Understanding Your Color: A Guide to Personal Color Analysis
May 26, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 7 Comments
On the cover of her book, author Kathryn Kalisz writes:
A vital part of your physical composition from birth,
your personal coloring emanates who you are.
In part color analyst’s workbook, spanning color information and application from theoretical to abstract, this beautiful book is essential reading for those interested in the coloring of human beings.
Kathryn spent her life in the study colour. She worked with Munsell Color until 1991, when she chose to devote more time to her artwork in oils, watercolor, and acrylics. She was a gifted teacher of color theory, art, and color analysis. Through the eyes of an artist, she developed a very individual perspective on color, nature, design, and their relationship to every person. These are strongly communicated in her book.
Kathryn’s life was tragically lost in 2010. We are deeply grateful to have her writings to keep us consistent with her vision of colour in the human body and receptive to its meaning in the world that surrounds us. With her knowledge of pigments and insistence on absolute precision in the use of colour technology, Kathryn developed a system of human colour analysis that elevated the field to a new level of scientific accuracy.
What makes Sci\ART different:
- loyalty to how light and colour behave in Nature, the system that coloured humans in the first place; no new colour naming, ordering, or categorizing were conceived or necessary
- a series of drapes whose colours and order of use are uniquely able to reveal the subtleties in human colouring with an astonishing degree of accuracy
- the principle that Season is determined only by which colours perfect the skin; hair and eye colour play no role in the decision; as an artist herself, Kathryn was expert in the difference between what we think we see and what really is (for example, we think we see snow as always being white because our left brain tells us so, but an artist paints its true colour under the influence of lighting and surrounding colours ; we think blue-eyed blondes will be Springs and Summers, and only a draping session where surrounding colour is fully neutralized can force us to see what is instead of what we think should be, and that blue-eyed blondes may exist in any Season)
- the Neutral Seasons; rather than using colours already existing in the True Seasons, Kathryn devised entirely new palettes that are exclusive to each of the 8 Neutral Seasons, and not those of the parent Seasons
- the absence of Seasons which blend the 2 cool True Seasons of True Summer and True Winter, because the product of such blends did not offer any new colours to those palettes that were not already available
- the absence of Seasons which blend the 2 warm True Seasons of True Spring and True Summer, for the same reason as with the cool Seasons, and also to maintain the difference in the pigments that warm the colours for each Season
You will find in this book:
- a discussion of personal color tone and how we see and feel it
- color classification, order, and terminology
- the personalities of each of the rainbow’s colors
- the how and why of simultaneous contrast, the basis of personal colour analysis, with illustrations of the optical effects that create the illusions we see in right and wrong colours
- the 12 Tones of Personal Color, their predominant characteristic, their colors and feelings, and cosmetic colors (please note that these are descriptions, not colour palettes or swatches)
- unique, innovative, and detailed coverage of the personality traits of the 4 True Seasons
- the use of color in your wardrobe and in your home to feel, convey, develop, balance, or counteract many emotions
Purchase
Books can be purchased directly from Spectrafiles owner, Suzanna Greif. (The name Sci\ART continues to refer to Kathryn’s work. The present day supply of swatch books and drapes continues under the new name, Spectrafiles.)
Process : Send Suzanna an email at suzanna@spectrafiles.com. Suzanna will arrange payment from there.
Cost: US$65.50 + shipping
Kathryn Kalisz
On a personal note, I would add that Kathryn’s descriptions of the emotional ‘personality’ of the colours were my first exposure to the idea that we feel colour, and that we feel in colour. In the colours we absorb and those we reflect, we emanate colour like a personal force field, in a version of the rainbow that is ours alone. Kathryn’s ability to transcend the appearance of colour and join its energy with the depth of a human being was my first step into confirming that our colours are part of us, right to our deepest core.
What set Sci\ART apart to me in the world of colour analysis was its reverence for (and reference to) the interconnectedness of all living things. Everything Nature created is literally a part of everything else, like an immense nervous system, sharing the ability to express white light from the sun in various pigmentations, beautiful diversity, and splendid uniqueness. Kathryn saw the world this way too. The Rainbow Warriors video (here on YouTube) was very meaningful for her, beautifully and perfectly depicting what she sought to achieve in her art, work, and life.
Colour Analyzed Makeup Favorites
April 27, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 2 Comments
Awhile ago, I got a makeup kit from Darin Wright, the Sci\ART analyst who developed cosmetics custom-coloured for the 12 Seasons (see the article The Ultimate Colour Analyzed Cosmetics.)
This was so interesting to me because of the opportunity to see my Season (Dark Winter) translated through another analyst’s eyes. Just because I see it one way doesn’t make it right. I get stuck in Season and appearance ruts just like everyone else. Being given a new way of looking at something is destabilizing, but its gives a much broader interpretation of the person, Season, and colours. More inputs means more choices and looks for the wearer.
With this product, you are using the smallest dusting of product to deliver big, blendable, pure colour. Imagine opening the pressed product you use now and picking up the least amount possible. The learning comes quickly but you have to retrain yourself in the beginning to barely touch the brush to the powder.
The blushes are my runaway favorite. There were lighter and fresher in every sense than any other I’ve tried, and very skin like. I loved all three. I mix Vehement with Frisky or Driven to make a colour that is neutral, warm and cool, just like the Season. (Miss November is the bronzer/contour for this Season. It is so awesomely good that it gets its own section further on.)Rub some on the end of your finger and you’ll think “Oh, jeez, it’s coral frost.” Fluff a dusting on your cheek and you’ll think “Oh, jeez, I’ve never seen blush that becomes part of my skin like that.”
From L, Frisky, Vehement, Driven, Miss November.
When I first looked at the blush, I had frost worries but it is barely what might be called glowing. It is a bit reflective when light strikes it, but you can’t see shimmer particles without a magnifier. You use such a sprinkling of product that frost doesn’t have time to really get going. Play with it. Its presentation is fun and using it is more fun. The mixability of these colours is probably their second best quality after colour. A dab on a brush picks up a few grains. I blend them on the side of my hand, or on a sheet of regular paper under the pots to see the colour better and catch any bits that might spill.
I think my biggest reason for this post is to show you the bronzer/contour. I used to wear Clinique Stay Matte 06 along the sides of my nose, at the temples, under the cheekbone, and along the jaw. I knew it was wishy washy on my Dark Winter skin and better for a lighter cool neutral like Soft Summer, but big range in this product would take years to find. Of the 4 cool Neutral Seasons (Soft Summer, Dark Winter, Bright Winter, Light Summer), the only woman I have ever seen improved by conventional bronzers is Light Summer, and that’s only if she’s buying peach-gold, not earthy tan. On the others, the skin looks duller. They do better with cool powders, a few shades darker than the skin. Hard to find.
Miss November is awesome. It’s one of the darker browns that are in already in Dark Winter skin so it has complete credibility on this face. Its darkness gives it more ability to carve features than the Clinique powder did. Use the tiniest amount and just lay down a shadow. It won’t be overdark (unless you use too much, but it’s controllable). Sometimes, I mix a little into the blushes if I’m wearing a browner lipstick. I also have it from a most discerning True Autumn that her Season’s version is beautiful as well. See how it’s redder than the foundation powders, and cooler? It is a brilliant colour.
From L, top row, Vehement, Driven, Miss Nov. Bottom row, 3 foundations.
My opinion is just my opinion. It’s not necessarily right. Darin has a pinker vision of Dark Winter than I do in lip colour. That’s fine. I mix colour constantly because it seems to bring the best out of each colour. This is a great way to learn about colour interaction and make that colour you have in your head, instead of spending money on tube after tube of near-identical lipstick. I have a browner vision of my Season, and I brown it a lot. I mix Lancome Perfect Fig (too dark alone but a great brown mixer for DW) about 50:50, with the eleablake lip colours or my previous standbys of Lauder Double Wear Ruby (too cool but I love the formula) and Arden Sugarplum Shimmer, to make my vision of browned raspberry (mix Fig with Double Wear Mulberry to make a browned red).
These are the eyeshadows. There are perfect greys, browned purples (which a very central colour for DW), matte pewters (Self-Reliant below; though it didn’t stick to the paper, it delivers huge colour on skin), and Dynamic, an excellent redwood brown. I am compelled to mix everything, as in the lower photo. Isn’t it great how the two colours come out at once? If that isn’t DW grey, I don’t know what is.
From L, Dynamic, Groovy, Self-Reliant, Proud.
Mixture of eyeshadows, Proud and Dynamic.
Darin is a professional makeup artist. Of course, she’s going to stretch the artistic limits. She’s going to know how to use and apply colours that I wouldn’t know where to begin with. There are mattes and shimmers. There are colours right from your swatches and some you won’t recognize or will wonder about. There are conservative colours and further out options. I’m not a coloured makeup woman, i.e. blue, teal, green, etc. Half of you will agree. Half will think BO-RING and wouldn’t leave the house with only grey and brown eye makeup.
Talk to Darin. She adjusts and adds colours and formulas all the time. Believe me, she understands that there’s a learning curve and is there to listen and help. I hear she has a new matte deep berry True Winter blush called Brainy that is said to be lovely. She could have a menu. I’d be the colours-from-fan/greys-and-pinks/matte-only-please person that probably puts her to sleep. Using her makeup is like having a second analyst chime in on your Season. Think about why she included each colour and you’ll only understand your Season better. Don’t love a colour? Exchange or return it.
If you love colour, ESPECIALLY if you love colour, at least know you’re wearing the right colour. There are beautiful icy pink and lavender eyeshadow highlighters for this Season too. Madcap (not shown) is a gorgeous iced lilac, that applies more as iced grey – which is my idea of coloured makeup: it has a unique effect by virtue of the colour, but the viewer doesn’t perceive purple.
Definitely buy at least one eyeshadow. Applied, it looks like coloured skin, not coloured powder on skin. Maybe a bit like a cream eyeshadow. Really good.
I admire that Darin is doing this, in a most beautiful product. eleablake is already closer to stellar than anyone has approached. It is your feedback and constructive responses that will allow her see her creation through your eyes, the consumer’s eyes. Tell her what you like and are not so sure about. Like me, it was from your comments that I got a sense of what you wanted me to talk about. You can pick, choose, and return, and Darin will keep tweaking her colour formulas.
As it is, you go to the department store, wander from counter to counter thinking “Wow, is it just me or does all this stuff look the same?” Yeah, no kidding it looks the same. I often think it pretty much is the same. The one-thing-fits-all formula that women recognize. We feel safe so we buy more.
Getting used to new things can feel annoying, as one woman put it so perfectly. We wonder why we didn’t just stick with the formulations and packaging we were used to. Because you didn’t want more of the same, that’s why. Because, with your PCA, you finally understood colour, real glowing pure colour, as it pertains to your skin. Remember when you were getting used to your Season? That was annoying too. You had to force yourself for a month, but it brought you to a better place. Who thought texting was fun from the start? Who uses the same mascara wand they used 8 years ago?
Sci\ART Colour Analysis in the UK
April 16, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 1 Comment
I’ve been asked many times about this and never had a good answer. Today, I have a great answer. This is a repost of a comment from another website that I will close down soon.
It is from Nikki Bogardus.
Contact her at nikki@mycolorrx.com
Her website is http://mycolorrx.com
I am a fully trained and experienced Sci/Art color analyst and come to the UK frequently…. with drapes packed in my suitcase! So if you are still interesed, please let me know and we will try to arrange something. FYI: I am a Brit, now living in New Jersey and Sci/Art is the best color analysis sytem available.
Many thanks, Nikki! I’ve changed the info in the Directory.
Meet Virtual Colour Analyst Lynda Tarantino
April 6, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 18 Comments
I am having as much fun with this Meet the Analyst series as I hope you are in reading the posts. It began as a way of showcasing some of the fascinating ways in which analysts apply their love and knowledge of colour, and has developed into an opportunity to meet creative, dedicated women who are passionate about colour and helping women look and feel as beautiful as possible.
Today’s featured Sci\ART analyst is Lynda Tarantino. Lynda’s studio is in Western New York. She is somewhat unique in that she is happy to do 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis online, using photographs and questionnaires. I think every colour analyst would agree that in-person draping is best, but the reality is that it is not available to everyone. I will be the first to stand up and tell you that Lynda has a remarkable talent for getting results that are as accurate as they can be over the Internet.
I hope Lynda won’t mind if I mention how good her hair colour is. True Autumn is so often too blonde, like many women before their PCA, but many have trouble leaving the blonde behind. Of course, you make your darkness adjustment based on your colouring, but super shiny, rich, warm, almost-metallic brown hair is just so awesome. It clears the skin of lines, opacity, age, yellowness, and it coordinates so much better with the right clothes and makeup. Lynda is a great example of how fabulous this colouring looks when the colour is right. What True Autumn can do always astounds me.
I asked Lynda a few questions that she kindly answered. If you have some of your own, please post them in the comments or contact her privately. I know she’d be glad to speak with you.
Lynda’s website is at www.thatsyourcolor.com
What path led you to colour analysis?
The Ultimate Colour Analyzed Cosmetics
March 4, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 9 Comments
Suzie Greif, the owner of Spectrafiles, sent me a makeup kit at Christmas. Suzie is the daughter of Kathryn Kalisz, founder of the Sci\ART Personal Colour Analysis (PCA) method. Spectrafiles is the new company that is now producing the Colours Books of swatches. It was a lovely and thoughtful gift, but I have only been using it for a couple of weeks. Why? Because I had never loved loose powder makeup before. It always seemed to end up on the counter or some other place it wasn’t supposed to be.
I eventually opened the packages because the colours looked so impressive – and have used them every single day since. Believe me when I tell you that they are fabulous. The powder sticks to the brush for one thing. It’s the other brands of eyeshadows that I’m sweeping off my cheek. The Reveal product from eleablake is completely controllable. It diffuses perfectly onto the skin, no grabbing or jumping. The pigment deposit is noticeable but not shocking and easily adjusted.
The makeup colours that look most believable and attractive on your face are the colours that are already in your face. Personal Colour Analysis is the system whereby you learn exactly what those colours are, every red, blue, pink, green, brown, grey, your day lipstick, your truly perfect customized red, and so on. But even when you know, finding right makeup colour is not easy. Many colour analysts help you get started by sending you a list of specific products, but you’re still spending hours looking at so many products that it may feel overwhelming.
I loved the colours of the eyeshadows, blush, and glosses. In fact, they were remarkable. Once you know your Season, you become a very discriminating makeup shopper because you know exactly which colours will look most natural on you and you don’t want to put down money for second best. Sometimes knowing exactly what you want makes an item harder to find. These products colours were right on and so were the other shades on the colour layout card that came in the kit. How could they not be perfect? They began as the 12 Season colour palettes in a PCA system that is astoundingly precise in every single person. Here is a scan of my Dark Winter card(remember that the colours will lose a little ground in the scan, but they really are perfect):
For all the Seasons, especially the Darks, I love that there are light lipstick choices already thought out for you. If you like purple or blue makeup, choose the right purple or blue so it can look artistic and interesting, instead of trendy. The fact that foundation and bronzer have been matched to undertone is just so good.
Who is the woman behind this genius? Meet Darin Wright, owner of eleablake studios and the woman who designed the Reveal Cosmetic collection. For everyone who ever thought grey hair cannot look young, think again. Darin is proof that when you know your best colours, you know your best makeup. Seriously, could this woman look more fantastic? This is so much more what real beauty is than a teenager in a magazine.
I asked Darin to tell you a bit about why she undertook this huge task, and how she became the person actually who got it right:
I have been a makeup artist for over twenty years and have found it imperative to ensure that my clients received the best possible colors for their skin. I believe that all persons should have a personal color analysis performed in order to reach their power colors, or colors that help them enhance their beauty. I created the Elea Blake cosmetic line before becoming a color analyst. The concept was and has continued to be, to custom blend every client that comes into our studio. We create a palette for our clients one on one and have endless possibilities with our color blending techniques.
Several years ago I revisited the concept of Personal Color Analysis for my clients. I was familiar with the concept from my days in the oh, so fashionable 80’s but felt that the system had yet to be refined. I was always fascinated by the concept but was not completely sold on it. I had found that some clients just did not match up with the results available at the time. I started to research several companies on the market finding most unsatisfactory until I met Kathryn Donovan, owner and creator of the Sci\Art system. I was completely and utterly impressed by her extensive knowledge and professional draping system. Kathryn’s system offered the correct tools, teaching, and support. The clients’ results were so accurate! People’s personas changed and brightened before your very eyes!
Reveal collection Soft Summer colours.
More from Darin:
While utilizing this system I saw how fantastic it would be to create ready-made cosmetic colors to go with the Seasonal palettes. For example, if you are a Bright Winter you have a ready-made collection created from that palette. At Elea Blake we have tested each color to ensure that it matches the specific 12 Tone palettes that Kathryn developed. This task was accomplished with many a long night and a frustrated sigh. I personally reviewed each color to make sure that the color would fit into the palette it was created for. The time involved in this process was lengthy and exhausting. The result is the beautiful Reveal Collection.
The most fascinating aspect about these color collections is that there are few rules and endless possibilities! These colors are designed for the creative core in all of us. They bring one back to the days spent with colorful arrays of crayons and construction paper. They are really that simple! You can use these colors alone or layer, blend, and build them. Each color in its prospective palette harmonizes with every other color, so you just can’t mess up! That is exactly the way these palettes are designed. Another extraordinary aspect about these colors, are that most of the colors can be used for a multitude of uses. Foundations can double as eyeshadows, eyeliners can be shadows, blushers can be bronzers or eyeshadows, perhaps even eyeliners.
There is also a bonus pack of colors designed for those longing for the extra spark to their makeup, with hipilicious shades that can be used as highlights, pops, or accents. These are palette friendly optional picks. We refer to use these as eye toners, as they can be mixed or blended with all the palettes.
Reveal collection Dark Autumn colours.
Darin can be contacted through her website eleablake.com , by email at contact@eleablake.com, or at eleablake studios in Chattanooga, TN.
Colour Analyzed Home Decor
February 20, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 30 Comments
It is my belief that the colours we project for others to see are a continuation of our inner selves. When the colours that we add to our bodies repeat the energy of who we already are, our beauty feels the most real and right, both to us and to those looking at us. The colours with which we surround ourselves may be even more important to our well being because we see them more than we see our own appearance. Huge thanks to Sci\ART Colour Analyst MarySteele Lawler in Mississippi for contributing this article and the colour layouts. They illustrate so beautifully one of the lesser-known, very fascinating applications of Personal Colour Analysis.CS.
Ambiance, light, color. Nothing is more important in a room. Like The Princess and the Pea and her stack of mattresses, I’m extremely sensitive to colored spaces and have never understood how hospital designers expect people to improve in rooms painted in sad colors. With my Sci/art training I have come to understand the underlying reason why there are comfortable or uncomfortable color choices for each person. Thanks to Kathryn Kalisz, I know why the effect of the same color can be either unhappy or brilliant for different persons.
A warm-toned person naturally will be ill at ease in rooms painted with cool shades and vice-versa. One might not be able to put a finger on the source of discomfort, but this distraction is because the room essentially was painted for someone else.
My increasing fascination with light and interior color prompted me to notice that successful designers are picky about the colors they choose for projects even if the color is just a particular shade of white. I began trolling through decorating magazines and web sites looking for popular paint references. That there must be room colors best suited to blondes or to brunettes logically followed the precepts of seasonal color analysis.
Since I am not a decorator, I leave the paint color selection to professionals. They have experienced that some colors more than others do well in any light in any part of the country. These popular hues that interior designers go back to time and again are the ones that I match from my Benjamin Moore swatch books to my Sci/Art color book. The result is a log of hundreds of tried-and-true designer paint favorites divided into the twelve tonal categories.
Such luminous beauties, these batches of whites, grays, violets, greens, and blues held together by a common chroma and temperature. Although there is some overlapping of paint colors between the seasons, each season’s entire collection of shades is distinct from all the other seasons. Each collection stands on its own in the loveliness of this distinction
Here are photographs of four ambient possibilities. There is an icy cool set of colors for True Winter including mountain peak white, crystal blue, topeka taupe, celery ice, and forty nine others. The list for Soft Summer comprises cool, velvety tones such as patriotic white, soft chinchilla, and mountain ridge, a favorite misty brownish- purple. Light Spring’s hues range from cameo white interior room to windmill wings blue and florida pink, a delicious pinky-red. Dark Autumn conveys its stylish warmth with rosy apple red, glowing apricot, pink corsage, and black satin.
True Winter palette
Soft Summer palette
Light Spring palette
Dark Autumn palette
My clients come to me already convinced of the power of color. I tuck a paint collection list into each information packet included in my consultation. This way, when it is time to redecorate, a client can experience the wonder of living inside a color that reflects her particular color harmony. I say, “I want you to look beautiful in your rooms. I want you to feel cozy and to shine within your colors, not only in what you are wearing, but also amidst your surroundings. I want you to glow in your home!”
My color business is called Luminosity. I operate from Oxford, Mississippi, but I pack up my drapes and travel if I have a group in another city that wants to be analyzed. The cosmetics updates that I glean from the contributors to the 12 Blueprints discussion board have been a wildly popular part of my consultation. Learning about one’s season for the first time can seem overwhelming, like sitting under an avalanche of compelling new information. I give clients handouts on everything from hair color to the types of wood and metal best suited to their homes. The more ways you can get at the uniqueness of your season, the better you can understand it.
If you know your season and wish to expand your harmony, save yourself legwork and choice overload by ordering your seasonal list of Benjamin Moore paint numbers. When you pull swatches from your local paint store you will automatically love the paint chips because they will match you.
One seasonal paint selection list costs forty dollars. There are sixty to eighty color numbers on each list. I am a Light Summer. I live in a pink house that is on my chart and I believe that everyone should be so fortunate! Checks should be made to Luminosity and sent to 307 Bramlette Boulevard, Apartment 21, Oxford, MS, 38655. Include your mailing address and expect your lovely collection in two weeks.
The Brown-Eyed Spring
February 9, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 81 Comments
Or Never Give Up On Your Colouring
This post is special for a few reasons.
First, I get more questions asking how this colouring looks than all the other groups.
Is this the rarest Season of them all? I think it depends where you live. I have never analyzed a True Spring, but I have seen what they look like: Wayne Gretzky. I give up a bit on female examples because they are so altered, usually for the worse, that a natural original is almost impossible to find.
Bright Spring is not really rare. It is unpredictable. This colouring always seems to look like something else. To confuse matters, the opposite is true as well, where many other Seasons can look like Bright Spring. When hair is dark, this person can resemble Dark Autumn or Dark Winter when eyes are dark. If eyes are light, the similarity to True Summer can be startling.
Secondly, this beautiful model, whom we’ll call Audrey, has brown eyes. Those are rare in the Spring and Summer groups, but where human genetics are concerned, nothing is impossible.
The Bright Seasons are those that combine Winter and Spring colouring. If Winter is stronger, the Season is called Bright Winter. If Spring influence is larger, the person contains the colours of the Bright Spring palette in their natural colouring. Both are Neutral Seasons in the Sci\ART 12 Tone system, meaning that this skin has some warmer and some cooler colours. This is important information for buying the right foundation.
Asian features often belong to people whose colouring is perfected by the Bright Seasons. Here is one of Audrey’s pre-PCA pictures.
Nothing wrong with that picture at all, but would you think of a Spring person? Maybe, but I didn’t. Bright crosses my mind when I see Asian features, but I couldn’t picture the bright coral pink lip colours on that skin tone. When you look at the PCA pictures, do you find that Audrey doesn’t even look like the same woman? I was blown away by the difference. In her most beautiful colours, her skin tone is light, bright, evenly coloured, illuminated and brilliant. Bright Spring takes their Winter influence and turns it into pure sparkle.
This illustrates what worries me about doing Personal Colour Analysis from photographs, even good ones. They just give you one static shot, but colour analysis is anything except static. It is a very dynamic process, of ever-changing drapes, colours, and better-than decisions, through many sets of drapes. We compare and compare and compare again.
***Thank you to the wonderful Maytee Garza at Reveal Style Consultancy in New Jersey for this analysis. Maytee has shared photographs of PCA sessions with several clients on her Shutterfly page.***
During the draping, we see right away that black works pretty well, but seems too serious and hard at the same time. Something is off, not always easy to put your finger on what. In True Autumn brown, nothing happens. It just sits there. And the longer it sits, the worse things get, which happens with all wrong colours on everyone. Some Bright Springs look physically small, old, and weak in Autumn colours.
Then True Spring’s yellow goes on. Wow. The person turns yellowish, because that drape is too warm, but the eye goes from generic blue or brown to something amazing. The face becomes perfectly evenly coloured. If you could just erase the yellow, the face would already be wearing custom-coloured foundation and concealer. Ten years come off the face of older women. Everyone in the room stares speechless.
In the photo below, compare Audrey’s coloring to Maytee’s. Maytee is a Dark Winter. The clarity and lightness of Audrey’s skin compared to the much darker, muted tones of Maytee’s are so much more evident. Notice too that black works, but a small black block with a big light,bright block is spectacular.
Audrey’s descriptions are far better than mine could be. She said,
I love that it’s mostly about the skin tone in Sci/Art, but it really is about the eyes and hair too – not in the way that the eye/hair color is part of the final judgment call about a person’s season, but in the way that one can see changes in the hair and eye color too. When I wore the wrong colors, my eyes darkened and you couldn’t get the full effect of the topazy/hazel/interesting lightness (comparatively to other brownish eyes). When I wear my best colors, my eyes lighten to a shade I never even knew they could be, and even my hair changes – I notice the warmth in it, the interesting chestnut/red/orange undertones.
This is the best part. When the hair is covered, it is easier to believe what your eyes are telling you. In Audrey’s words,
The Bright drapes, both Bright Winter and Bright Spring, worked, but the Bright Winter drapes were a bit too blue/too cool, and they didn’t light me up as well as the Bright Spring drapes did. Interestingly enough, some of the Summer drapes worked on me but in general, the Summer palette greyed me and I REALLY could see it. So finally, it was between Warm (True Spring) or Neutral (Bright Spring).
Can you believe it – me, a dark-haired, “dark”-eyed gal (who actually has topaz-ish clear hazel eyes in the Sci/Art lighting which is a duplicate of natural lighting), was actually being considered for TRUE SPRING! I almost couldn’t believe it but funnily enough, it took a little while to figure out which worked better – warm or neutral. They both looked great but the Warm drapes yellowed me a bit. Also, between True Spring and Bright Spring, there was no contest – True Spring did not incorporate my natural darkness, which Bright Spring does.
One of the most interesting changes that we noticed aside from a greying of the skin or a dulling of the skin was the fact that my eyes darkened when I wore colors that weren’t bright/clear enough. This is also something that I noticed before this draping session, especially when trying different blush colors. When I’m not wearing the right colors, my eyes darken and you can’t get the full effect of how topaz/hazel-colored they are, and now I know that it wasn’t just my eyes playing tricks on me!
The more you’re willing to release, the bigger the prize.
Rimmel Lip Gloss for 12 Seasons
January 15, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 26 Comments
Some folks take exception to my swatching makeup on white paper. They say you can’t tell how the colour would look on your face. They’re going to love the way I swatch lip gloss.
I find I can see the subtleties of the colours way better on paper. On paper, you can be more detached about the colour. It’s still far enough from you to be perceived as separate from you, and only on its own merits. Once it enters your Personal Zone, all kinds of meta impressions start happening.
The hot second you try to evaluate a colour on your own face, you’ve lost objectivity. Your imagination alters your face, and everything on it. We have no idea what we look like to others. The only thing we decide when we look at a new makeup colour on our face is whether it could be consistent with how we’re used to seeing ourselves.
The Sci\ART Colours Book is outstanding for matching makeup colours, the trickiest part of working with your Season. Good thing there’s lots of help to get you started once you get your Season ID. The swatches in the Book are on white canvas. At the store, I can smear the makeup on a white page. Back home and decide, in daylight, if the colours are the same. Any client who has done this with me during a PCA appt knows that she can look from the makeup palette we create on paper to her Colours Book, and find every swatch in her Book immediately. Her eye just goes to it, and she is right every time. This system works.
These Rimmel Stay Glossy lipglosses impressed me because of the good colour selection – or was it that I found Winter colours, usually so hard to do? So often, a line will have 3 good colours, and you stand there looking at the rest of them, thinking “I have no idea who would wear these colours.” In this line, the fairest and darkest have a choice, the most muted and clearest, and the Winter colours are actually wearable.
The gloss is supposed to last 6 hours, or 8 hours, or some big, impressive number.
Critical Thinking : the ability to discern what is probably right and what is probably wrong. A 6 hour lip gloss? You didn’t even expect that to be true. There’s no 2 hour lip gloss out there, unless you’re a mannequin, the plastic kind. Forget 6.
The product is plenty nice, and reasonably priced, whatever that means in cosmetics. Heavens, I’m being snarky today, but there is too much undeserved cosmetic raving going on out there. Every week brings a new rave. That’s how you came to have a used-it-once drawer. I’m just trying to keep the reality glasses in place so you never add one more item to that drawer. I am nice enough to say that there was nothing about the application that I didn’t like, besides the sinking ship of 6 hour expectations. This is also a nice product to apply over a lipstick, long wear or otherwise to keep it going till lunchtime without needing a mirror.
I swatch lip gloss between 2 pieces of tape to avoid having gunk all over my purse. I can spread it around and look at the nuances of the colour when I get home to daylight. I can see the colour next to other tones, because colour is all about comparison.
Once you see a colour you like on paper, and it seems to match your Book, I absolutely suggest you put it on your face. There’s more to a makeup buy decision than its colour. Also, no two women in the same Season look quite the same or will interpret their Season in the same way, or have the same comfort level with colour on the face.
I match the color analyzed swatches from the middle darkness colours, or the lighter ones for the Light Seasons. The darker swatches work fine in clothing but most light-medium complected women find them dark. The Sci\ART system is 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis, because 12 is enough without being too much, but you’ll refine your position within your Season with time.
The pictures are a bit randomly organized, and seem a bit sloppy (that’s part of the reality theme), but they cover all the colours, with some opportunity to compare. In Canada, we did not have Endless Night, Unlimited Gold, or Endless Summer, unless they are here with a different name. I haven’t adjusted any settings. Photos were taken at 11AM on an overcast day, on a sheet of white paper.
True Winter : Yours Forever
Dark Winter : All Night Long
Bright Winter : Timeless Allure, Fuchsia Fever
Finding a clean red-violet that has that purple pivot that True Winter hovers around is challenging, especially in a cheaper product. I like this one.
For many darker Season women, they don’t always want a dark lip. I’ll never (or not soon) be convinced that Sandra Bullock (probably Dark Winter), Liza Minelli (True?), or Audrey Hepburn (Bright W?) look their best in browned, flesh toned lips. Dark W wears a browned deep rose as a disappearing lip (NARS Dolce Vita), but it has little impact. A very good option to nude lips for Winters, which the intensity of the person’s coloring can still dominate too easily, is a sheer lip.
I hope you can see that Dark Winter’s colour is browner. Bright W’s is lighter and clear.
As a Dark Winter, I tried All Night Long. It’s quite similar to the Dark Winter always-in-your-purse anchor of Merle Norman Stolen Kisses.
Light Summer : All Day Seduction, Stay My Rose, Dare To Say, Eternal Flirt
True Summer : Captivate Me, Dare To Say
Soft Summer : My Eternity, Stay My Rose, Captivate Me
With the sheerness of a gloss, several of these colours will work across categories. Your own lip colour will come through and help adapt the shade to your face.
All Day Seduction has a gold glimmer in it, it felt best for Light Summer. Soft Summer can do gold shimmer sometimes, as in MAC Plumfoolery blush, but the base colour is deeper in that blush than this light pink gloss. Soft Summers are much cooler than they are warm and not especially light.
Light Spring : Non Stop Glamour, Always Lovely, All Day Seduction
True Spring: Here To Say? , Non Stop Glamour
Bright Spring: Fuchsia Fever, Timeless Allure, All Day Seduction
True Spring gave me some trouble. Here To Say may be one those colours that is too browned for a Spring and not browned enough for an Autumn. It is orange and yellow enough that it may work well, with just enough brown to make it more nude/flesh coloured. I try to picture it on Wayne Gretzky…not sure. I was hoping it might look like this.( I think Uma may be a Light Spring because pale lips look so good on her. True Spring does better with a shot of real color).
The beauty of a gloss is that it tempers brightness (as in Fuchsia Fever) and darkness (as Timeless Allure), allowing Bright Spring to wear both. They could also do All Day Seduction, because it’s a clean pink with a gold shimmer. Light Summer had this colour too, because there are similarities between it and Bright Spring (both can do well in medium-darkness colours, both have a trace of Spring yellow).
So Fabulous is a slightly yellow caramel beige. It is not orange, nor is it as heavy as butterscotch sundae sauce. It is a Spring colour, perhaps a good flesh-toned lip for Light Spring, a Season that is exemplary in the various beiges of nuts and their shells.
Soft Autumn: Here To Say?
True Autumn: Immortal Charm
Dark Autumn : Everlasting Crush, Still Gorgeous
A Soft Autumn will probably find Here To Say too orange. I’m usually looking for a color like the pink in a flowerpot, and this is not it, but they do have a warm side, especially when the hair has an apricot highlight, and they do look great in nude/flesh lips, a la J.Lo. This is a line where the Autumn colours are less plentiful, while the pinks are over-represented.
Still Gorgeous could be lovely on Dark Autumn, and very natural on women of deeper complexion.
Black Diva, well, y’know. Oh, I forgot that one.
Kip Is A Light Summer
September 5, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 8 Comments
Kip’s family and ours have known one another for many years. As a child, he had flaxen hair and light blue eyes, and he certainly gave a Spring impression, or at least a very yellow impression.
He’s in his 30s now. His hair has darkened. He has a tan at the moment. Combining the freckles, the fact that his mother, and probably brother, are True Autumns, that his skin resembles his Soft Autumn sister’s, and that there are red tones in the hair (and very much redder on other family members), I wondered if Kip was going to be that Spring/Autumn person that we discussed in a previous article and its comments (see the previous article No Summer+Winter or Spring+Autumn Blends).
Draping
We saw right away that Winter was dominating and severe. The blackened sapphire and emerald took over.
In the True Autumn drapes, Kip might have been up every night for a week looking after his young children. The shadows and unshaved appearance were obvious. The lower half of the face was darker, making the jaw look very severe and the face 10 years older. BUT, his eye color intensity was surprisingly good. For those who are new here, you’ll read often that I do not factor the eye color into determining the Season. It simply does not matter. However, I very much consider which drapes make your eye color the most intense.
In the True Spring drapes, the skin was too yellow and the eye color was dull and greyed out. If I could erase the yellow in the skin, there seemed to be an easing of the lines, a more even luminosity, as is usually seen in any Spring blend. The skin looked healthy and very evenly colored, while True Autumn made the skin obviously worse, even in the very slight Autumn Seasons. So, Kip was not going to be the person who can wear True Spring and Autumn colors equally well.
True Summer was interesting. The yellow caused by True Spring cleared from the skin. The skin retained the good effects the Spring drapes created, of young, clear, ideal skin, but could also intensify the eye color to the same degree that the Autumn drapes did. The whole effect was a little flat, though the balance with the person was the best of the 4 True Seasons.
Light Summer’s bare trace of sunlight gave us the perfectly lit skin, without compromising the eyes. Light Summer is the Neutral Season (so blend of 2), that is mostly Summer with a minor influence from Spring. I guess that the reason the Autumn drapes worked so well to intensify eye color was their low saturation, which is the color characteristic that Autumn shares with Summer. When doing the analysis, always focus on the skin. Once you get that right, the eyes will automatically be their best.
In men, the deciding Season always creates the cleanest, strongest bone structure. They do look younger, the skin clearer, but what I see is just plain “handsome”.
Light Summer’s Colors
Light Summer’s are popsicle colors. No, not quite that bright. Rainbow colors. It’s not just True Summer overexposed. The light and clarity of Spring make the feeling of the whole palette much more lively. Any single color may be similar to some of True Summer’s, but the whole person viewed together, just as the whole Colours Book fanned out, is more energetic than True Summer. That clearance of True Summer’s gentle cloud brings a springy feeling, in more ways than one.
The Light Summer is color in sunlight. Compare this to Soft Summer, which is color in shade. Notice the shirt he’s wearing – color in shade. The chair is probably the true color. In sun, it would be Light Summer’s – so a little bleached out, and better on Kip. Still cool and fresh, like True Summer, but just that mention of clear light.
Watch how the color moves in the image below as it changes from light areas to shaded areas. In our physical world, light is reflected from objects in a continuum of light-true-dark, or warm-true-cool. In 12 Tone, or 12 Season, Color Analysis, the Tones progress from one to the next through the same sequence.
Kip’s most remarkable color was his off-white (the color of the Light Summer white drape in the previous article How Light Summer Goes Grey) . Not a browned off-white, like clamshell, which is Soft Summer’s. This is vanilla ice cream, but not French vanilla, which is too yellow. It took a conscious effort to remove that drape because he just looked so extremely right. Everyone in the room just kept looking. The longer a right color is on you, the more good things come out. The longer a wrong color is on you, the more bad things come out.
Summer’s palette showcases Kip’s gracious intelligence better than any other. Far more a listener than a talker, more peaceful than animated, more caring than needing, the personality of Summer men is admired more for their support of others than their call for self-promotion.
Color that’s too cool or cloudy says nothing about his easy smile and sense of humor, the pleasure he takes in physical activity, his respectful appreciation of Nature, or his capacity for adventure. His essence is quiet and easy to be with, but is made for the outdoors. The feeling is relaxed, sea and sand, boats and bicycles, not formal.
Light Summer Clothing
As important as it is to always look at color in daylight, the Light Seasons have to be especially careful to do so. There is no type of dark color that flatters them. In mall lighting, it’s too easy to go too dark.
A soft white shirt and a silver grey jacket would be outstanding. Pure white will take over, reducing the person, and we do not wear clothes to be diminished by them. A man wearing a coat/shirt in too-strong colors makes him look weak, and makes the size of the head look too small for the shoulders.
Spring/Summer men don’t sing to me in plaid, which can look workday and practical. Corduroy, same. Too much texture looks heavy and dulls the fabric. Light colors belong with light fabrics. Uncomplicated cottons, denim, natural linen, lightweight wool, and knits look smooth and balanced. Autumn’s focus is work and productivity. Spring is lighthearted and lives to enjoy life, to play, to have fun.
A light cotton shirt with a colorful stripe in a single color, which I think is called a Bengal Stripe (below from Savile Row Co), cool tan chinos, now that looks good. His temperature looks cool (he needs to, he’s a Summer above all), but there’s that little effervescence that elevates him to another frequency.
Love it in pink and in turquoise.
Purple and yellow
He definitely has a yellow look, though less than in his teens, and yellow in his skin. Any Spring blend needs to get comfortable wearing purples, though Light Summer hasn’t as many choices as the purer Springs. Because purple and yellow intensify one another, and the Colours Book shows you the right purple swatches for your particular type of yellowness, it looks remarkable. The shirt below is at Paul Fredrick. The white is that trace-of-vanilla off-white and all the purples are right.
Women love feminine colours on men. OK, I love them. It doesn’t need to be a mauve turtleneck. One stripe in a tie will get the room’s attention. Women keep looking at the one guy who can wear a cherry popsicle stripe in a sky blue tie. Men respect it because so few men know how to do this and accentuate their masculinity, rather than seem to compromise it.
Before you turn 30
This was a very interesting PCA for me. It reinforced what is easily forgotten, to never drape a person with predicted ideas of the outcome. Never start guessing. Go into the analysis with a blank slate, do the driving, and let the drapes give you the answer.
About finding that Spring/Autumn flow…the instrument I use to measure color, the Sci\ART drapes, are not designed to help me find that coloring. I don’t think it matters.
As a professional community of Personal Color Analysts, our strength will not be in fragmenting ourselves over linguistic and detail. We are already exclusive enough. Whatever system analyzed you, you’ll still look way better than you did before. Wouldn’t a world where everyone had a PCA by the time they’re 25 be beautiful? If a PCA were as automatic a grad gift as a laptop? If PCAs were part of everyone’s life like gym memberships?
Kathryn Kalisz’s passing in January was a loss to our entire community. Too much knowledge is lost when one person passes, unless we share our strengths. As Kathryn once said to me, “There’s plenty of business for everybody.”
Note: I do not own the images above. If you own these pictures and would like me take them down, I will gladly do so.
No Summer+Winter or Spring+Autumn Blends
July 31, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 23 Comments
Hi, everyone. Let’s begin with a hot topic to rev our color motors back up.
In the comments for the article “Handbags for the 12 Color Analysis Seasons”, Donna Cognac, a highly certified color and image professional, said this.
I just wish that you could also address the 4 types that get ignored in 12 type color systems. The types that are a blend of Winter/Summer; Summer/Winter; Spring/Autumn and Autumn/Spring….with the first word the dominant harmony in each type.
In the Sci\ART Twelve Tone System, there are no categories that combine any of the 3 Summers with the 3 Winters, or Autumns with Springs. Most other PCA systems disagree.
Logic would have me begin with Munsell facts, but that’s not the reason that resonates most strongly with me, so I’m going to go evangelical first.
Extensions of Our World
We are children of this planet. Its colors live in us and through us. So do its patterns, its clocks, its and yearly rhythms, from the molecules on up. There is a very strong repetition of the way humans look and how it feels to interact with them, and the Season they represent. They seem almost as extensions of their particular month in appearance and behavior.
If True Winter begins January 1, then
Bright Winter is February
Bright Spring = March
True Spring = April
Light Spring = May
Light Summer = June
True Summer = July
Soft Summer = August
Soft Autumn = September
True Autumn = October
Dark Autumn = November
Dark Winter = December
True Autumn looks, dresses, and behaves as “comfortable, abundant, strong, productive, natural”. Spring, holy cow, does not.
Sure, of course, some people may have both Spring and Autumn characteristics. Some people don’t seem to behave like their Season at all, so the relationship between color and personality isn’t tight. Still, if anyone is going to behave or look like their Season, it’s more often in the absolutes, or True, Seasons, making them harder to merge.
For some, consistency with the planet’s color cycles has no relevance. They might say “If that were true, then why isn’t every color you see in August right for Soft Summer?”
Fair question, but I can only answer it as I see it. Our accord with our Earth’s own palettes and her cycles means that flowing between the 2 warm or 2 cool Seasons doesn’t make sense. Autumn and Spring are on opposite corners of the world’s phase clock. So are Summer and Winter.
Color in Nature
Kathryn Kalisz is the artist who created the Sci\ART system. Prior to her tragic death, I asked her why there are no pure warm and pure cool blends.
She answered,
There is a natural order of color that we cannot and should not change. It follows the spectrum of light (as seen in the rainbow) and when connected at both ends, the color circle is created. In this natural order of color, color moves from cool to warm, or warm to cool. An object never reflects just one single hue, but always three visible tones of the color, from cool (usually the shadow side) through the neutral or true color, to the warm tone where the light hits it. Complementary colors are based on this natural order of color. The 12 tone color system is a natural color order system, which reflects the way colors move in nature.
Color never moves from cool to cool, or warm to warm.
Shopping Well Is Hard Enough
We can talk about how adding to blue to cool must also darken, meaning we move towards Winter as we cool color more. We can talk about how 12 distinguishable tones are sufficient. You could have 40 Seasons but who could tell them apart? Seasonal colour analysis clothing and makeup colour is already hard to match because they’re usually colored in random, market-driven shades. They’re not in the business of making real women look strong and lovely, they’re moving garments off racks and colored powder out the door.
For me, the point is this: No new classification is needed. Sci\ART uses the Munsell system’s 3 dimensions of color. They’re enough. Kathryn created a set of drapes whose colors are calibrated to move through 12 levels of the 3 dimensions of color in all the possible combinations. Straightforward, easy to understand, easy to explain, just like Warren Buffett’s investment strategy.
You get a personal palette that matches YOUR level of the 3 dimensions, no borrowing, no crossing over, no overlaps.
Sci\ART Color Measuring Tools
A.k.a., the drapes. Someone reading this (and disagreeing) might argue that the Sci\ART drapes just aren’t set up to reveal these cool/cool blends. Well, what would that look like?
The cool/cool would be bluer than True Summer, but not so blue as to darken to Winter? And fairly saturated, but not at Winter’s level? I suppose you could create such a palette, but me, I’m not convinced that it’s necessary. Women already have trouble telling Summer’s reds and blues from Winter’s, let alone finding them to buy with confidence. This all has to be learn-able and use-able by real people in real stores.
What about the warm/warm blend of Autumn+Spring? This one, I really don’t comprehend. Autumn and Spring are warmed in completely different ways, one with dull rust and one with clear yellow. A recent client looked to me like he might set this issue to rest. We’ll be looking at him soon.
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