglasses for Soft Summer, True Spring, True Autumn, Bright Spring, and Dark Winter.
The principles of 12 Season Colour Analysis guide us in so much more than just what colours flatter your skin the most. Those make you look younger than all the other colours.
It’s in how you combine the colours that you express all the images and feelings of that Season, that harmonize best with what your natural coloring is already doing.
By choosing the style that reinforces the colours properly, you become quietly fabulous.
Aim for the heart. You will love the trip and find a new soulmate in yourself.
2 points in this video are confusing. Maybe more than 2.
1. The plum colour of the frame for the Soft Summer glasses doesn’t show up well. The colour is here. Fabulous blush and lipcolour for the Soft Summer, straight out of the personal colour swatches.
2. The point about using frames to balance an unbalanced face shape could be interpreted in various ways.
For one, as I’m sure you’ve seen, people with small faces, or heart shaped faces, wearing big shiny lenses…well, it can look like a bug, you know?
On the other hand, if the face narrows at the chin, a frame that gets wider at the bottom of the lens would counterbalance that.
Since there is no such frame as triangular, another option may be to use a frame where the lines curve from the center out to pull the eye outward, but without curving from the outer edge inward as the aviators do.
This concept is illustrated nicely in this short video. I watched this whole series and learned a heck of a lot.
Bottom line, try them. Bring someone brutally honest with good taste. The first rule of being my shopping partner is to NOT tell me everything looks good. Luckily, I have teenage daughters built-in for this purpose.
All the glasses for these videos were provided by Holland Optical in Chatham, Ontario. Call them at 519-352-8632. Seriously outstanding selection, in a marketing world where so many retailers are just repeating the same thing.
Matching The Swatch Book : Coral
April 3, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 12 Comments
This is Part 2 of the post that answers a client’s question re: deciphering her blues and corals when shopping with her Colours Book.
Part 1 is at Matching The Swatch Book : Blue. Today is about True Summer corals. This would not apply to Soft Summers, who have very different colours. Light Summer may have an occasional similar swatch, but not a whole page.
Coral is one of the more difficult colors to predict in 12 Seasons Personal Colour Analysis. Any color, like turquoise or peach, that has an inherently warm AND cool component, is tougher to grasp confidently.
As we said in the Blue post, it’s often the colours in more distant, seemingly unrelated, Seasons that can be most similar. I looked for the most similar corals to True Summer’s.
They are not among the 3 Summers (except maybe the odd one in Light Summer). No coral in the Spring or Autumn palettes would confuse you if you had your Colours Book.
The corals of True Summer and Dark Winter are similar tones. Side by side, Dark Winter certainly has a dark brown element that takes away the rose-petal freshness of True Summer’s but they are quite close.
Wow, ay? So, how might you tell them apart?
1. True Summer is absolutely cool. You should be able to find no heat, no yellow, no brown. OK, but hard to do with coral, since it always seems a little warmish.
2. If it’s a cosmetic colour, don’t compare makeup colours on your arm or face. None of us can ever be objective enough about our face and arms get messy. Paint it on white paper to compare it to your Colours Book.
3. Does the item convey a feeling? True Summer should express cool, serene, fresh, feathery, and delicate. Choose a visual to help. Rose petals, watercolor, mist, water are True Summer. It should feel true to one of True Summer keywords : gentle.
For True Summer, it’s watermelon, not geranium. Soft plum, not deep eggplant. Soothing, not strong. The personal swatch book may feel hard to interpret, but when you see it in the entire piece of clothing, the colour is easier to figure out.
If you see a trace of sunshine, it’s wrong, it’s Spring. True Summer is absolutely cool.
Ask yourself “can I see black in the shadows?” . If yes, it’s Winter’s. And this is a good way to make a colr go one way or the other. If it’s a tissue or sheer fabric, wearing a white or dark tank underneath can pull it towards Winter or Summer very effectively.
4. Compare it to 2 items that you KNOW to be warm and cool. It will be easier to position yours accurately when you have a range with endpoints.
5. Consider the fabric. Colour is an emotional expression that is conveyed by weight, by combination, by style and stitching lines, as well as hue.
If you feel a heavy or somber presence, it’s probably off. Even when True Summer gets darker, the feeling is still graceful and fine. Winter colours look (and feel) aggressive on a True Summer.
If the colour feels like it would have to be velvet because the feeling is so solid, that is not True Summer. If it feels made of gauze or linen, it is right.
If the colour were curtains, the True Summer would let light through. Dark Winter is occlusive because of its degrees of saturation and darkness, both way higher than Summer.
6. What story is being told by the colour? What background does it create? a watercolour or an oil painting? a sheer or a tapestry?
7. In a swirl with Summer’s other colours, would it be dominant, or too aggressive, and overshadow all the more delicate colours?
All True Summer’s colours are very slightly faded. Spring has the odd similar swatch but it is distinctly more saturated, a clearer colour. In the graphic above, I could have softened (reduced the saturation, grayed) the Summer colours even more. As soon as Spring appears, the colours become rainbows to parrot plumage, but they’re clear, not dusty colours. True Summer is just the slightest bit washed out.
If you love the item and your instinct is that the colour is right, buy it if you can return it. Try it with the rest of your palette, in different lighting. Often, a colour that is extremely close can be made to work well because of what it’s combined with, since so much of Season harmony is conveyed by how your colours are worn together.
I believe these are the last stages before becoming completely colour confident. Don’t do it from memory, you’ll lose money. Always consult your Colours Book.
You’re still moving forward.
Eyeglasses For The Seasons : Autumn and Winter
March 27, 2010 by Christine Scaman · Leave a Comment
This video will show you some frame choices for a few of the Autumn and Winters.
There are 12 Seasons in Personal Colour Analysis. Those I missed will be featured in an upcoming video on Sunglasses.
You would never decorate your house by adding whatever strikes your eye at the Home Dec store. It would look and feel like living in a flea market. No calm could be found, and it looks cheap and a tad squirelly.
Like the difference between a stereo system using parts from 5 different companies, or one where every module repeats the others.
A kitchen with 7 very different appliance finishes, or one where the counters and appliances all coordinate.
A house where every room has different flooring. It feels uncomfortable and looks slightly deranged to anyone viewing it.
You see what I mean. You feel what I mean.
Walk into a house where every colour and item was chosen to work with all the others, and you stop in your tracks. A whole different energy. Like on Colin and Justin’s Home Heist, when the people walk back into their house.
For the same reason, when you decorate yourself, the effect is so much more arresting when the elements all interlock with one another, and respect the framework of the house itself.
Once you dovetail your best personal colour palette with how you use it, you will look better than your friends. This is YOU, empowered.
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