A Blonde True Winter Part 2
June 30, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 22 Comments
Perhaps you met Hanka, the newest member of the Sci\ART family of personal colour analysts, in the first article, A Blonde True Winter.
If you have watched an analysis performed, you could accept any result as amazing, surprising, but completely plausible. The Sci\ART process forces you to just see what is, not what you think should be, a reality check.
Your eyes only need to see this once to go through to the other side, where the Season stereotypes have evaporated. You know the feeling of being dragged to your colour frontiers, resisting all the way (because the change we resist the hardest is the one we need to make the most to reach our next level), and surrendering the preconceptions. After that, like with all change, you realize it was harder to think about than to actually do.
But enough philosophy. Hanka responded to some doubts in the Comments of the previous article. People very rightly ask for visual proof. I’m not posting the blonde photo here, I’m hoping you’ll see this one first, and let it imprint itself in your mind (and you’ll turn inwards and find an awareness of the pathways your mind immediately starts to set out on, with so little substantiation; until you’re aware of that, you can’t have a roadblock ready for next time.) Hanka has done a lot of work in voice and theater, and sent me this photo from a performance a short while ago.
I never analyze skin from photos, far too many variables going on, so I look for other things.
1. Am I looking at makeup or the woman? The woman. I see intensity of colouration, whites are sharp, colours appear highly saturated, no soft, misty feeling. No sunshine, no earthy feelings, even in the skin, from what I can see.
2. Did dark eyeliner close in the size of the eye, because it would on someone who couldn’t balance the darkness? No. In fact, the eyes seem bigger with crisper outlines and better definition from the face. Our eyes are the focal point of our body. When our appearance expresses us truthfully and most beautifully to the viewer, others are looking at our eyes and listening to our words, no tensions, no distractions from busy colour F/X elsewhere. The eye wanders around the composition with ease, very happy that all the colours belong reasonably together, no feeling of a colour battlefield.
3. Does the hair colour steal colour from the face, or clear the skin to look clean and fresh, but not yellow or grey? Seems clear and fresh, not older in any way I can see.
4. Does the hair colour dull or drain the eye colour, or intensify it? Intensifies it. The eyes can balance and corroborate that hair colour. They are able to vouch for each other and seem believable on the same head. I’m not saying that Hanka should darken her hair, which I have never, ever seen improve a person. For most of us, our best hair is the colour we had around 25, when we’d settled into our Season but before we darkened with maturity, and then lightened a shade or two to soften the concentrated pigments of chemical colour. My opinion only, very open to being convinced otherwise. Like lipstick, though, wigs are an interesting means of ‘draping’ and seeing what happens. You can be surprised.
5. Do my eyes keep coming back to a too-bright lipstick, or am I looking at eyes, but having the lipstick in the same visual field and feeling good with that? The latter. Is the lip perfect, maybe not, but there are certainly some things about it that work.
6. Flip the lip colour to something nude. Does the face lose definition and freshness, or is it a relief? No relief, it would be boring and flat. I like lip intensity to approximate the intensity of hair and clothing, adjusting darkness a bit for complexion and occasion. On a lighter Season, our eyes would be stuck on these lips and keep coming back to the lips, unless we applied an effort we could actually feel to drag our gaze elsewhere.
7. Look at other things in the photo. They will have an effect, which is why PCA is done in a grey room. That wall plaque behind her may be throwing some heat into the skin. Does it feel like it belongs with her, could she wear a turtleneck that colour and would you feel good, or feel like “Uh, Hanka, have you got anything else to wear?” Maybe I’m not sure. You don’t have to always know. If I can’t make a decision with certainty, I don’t make it. I keep going. It might not be her best outfit, but something about it might work…the darkness level? the rosiness? Not sure. I like it better than the yellow-brown doorframe off to the right, and I feel better all of a sudden when I block it out with my hand.
8. Is the makeup just making the hair colour work? Again, not sure, but the face is not so different from the body, except that it photographs whiter as makeup always does.
9. If you have progressed far enough in your understanding of personal colour to agree that hair colour can be variable (even if you can’t get to admitting that it should have a place in the Season decision), if I showed you this woman first…would you still say Spring? Or were you really just seeing a blue-eyed blonde and got stuck in the trap they taught us oh, so, well, way back when.
PCA is about skin and one photo tells you next to nothing about skin. Colour is understood by comparison because pigments x, y, and z in your skin, though they look like everyone else’s skin, will react totally differently to colour A than Hanka’s pigments, or your BFF’s. Skin may all look similar, but it reacts differently. It can’t be predicted, expected, or assumed. Stereotypes are assumptions.
Soft Autumn Darkness Adjustments
June 24, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 24 Comments
Every Season makes darkness adjustments for hair colour one woman at a time. There will always be individuals who don’t look right in the median colour, and fare better along the outer edges of the curve. I love hair colour that looks believable, like it happened by itself, and that flatters the skin to the utmost. This is when the viewer feels most relaxed.
Depending on depth of complexion, personal taste, and occasion, cosmetic darkness is adjusted too, though always staying inside the personal colour palette of the Season, and aiming for the same goals as with the hair.
In 12 Tone personal colour analysis, Soft Autumn is the name given to the type of natural colouring that contains colours mostly characteristic of the Autumn group, but cooled and grayed by a smaller measure of Summer.
In previous posts on Soft Autumn hair colour, I showed a coppery apricot colour as being quite lovely. In every Season, many hair colours are not only possible, but better and righter. Sometimes the freckle colour is the perfect highlight, even in the Dark Autumn or further out in the Autumn family, at Dark Winter.
Soft Autumn is a typical Neutral Season in that they have a range of warmer and cooler colours, but none fully warm or cool. The value (meaning, Light>>Dark) range that perfects the skin has some movement too, though never extends to extremes of either one for the Soft Seasons. What this woman strives for most importantly is very muted, soft colour. Muted and warm, that is, because maximally muted (greyed) and cooled belongs to Soft Summer, peanut shell and misty mauve respectively.
The element of coolness means that they are not especially orange-tolerating. Hair and freckling can skew the perception. The woman above (all 3 photos) has many apricot brown freckles. She adds those colours to her hair, giving a warmer appearance, as you see in the lower photo where natural medium warm brown and apricot highlight are visible. She can wear soft golden-oranges beautifully in makeup as long as they’re not very dark. Regardless of hair colour, darkness in makeup is a caution point for Soft Autumn, often appearing darker than expected from the pencil or tube colour.
Some Soft Autumns are harder to imagine in apricot, like Kate Moss, who does not seem orangey at all. (I only know she gives a Soft Autumn impression). Though the blonde that Charlize Theron wears well never flatters her, and warm blonde does, she is neither very orange or dark. Some of these seem almost too orange. She can do more darkness and warmth than we usually see and look far more interesting with less paint. This feels just beyond the upper darkness limit where colour is being pulled from the skin.
Kate Moss has smaller, sharper features and wears darker hair better than what we normally see, but does not do very dark so well. This is a good gallery. 6 and 8 seem very good, while the rest make your insides tense up. Or, go back even farther.
The less well blonde works, the more Autumn presence there may be. Kathie Lee is a good example of a woman who was beautiful with deeper, warmer hair colour.
Google Kelly Macdonald. Though you’d think she’d be better in the lighter warm brown hair, I prefer the darker. Many have a naturally quite dark hair colour. They might be expected to be darker Autumn, but they’re drained out by those drapes. On Kelly, orange hair is overheated, not as good as a more neutral brown.
On Kelly, we again see those sharper features that are more often seen (by me) in Soft Summer, where the facial architecture resembles Candice Bergen’s who is probably a Summer of some sort. Soft Autumn usually carries more squared, slightly blunted features like Claire Danes, but there is interchangeability in this. Is that to go with Autumn’s blunter personality? I never said that. I would go as far as direct.
I wonder if so many models are Soft Autumns because their very medium-ness of colouring makes them versatile and that particular bone structure is so pretty when it shows up in this Season. Molly Sims, Drew Barrymore, Gisele – it’s in the fine nose, high round cheekbones, defined jaw, and feminine mouth. The example of Rene Russo came up on Facebook recently, and I can’t think of a better illustration of this combination of facial geometry and colouring.
Candice Bergen Life Magazine, USA, July 24, 1970
There was a request for a formal look for Soft Autumn. I visited my latest happy place and made this. Our Polyvore craze has been a great thing. In practicing to be my own Season (Dark Winter), I didn’t realize how capably I had learned to exclude everything else. Now, the DW imprint is strong in my head. It is high time to reopen the windows to register the many choices on the shopping landscape.
Maybe you will think, those colours are all too similar. When I do this, I’m essentially following the guidelines of your natural colouring, how it feels to look at you. I dress you as you already are, to be consistent with the light you already emanate. On Soft Seasons, there are no big jumps from one colour to the next. Transitions exist, but as the eye moves from the skin to hair to eyes, it doesn’t encounter anything bold or sudden in the colours themselves or how they are combined.
The purse is the warm hair highlight. The lighter woman might choose from the right side, the darker from the left. The darker shoes could be worn by any of the three Autumn Seasons. The metals are not very hot. I love wood, shell, and muted bead on Soft Autumns, in keeping with the female-earthy feel. Natural fibers and textures are fabulously good on them, which drew me to the linen-and-flax feeling of the jacket, but it might be too casual for this ensemble.
Pearls? I love femininity on Soft Autumn. In this regard, Summer leaves a strong trace. The curve-hugging rippling fabric of the dress…. But everything is very medium. There are no extremes, the swatches all hug the center in Warm>>Cool (but tipping over to warm) and Light>>Dark. Only saturation is low and soft.
Colouring hair may enable wearing warmer or cooler choices from the Neutral Season swatches, but you’d still stay within that Season’s own colour menu or the skin’s perfection will pay a price. I do not believe that anyone can convincingly and flatteringly colour her hair to take her outside her Season. I know for a fact that many will disagree. OK.
Recreate the light you already cast. Make the wavelengths you add be synchronous with the ones you are. To the viewer, it feels effortless as floating.
A Brown-Eyed Summer
May 14, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 17 Comments
And not just a Summer, but a Light Summer!
Geoff was one of the people I analyzed as part of my training, with Terri there to guide me. Though I wasn’t tuned into people’s colouring back then, his impression seemed very medium and still is in my memory. He had medium-dark sandy brown hair and eyes that seemed twinkly somehow, but light or medium in depth, no idea what colour.
It has been pointed out that if I believe that eyes and hair are irrelevant to Season (and I do), then why do I keep talking about them? Because skin is hard to talk about. In a previous article, Jocelyn Is A Bright Winter, I had watched her at work for years, so I had some idea of how her skin reacted to colour. Geoff and I just met that day, which is the case with most clients.
His Season was Bright Winter. At the time, I had no idea what the significance of that was. He could have been any Season and it would have seemed perfectly plausible. Every one of the 12 Seasons had an exactly equal outcome probability. That precious trust is one of the hardest things to hang onto as experience brings expectation, complacency, and ruts. The beginner is far more willing to wander off the beaten path, too naive to know what the implications are.
As time passed, I often wondered if I would ever have the confidence to a call a medium-colouring person a Bright Winter without Terri standing beside me. Terri had analyzed hundreds of people, probably thousands, having been an analyst since the 80s, first with one of the biggest brands in PCA, and eventually settling more comfortably with Sci\ART.
In PCA, the average is the exception. The general population, the people at yoga class, your family, nobody quite looks like the pictures in books. Those perfect averages are as rare as the patient with a disease who shows up with all the textbook signs and symptoms. At least, I never see them. Most everyone has something that seems not to fit.
Let’s call this lovely woman May. She had been analyzed many years ago as a Summer, in a 4-Season system. It was closer than the other choices, though she did wear some Spring colours, especially the robin’s egg blues. May is remarkably colour perceptive, even to the fine details, and could decide even with the first drapes which was better. She is one of the few women I see who came in wearing her best colours.
We began as Light Seasons always do. Terrible, but terrible in Autumn. We could have counted 15 different problems. Overwhelmed by Winter’s aggressive darks. No surprise so far. True Summer made the skin a bit greyed, but it looked younger and more evenly coloured. True Spring brought an easing of lines and that typical smoothness of skin of this Season, but she was too yellow. Very typical of the Light Seasons. Seen this many times.
And I’m feeling a bit nervous because those eyes are brown and they are not changing, though the skin and eyelids around them are changing dramatically. Eye colour intensity or crispness of outline of the iris don’t change equally in everyone, but as I get to the better Seasons, these factors are usually helpful guides. Contradictions can happen, as the Soft Autumn eyes in skin that has cooled and softened to Soft Summer in a woman in her 60s, and skin always matters most. The eyes won’t change in a face while the skin remains the same, it’s just easier to see in the eye as we refine the very best colours.In May’s case, we seldom looked at her eye colour or sharpness. We did it entirely by looking at skin.
Life often teaches us what we most need to know at the time we are truly receptive. I get challenged a fair bit about ignoring eye and hair colour, and sometimes I question myself. May came along, I believe, to teach me to stick to my guns. If eyes don’t matter, and ANY Season can have ANY hair and eye colour, then it was time for me to put my money where my mouth is.
We knew True Summer and True Spring weren’t right. I kept seeing those dark eyes and going back to Bright Spring. Bernice Kentner of CMAS, whom I hold in highest esteem, has said that a brown-eyed Spring is mostly a Winter blend, and that has been my experience so far. There was no way. May is not crisply cool to look at, and Bright Springs usually are. Those drapes were not only draining, but they looked crazy, like the woman and the colour were separate and had been Photoshopped together.
I thank May for sitting there so patiently, Summer that she is. PCA is like a video game. It doesn’t let you see any level of clues till you’ve mastered the previous level. It holds back knowledge you’re not ready to use correctly. We tried Light Spring and Light Summer a few times and couldn’t choose. I never belabor these moments, I change the energy. We went backwards, tried Soft Summer and the True Summer and Spring again, just to give our eyes more ways of seeing. Then, it was obvious. Light Summer was clearly and obviously the one. Her skin was the absolute youngest, without being yellowed as Light Spring caused. In a 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis system, Light Summer is the person whose inborn colouring is predominantly Summer’s, with a trace of Spring’s clear, light, yellow sunlight.
I wonder if she was a Light Spring as a younger woman. Her skin may have cooled and softened into Light Summer. But a brown-eyed Light Spring is still most uncommon. And those eyes are brown, but fascinatingly so. A blue-eyed Light Summer has a very clear open wreath around the pupil, like this:
See the browner doughnut around the pupil? And see also the absence of lines and spokes and specks and other detail throughout the iris? Very typical of all 3 Summer groups.
In May’s eyes, substitute all the blues for browns and you’re there. Same very prominent open wreath, actually even wider doughnut than the eye above, same absence of strong lines, and of a darker brown than the very slightly lighter brown outside the wreath.
What else was fascinating? Her eyelashes are light-medium blonde, about like the eye above or perhaps a bit lighter, and far lighter than her eyes. Her eyebrows are extremely fair.
Her hair colour is lighter than her natural light brown was in her earlier years, and her natural is now gray. Hair is hidden during the analysis, so imagining her in darker hair would not have made a younger face.
If you can’t buy a brown-eyed Summer, what else can you picture? Nothing I can think of. Try putting other Seasons’ makeup on her. I can’t see it. She is wearing the lightest silvery taupe eyeliner I have. Even through tinted lenses, can you imagine darker without the eyeliner being an obvious dark line on this skin? Not really. May is wearing quite a bit of light gold-peach bronzer and carnation pink blush and lipstick, but the white analysis lights are still on so the skin seems a bit whiter.
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?
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.
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.
Colour Balance
December 26, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 11 Comments
When your coloring is stronger than your clothes’ colours, then your clothes appear even more subdued and ineffective by comparison.
When your jewelry is brighter than you, you become duller by comparison.
When your eyeliner is too dark, your eyes can’t balance it. The eyes closes in and looks smaller.
What is this whole concept of balance and colour in personal colour analysis? The goal is that everything you wear so matches who you already are in darkness, coolness, neutrality (meaning warm and cool at once), clarity of colour, saturation…any colour parameter, that to the viewer, your person and your decoration are as one.
A woman walks into a restaurant. She has blonde hair and blue eyes, and a pale-sunshine complexion. Nobody can see anything but the dark eyeliner and black spider eyelashes. She only wears a line of liner on the upper lid, but still her makeup is stronger than she is. She is reduced by comparison, as is everything else she was wearing, if anyone even noticed it. Taylor Swift cannot balance her eyeliner, so her eyes appear small and squinty in the face.
Actually, they couldn’t help but notice her clothing. She had on a black suit. Once you got past the eyeliner, the black block kept dragging the eye back down. The blonde hair on the black jacket may have been pretty, but she looked too serious, too old, and too solid (which we translate to heavy). Her presence is reduced, and the importance of every word she speaks is reduced. The suit and eyeliner muscled their way on stage, grabbed the microphone, but they had nothing good to say. Color is always about its closest neighbor, because that’s what determines how the colour looks.
Even Kate Middleton, in her engagement photos, wears too much dark eyeliner, so the eyes look smaller. There is blue in the liner, to match the dress, and once you get past the black lines, you become caught up in the blue. If the blue then sparkles, and the woman sparkles less, the woman just got duller. Human coloring usually cannot match the intensity of cosmetic pigments, let alone their bizarre effects of frost/sparkle/glitter/prismatic reflections, etc. Some women can match it with ease, but the cosmetic industry wants us to believe we call can. Think about your friends out shopping on a Saturday. Honestly, can their natural coloring balance the world of shimmer? Can most of them balance darkness beyond medium?
Oprah walks into a meeting. She is wearing a dusty pink sweater (like Mrs. Obama wore on Ellen) and soft grey pants. Oprah’s natural coloring is so much stronger than her clothing colours that the clothes become insignificant. They pale even more when placed on her body.
These are separate concepts from looking yellow, sallow, or other aspects of balancing heat. The focus today is mostly on “can you match the saturation and darkness?”. Matching the degree of warmth or coolness is another issue altogether, as “warm colours make me look ill”. That’s a different kind of balance.
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Open this article in a new window (the link should do that automatically). Resize the two windows so you can see this one and the pictures side by side.
Now these are my impressions. If you disagree, that’s ok. In fact, please tell me why so I can see it your way.
Try to slow down time as you look at each photo and answer this : What was the FIRST thing your eye took in ? The second?
Also, take the time to look at the thumbnails under the slideshow. If you put a fulcrum at the midpoint of the picture, which way would the picture tip? Would any pictures stay level? Do any effects look so out of place on the person that they seem to have been Photoshopped in after?
January Jones
The black dress, black hairband, and black brocade in the dress are all more than the girl can balance, so they seem too prominent. Blue eyeshadow just competes with blue eyes, as it always does. I saw the red lips long before I saw here eyes. The strong eyebrows save her on the L. They are long gone on the R, but not as far gone as the lips.
My deep-down reaction to both pictures is that I have no idea who this woman is.
One can always say nice things. The hair color on the L feels quite good on this girl, a point aimed at balancing degree of heat.
Rihanna
What feels like it belongs on this woman? We won’t talk about the lashes because nobody alive could balance those, and as a 20 year old celebrity, she can do what the rest of us would look nuts in. The lashes were the first thing I saw when the picture opened.
The colours on the L are ok. When your eye makeup is very frosty, or blingy in some other way, your eyes get dull to the same extent, as hers have. You may feel her eyes look pretty, but are you looking at the eye color, or is your attention preoccupied with the makeup color or application? Think about discerning exactly what you are looking at.
The toffee blonde of the hair isn’t so bad. I can imagine a sweater this colour, and it wouldn’t wear her, or the other way round. It might turn her skin too yellow if she can’t balance the amount and type of heat, meaning that Autumn and Spring have different heat.
The red hair on the R seems to take over the energy of the entire photo. I think it’s too dark and too cool a red. Is it just the big style? I think it would have the same effect in the hairstyle on the L.
Joaquin Phoenix
The suit is stronger than he is. His head looks attached as an afterthought. He does B&W better than others might. Let your eyes relax and take in the whole photo without trying to look at any element particularly. Think about what you are most aware of. For me, it’s the clothes.
He’s not way far off the B&W. Some of you may like it on him. When the balance gets closer to being right, it becomes more subtle. Maybe it’s the coldness of the black that doesn’t work, rather than its darkness. Maybe it’s too saturated for him.
Men usually have more intense coloring than women in a given Season. They can wear darker color because they contain darker color. If this man were Winter, I’d think his hair should be darker at this age, but who knows. Hair is (for me) the most misleading aspect of choosing Season.
Jennifer Hudson
She is much stronger than what she is wearing on the L. In that big, soft, light block, she might as well be naked. Because the clothes are less than she is, the parts of her that are showing seem larger.
On the R, not bad at all. The dress comes just to the edge of taking over, but not quite. That is saying something because the dress is A. red, and B. a big block. By balancing the dress and wearing a good lip colour, her skin clears and looks fresh, not heavy or thick. Her presence has impact and interest. She looks alive, not dumpy.
Ashley Simpson
I have no words. It hurts to look at this child. I’m so caught up in seeing vulnerability that I am having trouble peeling apart all the color layers.
Dakota Fanning
Looks real on the L. If that jacket is a bomber style, it could be great. If it goes to the knees, the lightness of the girl won’t balance the weight of a big, dense, heavy leather block. It’s the girl coming out to meet you in this photo, not the decorations.
On the R, the eyeliner is much stronger than she is, so it seems artificial, like it’s not part of her. Then your eye sees the face but there’s this nagging distraction of the black in the bottom half that keeps calling the eye down to it. At rest, it should be effortless to keep the eye on the face, and the face should have no look-at-me elements.
Heidi Montag
Hollywood’s love affair with processed blond on black. Read the caption. Should have just had her colours figured out. The facial expression on the L, the whole 2 photos, just say ”I live to please men, the fashion industry owns me, because I sure don’t own myself.” Forgive me, that was honest but not nice. You might love it, perfectly fine. Suffice it to say that the pink is better than the black, as is the makeup.
Skip along…
Emma Watson
One interesting girl. She is darkening with maturity. The medium-everything colours she wore at the beginning of the series worked well enough, and expressed the bookworm nerd persona. With each movie, she more dominates those clothes. They look duller, and duller as she gets darker and sharper.
Though the black isn’t solid on the L, she has no problem wearing it, even when her lips are erased. The eyeliner does not reduce her eyes. She can balance the eyebrows, meaning that they enhance and fit believably into the whole without being so dominant as to stand apart. The white on the L is good, I don’t think she’s drained by it, but I usually prefer her in darkness. She has more clout.
Looking for someone real…
Keira Knightley
The girl is much stronger than the clothes on the L. This is an example of clothes doing nothing for the person. The match between hair and eye colour is interesting, Dark Autumns do this. Dark Winters don’t usually, but brown eyes are more complicated than other eye colours to fit into Seasons (for me).
She is much stronger (so appears as bigger) from the neck up, in fact from the nose up, than from the nose down. Hold up your L hand up to block out the L photo. Hold the other hand up to block the R photo from the cheekbones down. Let your eyes relax and look for awhile, then take down your R hand. It’s like there’s nothing there. Just look at the thumbnail at the bottom of the page, it’s topheavy. Depending on what’s on her bottom half, she could still work this well. If the pants are the same colour as the top, her head will look big.
I wonder if she wears light colours on her body to not look so thin. Would it work on her? It’s the reverse of the automatic assumption that black is slimming. Well, would she look even thinner if her dress were black coffee? I think it would give her body more solid substance, and less of a ‘floated away’ impression. This woman might use styling details to add shape to her body.
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How about Natalie Portman?
Can she balance black or does it take her over? It doesn’t have to be her best.
Does she dominate light colours most of the time, does the balance feel good, or do only some light colours work? Light to medium people, like Soft Autumn, can wear more darkness in clothes than in makeup or hair, IMO, so you have to consider both.
Are there photos in which something other than Natalie takes over and keeps dragging your eye back to it?
Does she need warmth? What kind? Orange, yellow, coffee, beer, buttercup, apple cider, chocolate?
Which feels more right? Pixie, hippie, sex bomb, college chic, fresh&lovely, classy&remote?
What does she overwhelm? What overwhelms her?
Spring and Autumn Makeup Colours
December 7, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 41 Comments
Spring is light. Literally, figuratively, subliminally, Spring is light.
Colours are light to medium on the Light >> Dark scale. The brown that looks dark on Scarlet Johanssen looks pale and insignificant on Julia Roberts.
Colour deposits are light and /or sheer, though color is still lively. Like putting makeup on a porcelain doll.
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Autumn color is heavy. Like a rug, a warm blanket, a stone fireplace.
Colours is medium to dark.
Colour deposits can be more opaque. The skin is more opaque and needs heavier color. Like putting makeup on a quilted cloth doll.
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I just said something dangerous. The Soft Autumns reading this are thinking “My skin is pale and easily overwhelmed with heavy makeup. I look fake in heavy makeup.” For many Soft Autumns, or any Season that contains some Summer, that can be very true.
Spring is a Season of more translucent colour. Mix that with Summer’s thinner skin and you have extreme fragility and youthfulness of complexion. For me, Light Spring is overwhelmed by the same weight of colour that Soft Autumn can wear, in fact that would be barely visible on a Soft Autumn (either that, or it would be far too candy pink).
Note too than when someone says something about a colour, like Soft Autumn needs heavier colour, the next question should be “heavier than what?”. Alone, adjectives are meaningless because it’s all comparative.
Soft Autumn is generally darker than Light Spring – but not as dark as the other Autumns. Soft Autumn still has light flesh tones, light golden browns, and peachy terracottas. They are not dark people. Any colour extreme, be it too dark, too hot, or too bright will dominate them entirely.
Their colours feel heavier than Spring’s, but this is not the same as saying they have the density of Winter’s. They are just not airy.
Any woman can be well within her Colours Book and still make a darkness adjustment as to which swatches she matches in makeup, based on her comfort level with colour on the face, the rest of the makeup, the occasion, and so on. Some Soft Autumns prefer their lighter colours, but sheer colour can seem like not enough. A Light Spring in sheer colour can still manage to look overdone.
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From top to bottom, these collections belong to Light Spring, True Spring, and Soft Autumn.
For anyone new to 12 Season Colour Analysis, Light Spring is mostly a Spring person, with a small hint of Summer. Soft Autumn is an Autumn coloring that contains a trace of Summer.
As with clothing, even if one colour is a little off, it’s not that big a deal. The rest of the makeup, clothing, and colours in the face will pull it in seamlessly. Many of the eyeshadows are probably interchangeable enough. You can see that True Spring is the yellowest. Light Spring is cooler. Soft Autumn has some neutrality (meaning warmth and coolness at once), as in the center eyeshadow in the left column. Soft Autumn is not clear yellow when viewed as a whole, and they are yet as orange as True Autumn will be.
Light Spring is confusing, as are all the Neutral Seasons, because the question becomes “How warm?”. Both Light Spring and Soft Autumn take a pure warm Season and mix in a trace of Summer. To get every colour perfect the makeup counter, you need the personal colour palette or swatch book.
I find eyeshadow the most difficult. Using descriptors like earthy, heavy, dense, opaque to distinguish browns doesn’t help a whole lot when you’re standing at the counter. Colour is always relative. Standing at the cosmetics counter trying to match a dot in a book will be an exercise in discouragement. Smear the makeup on a piece of white paper, and smear a bunch of similar colours next to it. Even if the colours aren’t that close, it doesn’t matter. Your eye will use the range and position every colour more accurately. With clothing, if you’re choosing a blue sweater, collect several blue items, any shade of blue, and line them up. That’s when you’ll pick out the cool blue, the muted blue, etc.
Spring eyeshadows are light and yellowish. Autumn’s can be yellowish too, but it’s a duller yellow. More gold than yellow usually.
Lipstick is easier. It’s clear for Spring and browned for Autumn. The blossom or the brick.
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Invoke all 5 senses when looking at color. There is a world beyond what your eyes can see.
Spring tastes sweet, ripe, and wet.
Autumn tastes savoury, spicier, and drier.
As you look at these groups of colour, what musical note would they have? Which dance? Which is the flute and which is the drum?
Best Makeup Colours : Dark Winter
November 7, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 16 Comments
Personal Colour Analysis (PCA) has its origins in your soul. It reaches way down to the innermost part of your being and identifies the vibrational energy of the colours you project on the outside.
You are a being of light. Once you know the colours of your natural light, you can repeat them in everything you wear. It’s not just to look good, though you surely will. Words like wholeness, complete, unified, and aligned, inner with outer, may help you think about color in a different way.
Without PCA, you cannot possibly know your own rainbow. Like most folks, then, everything you wear, every item in your makeup drawer, your jewelry, and your highlights all communicate something different. The result is like a visual white noise.
Your makeup colours are your clothes colours. Your clothes colours are your eye colours. Your hair highlight colour is in your skin’s pigments. A thousand questions answered when you know.
In 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis, Dark Winter is very much a Winter Season, the most less-is-more Season of them all. Winter’s cool and dark colours are here, as is the pivotal red-violet of all Winters. An element of Autumn is still present, so slightly dulling and browning the colours, as Autumn always does. I am a Dark Winter. Sandra Bullock and Winona Ryder probably are too, and so is a Canada goose and a bald eagle.
The person is not necessarily dark, but the colors that perfect their skin and eyes are dark, RELATIVE to the other Seasons. Browns are darker, corals are darker, greens are darker, and the overall look should be medium to dark. As Winters, some of the lights are very very light, as icy colours. Compare that to the Dark Autumn, who is not flattered by icy lights because they are primarily Autumns. Their light colour palette is very different from Dark Winter’s, though the darker colour palette has some similarities.(For more, see Icy Colours and Pastels)
You know that my idea of elegant eye makeup is in shades of grays and browns. Dark Winters are icy grey, pure grey, or browned dark-taupes. Eye makeup is much more grey than brown. Brown looks too hot, like beef stew on snow. No, that’s too awful. Let’s say gravy on snow instead.
Soft Summer began with True Summer’s very cool palette, and looked at it through a layer of fog. Dark Winter begins with True Winter’s very cool palette and looks at it through a layer of soot. Clinique Totally Neutral Eyeshadow trio is a great everyday palette. In Canada, you could buy Joe Pebble powder eyeshadow, apply it with a wet brush to get a darker layer.
Smoky eyes and nude lips is a look so many aspire to. There’s nothing wrong with it, except that I have yet to meet the regular woman who can pick out her colors and not look ghoulish. A better look to aspire to is the natural look, the one that could believably have happened by itself.
While most Seasons can manage that “nude” pink-beige lip in some version or other, Winter has the most difficult time with it. The one thing Winter needs to remember is to pair very lights with very darks, and have very clear dividing lines between the color blocks. When the lips blend too much into the skin, it doesn’t look healthy, natural, outdoorsy, or pretty. It looks like Snow White with lips the color of concealer.
Many would say that we can’t go around with fuchsia, purple, or crimson lips at the office or the soccer game. In a heavy application, that may be so. A Winter going for a more natural look will stay true to their palette, as anyone does, but choose a more sheer or more brown product. Cherry skin, pomegranate juice, frosted cranberries, and ripe mulberries will be Winter’s best go-to 9AM lip colours. Try Merle Norman Stolen Kisses and MAC Scant (if you can find it) for day wear, and Elizabeth Arden Sugarplum Shimmer when you want more. If you’re 25 and want to work your icy fuchsia, icy pink, or light coral lip, that’s fine, because you still have the well defined lips of the young, but those colours are probably lighter than your natural lip colour.
Your colour analyzed cosmetic colour for the most natural, believable lip colour is mulberry, so a browned purple, in the lower right position of the lip/blush foursome. Strong cool dark coral-pink is a brighter option.
Eyeliners shown at the bottom are charcoal, blackened mulberry, and one could certainly use a black-brown too. I use MAC Photogravure or Clinique Black-Brown. MAC Grey Utility is a good smoky gray.
Your eye colour makes no difference. The makeup will work. The only thing you may need is a darkness adjustment. A dark lipstick will look lightER on a darkER person. I did that thing with cell phones that kids do to take endless photos of themselves so the picture below is odd. I’m wearing a purple-brown lipstick, which looks darker IRL, but not by much. It looks light on me and it would look lightER than that on Sandra Bullock, and lightER still on Oprah. So you take the Personal Colours Book of swatches shopping and match the darker colours, but always stay true to your palette.
Best Makeup Colours : Soft Summer
October 18, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 9 Comments
It’s a good thing Soft Summers are so wonderfully even-tempered. A certain fortitude helps for the group who have most often been assigned 2 or 3 different Seasons. The very fact that the coloring is not obvious is precisely the concept of this Season. Therefore, nothing else about the appearance should be blatant either. Dark liners, yellow highlights, or golden bronzers might be ineffective or undetectable or other Seasons. On Soft Summer, they are shrill.
At her most aligned, Soft Summer dresses for an art gallery opening. She wears her makeup the same way. Ultimately tasteful and sophisticated, she would be invited anywhere. She is never inappropriate, bold, or abrupt, and her makeup is not either.
In 12 Season Colour Analysis, Soft Summer is the Neutral Season that is basically a Summer, incorporating the earliest feeling of Autumn. Still more an intuition than a very obvious shift, True Summer’s cool/soft palette is now observed through a veil of light grey smoke. Here on the outskirts of Autumn, the light taupe that settles over the entire palette is not yet warm enough to heat these colors. What it does is dull them. (See How The 5 Springs Add Yellow for more on how heat is added to the warm Season personal colour palettes).
If you looked at True Summer’s colours through the sky in the picture above, they might look like the cosmetic colors palette below. Look at the effect the mauve-grey-taupe has on the grass and trees, relative to the colors in the foreground. A little warmer, certainly more muted and quiet.
I could have sworn those blocks were lined up when I made this. Let’s not notice that. Instead, we could notice that the entire palette seems to fogged, even a bit blurred. If I’d really been on the ball, I would have softened the edges of all those squares and put the lightest mushroom color over the background.
There are no extremes of darkness or brightness. The overall effect is cooler than warm, so no gold, warm beige, or orange. The feeling is gentle but not fragile, an oak tree rather than a crystal vase (which would be Bright Spring). Soft Summer could share their cooler makeup palette with True Summer, but not with their warmer neighbor, the Soft Autumn, whose colors are much too golden to perfect this skin tone.
The most beautiful eye appears to be coming out of a misty lake. Eyeshadows and liners are hazy tan greys and mauve greys. The eyeliner is not much darker than the eyeshadow, to avoid creating an obvious line which only looks severe. In this Season, liner can distinguish itself by being a different color than the shadow, instead of a darker color.
The tan browns can be used to fill in brows as well. Eyebrows should never be the first thing people notice on anyone, or they’re overdone. On this group especially, brows may be darker or lighter than the hair depending on the individual, but they should diffuse into the face. It’s the eye color we’re trying to energize. Brows, blush, lipcolor, and hair are there to support, heighten, and accentuate eye color. When the natural features flow so seamlessly into one another, makeup must be exceptionally undemanding to not take over.
The lip and blush colors are interesting. Soft Summer and Dark Winter share certain characteristics. Both add neutral brown to a pure cool Season, True Summer and True Winter respectively. Dark Winter’s brown is much darker as Winter imposes blackness. Both are Neutral Seasons, so have cool and warm choices. Cool for Soft Summer is dusty plum, while warm is tan rose (still definitely a cool version). Cool for Dark Winter is not dusty or greyed at all, quite the opposite, but it is a browned plum; warm is saturated coral pink, dulled a bit with a drop of dark brown.
I love Soft Summer’s red. It is not fire engine, scarlet, blood, or anything else that activates. Summer is restorative, not catalytic. We’re still in the realm of rose petals, they just live on a dusty road.
There are 2 makeup items that are truly out of place on this type of natural coloring. The first in bronzer. You might think it would work, since a light touch of it can be quite outdoor-glowy on Light Summers. The difference is that the heat is so not-obvious in Soft Summer that bronzer stands out. You can’t find taupe bronzer, and who would put a grey layer on their skin anyhow? You’re so much easier to look at in a powder that respects the coolness of the skin and is two shades darker than a match. Use it with restraint, more to contour than to add heat, or skip it altogether.
Shimmer in makeup is the second means of over-gilding this lily. A satin finish in a lip product, maybe, so much easier to find. This Season is an exception where matte choices are actually plentiful. High shine is insistent and feels too childish to fit into this supremely elegant atmosphere. Add shimmer to many Soft Summer eyeshadows, and they become Dark Winter’s.
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