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?
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.
How Autumns Intensify Eye Colour
September 13, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 45 Comments
I went into the drugstore yesterday. The cosmetician’s makeup (the cosmetician! very pleasant, very helpful, but who hired her for this position?) was so dark and severe that it would scare children. I am no better at impartiality when it comes to my own face than anyone else, but there was nothing more this woman could have done to detract from her appearance. Her eyes never get noticed, lost in the pharaoh effects and dark burgundy lip. She might be a Soft Autumn, so it feels a bit of a tragedy to look at her.
We talked about Spring and Summer in previous articles (How Summers Intensify Eye Colour and How Springs Intensify Eye Colour). There, it was suggested that every single step of the makeup process should intensify eye colour. Your first reaction to a good blush should be “it strengthens the color of my eyes”. As the picture frame of your eyes, eyebrows should to be natural in shape and color, and groomed to look like you, but neater.
In 12 Season (12 Tone) Colour Analysis, Autumn’s colors are warmed by gold, medium on the light/dark scale, and muted to various degree, depending on which of the 3 Autumns is in question.
Eyeliner should not be so dark that it becomes obvious. Because so many women buy this product in color that is too dark, that’s what the industry makes. Finding lighter colors and a good variety of browns and greys takes some searching. The Autumn challenge is to find color of the right degree of warmth. If the color is too hot, the rims of the eyes look bloodshot. It is surprising how warm the Autumn brown can be and still do what we want:define the eye shape and then disappear into the face.
For anyone who might be new, you might wonder why I’ll never show you any blue/green/purple makeup that the viewer could perceive to be those colors. Next time you see a woman with that makeup, think about whether you’re looking at eye or the makeup. A dark green that looks more like dark brown? Fine. A taupe olive that looks more taupe? Fine. Teal that looks like peacock? Well, y’know.
I know there are blue die-hards out there. Wouldn’t it be ok to wear blue in eye makeup, as an orange complement, since Autumn’s undertone is orange-brown (more about undertones in Skin Undertones)? The cartoon effect of blue makeup can get away from you, but your taste may be different from mine and that’s fine. Color is big enough for many opinions. I’d suggest you wear your blues in clothing, and let them complement the eye colour. Clothing’s power to strengthen eye colour can’t be overstated. As a bigger color block, it is more effective than makeup for this purpose.
Soft Autumn
The principle of the Season, the radiance, the special look that nobody else can pull off so realistically: “Our Earth is our cradle. She feeds us, protects us, and never does anything harsh or unexpected that might harm us. She is gentle, warm, and generous in her abundance. Even her light is moderate, kind, welcoming.”
Who would put black eyeliner on that? Or cool foundation and fuchsia lips? It would feel like a ski jump in a September cornfield. Don’t overwhelm the eye with makeup, which happens too fast. Better to underwhelm the eye with makeup. A very little goes a long way on the Soft and Light Seasons.
The hair is butterscotch and brown, like peanut butter fudge. Make the eyeshadow toffee. Every Autumn has the ability to repeat her hair color in her eye color.
This is a Soft Autumn eye. The orange at the center repeats the freckes.
Make this the hair.
Is this the same as Spring’s red? No, that’s here. Is there a difference from a bottle? You’d have to ask a colorist, I don’t know. It might depend a lot on the base color the pigment is being applied to. If anyone does know, please share. The difference is that Autumn is the nectar, while Spring is the juice.
Notice too that there is a lot of Summer in this person’s eye, where the outer half or more is gray-blue-green. Soft Autumn is a Neutral Season and a cooler-neutral eyeshadow can work as well as a warm-neutral (shown in the graphic below).
Among the test drapes that are used to identify Season, there always seems to be one that connects powerfully with the eye color. I don’t really pay big attention to intensifying eye color till the last stages of the analysis, but when I see that the Season I’m narrowing down to also creates the strongest eye connection, it helps confirm that we made the right choice. For Soft Autumn, the olive drape is the best eye color intensifier.Interestingly, for the other Soft Season, the Soft Summer, the best eye color drape is the soft pine green. The drapes are finding something in these eyes that is not immediately obvious.
Below are the eyeshadow cool and warm colors, the olive drape, and the brown eyeliner I use on almost every Soft Autumn. The eye above belongs to a cool-side Soft Autumn and my usual brown eyeliner (Rimmel Sable) can be very slightly dark in the daytime. On her, Soft Summer’s brown-grey (Clinique Smoky Brown) is very good as well.
If an eyeshadow the same color as the eye were applied, it would look too blue. Matching eyes to eye makeup is a big boobytrap. The tendency is to pick the wrong eye colors and it ends up looking matchy, like the dreaded “tried too hard”.
True Autumn
Autumn says to the world : “My burnished glory can melt with its heat, but I’m also safe and strong. I am what I appear to be and honor truth above all.”
These eyes have a very particular property : they contain the color of metal. It might be copper, flame, or a darker greener bronze color. This effect is sometimes seen in the other Autumn Seasons as well. They have to be wearing the right clothes or you won’t see it.
Metallics in the thread of a scarf, or somewhere, is the kingdom of the True and Dark Autumn.
Get your hair color to pick up something in the eye. Too many Autumns have weak, safe beige hair. It will only age them. The other pitfall is to go too dark, but these are very medium-darkness people. I like this hair color, or perhaps a shade darker. Even in second-best makeup, you can’t not notice the eyes.
We discussed True Autumn’s best makeup colours previously, here. A metallic dot of antiqued gold eyeshadow just over the iris, and under the matte shade that covers the whole lid, is sublime. The viewer keeps seeing a flicker of flame in the vicinity of the eye.
Metallic lipstick or blush also can be beautiful on True Autumn. The caution is to be careful to put in on tight skin and only 1 feature at a time. Once over 40, adding a laminate to the hair might be a better way to add fire than a shimmer makeup face.
We’ve talked about ways to repeat and complement eye color. What about contrast? A warm/cool contrast won’t work. This skin is absolute in its warmth. Cool color will sit on top and look like silver icing on an apple crisp. A dark/light contrast isn’t possible since there are no extreme lights in the person, and extreme darks look obvious and severe. I don’t see any room for contrast here.
Dark Autumn
I always have trouble pinning down this Season. “I am here to get something done so get out of my way” is close, but Dark Winter can get this way too. Try again. This is their unique radiance: ”I can rule the world with my might but my opulent beauty surpasses all”. This is the image that I can’t shake (minus the singing).
Copyright Walt Disney 2005.
The Aztec princess, born to rule and privilege.
These eyes are gingerbread brown, chocolate gingerbread, liquid bronze, or can be a green-bronze color like the head of the wine goddess in the lamp photo above. The colors of the sky swirling above Pocahontas’ head, from her crown to the top of the poster, are about right.
The eyeliner has to be very dark brown. Mascara is black-brown, possibly black depending on the darkness of the person and hair. Gentle eyeshadows look like a cement wall, instead of an invitation deeper into the person. Use rich coffees, with cream and without.
Eyeshadow hilite is darker than most other Seasons’. M.A.C. Brule is good. All the light colors for this Season are darker than anyone else’s. The other Dark Season, Dark Winter, can wear Winter’s icy lights, but not this group.
Dark Autumn and Bright Winter are the 2 Seasons that need time to accept (and wear) the full richness of their colors. Many women back away from the strength of these colors. They are exotic colors, not traditionally feminine. The clothes and makeup are hot too, chili pepper, wasabi, nubuck tan. They watch in amazement but want it to be over, like it’s too much to absorb. It would be as if you woke up and saw 3 suns in the sky. They feel awkwardness, danger, almost embarrassment that these colors are who they are, like they’re too shamelessly attention-getting. Mind you, Autumn is nothing if not sensible. They are quick to adapt to what works and many know what they’ll see before they sit down. They are among the fastest learners.
Play up the hair and arrange it around the face. It repeats the eye color exactly. If it’s too flat or skinned back, you lose a huge eye intensifying opportunity. Do everything you can to make it gleam. Avoid anything too red, wine, magenta, or burgundy. It looks more natural when it’s more brown, like redwood, mahogany, dark chestnut. Port wine is the reddest you’d go.
Wear the lip color, sheer if you have to. Lancome LaLaque in TechnoBrick is a great compromise. The lips have to balance out the eyes and hair so you look complete, instead of like a puzzle with corner missing.
Best Makeup Colours : Bright Winter
July 4, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 23 Comments
The Bright Seasons wouldn’t be as perplexing as they are if someone hadn’t made an allusion to “clear eyes”. Suddenly, they became indefinable. Who has clear eyes? Who doesn’t?
In 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis, a repetitive phrase so that people can find me through Google, I know you knew that, this group belongs to the Winter category. Colours are dark, highly saturated, and cool.
Bright Winter is a Neutral Season, so Winter with a Spring infusion. Spring does do some fascinating things when it mixes with Winter, maybe part of what makes this coloring so consuming of our attentions and imaginations. Maybe it’s the relief we have evolved to feel when warmth returns to tell us that we survived another cold spell. Our feeling of welcome is almost heartbreaking.
Maybe we are arrested when pure, pure color energy mixes with Winter’s power.
Some of Winter’s cold is substituted for Spring’s pale yellow warmth. Not buttercup yet, not even daffodil. More like snowdrops. There is a trace of the delicate in these people, unlike True Winter that neither looks nor acts delicately ( or if they do, you soon learn it’s pretend).
When the 2 True Seasons of highest color saturation mix, this color sings with clarity. These are the highest color notes.
Spring also lightens the colors, compared to True Winter’s darkness. Only a bit.
Some Bright Winters react to their palette with “Obviously”, which the happiness with which most people greet their colors. The great David Weinberger said, in the cluetrain manifesto, that “laughter is the sound knowledge makes when it’s born”. Color analysts see it every day, in the laughter that people almost have to suppress when they see their palette. They are joyful and peaceful. And they’re a bit confused by the strength of their reaction.
Some Bright Winters react with “Oh, heavens, I could never do that.” One piece at a time. Let yourself do this. Being safe when you know more is like visually dumbing yourself down. NEVER be less than everything you can be. Buy a bright tank and wear a yellow one underneath. Wear dangly silver earrings. Wear a sheer bright gloss.
These are the C0lour Analysis cosmetic colors that perfect this skin tone.
The eyeshadow in icy violet is incredible. Merle Norman makes Freesia and it is gorgeous for a reason. The icy is Winter. The violet is the complement of yellow, a component of all Spring skin.
The other hilite is yellow, or creamy, but still quite neutral champagne. Everyone can do neutral champagne. Just avoid brown, beige, buff, gold, pastel.
Eyeshadow for the Brights is my biggest search challenge. You can do a clean light grey and deeper charcoal (left column). You can add in a bit of brown and get to taupe (right column) but barely any. Will you be able to find 2 separate products? You might, but you wouldn’t need to.
Shimmer in makeup is a definite possible, though never necessary. The industry just makes so much of it that it’s easier to find. Winter has a still polish. Spring expresses dazzle and movement. Merge the two and the shimmer works. One facial feature at a time.
Eyeliner is charcoal, or black-brown. Purple can be great, but certainly more playful; it’s lighter than True Winter’s and will look purpler. Spring allows imagination, energy, and FUN, but it’s still very contained in this group. Winter’s sapphire can also work. These eyeliners might be better as accents, rather than for surrounding the entire eye. You might just do an inner rim of the upper lid, or the outer section of the upper lid, merging with the charcoal. Just because you can look great in circus gear doesn’t mean you should.
Lip and blush usually take time to get used to. Start light or sheer with makeup. Your Color Analyszed swatches give you lighter choices too. The lip often has a fair bit of natural color. The rest of us would love it on you immediately, but I get that it’s you who has to wear it. Ask someone you trust. I love Mercier’s Lip Pot in Hibiscus on Bright Spring, but on Bright Winter, it is still too flat. They dominate it, and the lip color becomes dullish and grayish and boringish.
As for the clear eyes thing, it sure wouldn’t help you pick them out of a line-up. They are often Black-Brown (see Jocelyn Is A Bright Winter). They can be Virginia turtle eyes, which become OMG with charcoal eyeliner. They can be Asian.
Everyone’s eyes are amazing. Once we notice them, we all find it hard to stop looking. That’s why it’s so important to get rid of the distracting clutter. Calm down the skin, the hair, the over-makeup, and let your eyes leave an echo.
How Springs Intensify Eye Colour
June 29, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 27 Comments
The whole premise of color analysis is that by wearing the colors already in you, same value, warmth, and saturation, you get the youngest, healthiest, most perfected skin. You also look least artificially made-up in color analyzed cosmetic colours.
When Spring eyes are light in color, they are usually quite light. If they get surrounded by dark eyeliner, hoping to bring attention to them by creating a deliberate light/dark contrast, the problem is that the dark color doesn’t appear anywhere in this person’s natural coloring, so it looks false. And because this person can’t balance such darkness, the effect is to do what a dark line around a light shape always does, to close it in and make it appear smaller.
Don’t make yourself insane looking for red-browns and green-browns and purple-grays and yellow-grays to complement the eye color itself. What you perceive the eye color to be may not be correct, and the effect backfires. What colors enhance the skin enhances the eyes, it’s the automatic guarantee of PCA. They are in your personal colour palette or swatches.
Sorry for all the links, but these images are copyrighted. May take some patience. They should open in a new window.
For all 3 Springs,
1. Makeup cannot be earthy or pastel. A lot of makeup can’t decide if it’s clear or not clear. If you don’t know for sure, don’t buy it. The disaster of earthy makeup on a Spring can be seen here (please excuse the title of the article, but you see the painful effect of orange-brown eyeshadow?) Now add the frost to a color that doesn’t make sense this frosty, and it takes it to overkill. One of those “On whom does this look good??” colors.
Same concept on the model below. For me, the eyeshadow and blush are too orange-brown. It looks unnatural and heavy. We see lines under the eyes, like she’s getting tired from competing with these colors.
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When makeup is too cool, the effect is anemic, here again on Ms. Theron. There’s something ghostly about the skin, rather than healthy and glowing with vitality.
And when it’s good, here, same model. Only the Light Season can do this spun gossamer, sugar fairy look so beautifully. Spring adds yellow light, Summer does not. (The eyeliner is still sucking color out of the eye.)
2. Eyebrows matter. PCA brings attention to your eyes like never before. They’re the focal point of your entire being. The brows are the frame for the eye. Keep them neat and shaped. Especially important for Light Seasons who don’t wear dark makeup well.
3. The waterline of the eye is the inner rim of the lower lid. In your best colors, it will be the same color as the rest of the skin, which is calm and pale yellow-beige. That looks healthy, cleans up the white of the eye, and sharpens the iris. You could put a line of cream eyeliner there.
4. Don’t underestimate the power of jewelry. It is near the face. Violet eyeliner doesn’t look entirely grownup in makeup, but violet in jewelry can be remarkable. As Spring infuses everything it touches with happiness and movement, so can it wear a lot of bright, clear color. Even costume jewelry and plastic beads work very well. They express the exuberance, the enthusiasm for life that is felt even at the outer reaches of the Season.
If you’re young and want to wear violet eyeliner, be sure it comes from your Personal Colour Palette. Don’t buy a purpley grey or brown. It’s the color of the string on the necklace linked above.
5. Mascara is cool brown to black brown, depending on how dark you are. Black looks like spider eyelashes. Some of the dark-haired Bright Springs can wear black. Hard Candy makes a cool brown mascara. Smear a few out and look at them.
6. Wear your eye color and wear its complement color in clothing.
7. Wear a yellow-cream or yellow-peach eyeshadow hilite. It brings out yellow in the eye.
8. Think about accessories. The inside of eyeglass frames can have another color bonded to it. It looks cool, and I find it imaginative. Spring is a bit exaggerated and they can manage this effect nicely. (image linked to source)
Light Spring
These people are usually very fair. Some have ash hair and look like Summers. Some have yellow-green or brown in the eye and believe they’re Autumns.
The woman who gets my vote as most consistently ruined by makeup and clothing. At least, her hair is usually good. True of the Light Seasons, the less they put on her, the better, younger, real-er she looks. Here not too bad, but I searched.
This is a Light Spring eye. Notice that there there is yellow in it. It may be a green yellow, but it is certainly not an orange yellow. The eye belongs to Louise in the article Louise and Stevan Are Light Springs. Notice how cool and ash her hair looks and that she is not particularly light, though Stevan is. Notice too that the lashes are not very dark.
Repeat effects using makeup if eyes are blue or green will be the cream eyeshadow hilite or the cream waterline pencil, but go easy with this waterline thing. It can look bizarre quickly. If you love a pale aqua eyeliner, you’re under 25, and you are not in a professional situation, have at ‘er.
With Summer’s cooling effect, Light Spring still has more greys in their palette than browns. You want an eyeliner that defines without overtaking. Rimmel Stormy Grey is good. Summer may have left an unexpected charcoal rim to the iris and this repeats it nicely. Don’t ignore your grey clothes, for the same reason.
Keep makeup light in color. Don’t be talked into pops of color that just compete with what you are. Even contour eyeshadows should be light. Louise does not wear dark makeup.
If there’s green in the eye, wear your clear light red lips, even as a sheer. Red and green are complements.
Go easy on the frost. The Summer Spring blends have a deceivingly fragile complexion. Makeup effects can take over and fast. Do a thin shimmer in 1 place at a time, maybe inner corner of eye. Or maybe do a lipgloss over lisptick in a light peach-gold like MAC Instant Gold Lustregloss.
True Spring
These are the fair-skinned, light-eyed, yellow blondes. Uma Thurman, Charlize Theron, Cameron Diaz are the stereotypes.
Same repeat effects as Light Spring if eyes are blue or green.
Brown eyeliner is good. Warm yellowed gray also works. As ever for Spring, it is not an orange brown. Can Spring still wear orange? Absolutely, a clear orange. It’s just that the browns are not oranged.
Balance the eye with lively lip colors. Flat and safe looks like Nicole Kidman in pale hair and lips. Spiritless in a Season based on the very opposite concept. The whole face, the entire presence is drained and diluted. True Spring can balance a lot of the right colors and look fantastic in them.
Brown eyeshadow is fine. Light and clear. Picture those women in beer and honey eyeshadow, it works. In flowerpot or antique deep gold, too heavy, doesn’t work.
Wear bronzer that’s not too yellow or brown. It should be a sheer, pale, yellow-golden-beige. This is Stila 01 at Sephora. Sweep it up onto the forehead, around the eye.
Add a touch of cheek highlighter in a light yellow gold if you’re young. This is the face of the glowing outdoors.
As ever, wear your eye colors from your Colours Book somehow every day. A scarf, a pin, an earring, a purse, a hairband.
Bright Spring
The very fascinating Bright Spring never fails to surprise everyone, the analyst included. If the eyes are light, you’re wondering why they look so bad in Summer pastels, which is where you thought you were headed. If the eyes are darker, you’re wondering why Autumn drapes look tragic, while all the lines are eased away by the Spring drapes.
These women can use the light/dark contrast of dark brown or grey eyeliner with light eyes, because the darkness of the hair can balance it. The grey must be clean and crisp, and less dark than Winter. Merle Norman Galaxy and Annabelle Mercury are good.
They never wear brown in eye makeup very well, unless it’s a light taupe like Dior’s Earth Reflections. Notice (linked below) how there is no orange in the colors and they never get extremely dark.
They are deceptively light, though they don’t look it. The same rules of Spring apply, meaning not going overly dark or bold. This remains delicate skin.
Heather Karuza, who writes the very worthwhile makeup/nail blog at Coloruza.com…a Bright Spring could look like this. That could well be that Autumn-looking eye of this Season. The dark hair-light skin contrast makes one think of Winter, but this girl is not really all that dark. The skin on the throat is light and yellow.
Here, in clearer colors, showing also the Dior 5-shadow Earth Reflections.
Here in more Dark Autumn makeup.
You see why they’re so intriguing, ay?
(PS- Heather, if you read this, the e-mails from the site didn’t get to you. Hope it’s ok for me to post these links. If you prefer not, I’ll take them down. C.)
Best Makeup Colours : True Winter
June 24, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 34 Comments
In 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis, True Winter is the pure Season whose most important color fact is its coolness. The saturation and darkness are fairly high but not at the max. Every color, light or dark, is cold, crisp, hard, frosty, dry like the inside of a freezer.
There are 5 pages of pinks and purples in True Winter’s Personal Colour Palette. 5 swatches on each strip, that’s 25 pinks and purples. They far outnumber everything else.
The color at the core of this being is red-purple, all very clear and blue-based. The palette is so cold that it almost feels a bit unfriendly to look at. There isn’t a shred of warmth. No brown, no orange, no beige, nothing we associate with comfort. Combine that with the relative darkness, and it’s uncomfortable.
Like these personalities can often be, Winter demands that we make some space for it. We feel commanded to notice it but prefer to keep our distance. It likes to argue and will resist any sort of control. And yet, its beauty is awesome and unto itself.
True Winter has some serious strength in their coloring. They can balance much more makeup than most others. They can wear eyeliner along the inner rim of the eyelids and look even more remarkable. On the rest of us, it just looks vicious.
If someone told me they liked my eyeliner, I’d throw it out. When you look at pictures of Laura Mercier or Mrs. Obama, you’re not looking at their eyeliner. Here, the color analysis cosmetic colours would harmonize a sapphire and deep purple eyeliner, as long as it’s not obviously, ridiculously purple. The sapphire has to be pure, dark, and cold. Not teal, just pure deep blue. Merle Norman makes a nice Sapphire eyeliner. Bright Winter can balance this too, with their drop-dead glamour signal. Everyone else pushes the limits of credibility.
It may take time to get used to these fuchsias, rubies, dark plums, and crimsons in blush and lipstick. Begin with sheer colors, but don’t compromise the color. Your makeup will be invisible, or worse, it will be noticeable as some weird, warm, wishy-washy shade on your skin tone. Don’t go there.
The basic eyeshadow is a clean, crisp steel grey. A cool taupe (grey-brown) can work as a good alternative. MAC Satin Taupe is fairly good, but very shiny. This group can handle shimmer makeup, consistent with Winter’s polish, but nobody should overdo the frost, especially after 40. Summer’s cool taupe could work, but it’s not quite the same because of its inherent softness. If these colours look warm on your screen, they’re not intended to.
Emily is a True Winter
December 11, 2009 by Christine Scaman · 16 Comments
Emily has passed the milestones of her first 20 years. The next 20 years will involve marriage, career, and family, often all at once. It’s in these years that women have the least amount of time to spend on themselves, both inside and out. The demands can be overwhelming and once we emerge on the other side, many of us still look like the students we were when we last bought age-appropriate makeup.
Like so many women, in every age group, Emily doesn’t wear makeup. It’s easy to understand. Very few women can accurately choose what cosmetic colours suit them best. Many have tried but the result didn’t speak for them, so they felt like impersonators; or the sales pressure was too intense, and the upsells too mind-boggling, to honestly express uncertainty. We’ve all seen, or been, the woman at the makeup counter looking completely overdone. You can FEEL her thinking “Get me home before someone sees me.”
Emily would like to know what clothes look best and some help choosing makeup that doesn’t make her feel painted. She has the sense and good taste to want to be noticed for the right reasons.
When the colour is wrong, you can never achieve the magic, no matter how lightly or heavily you apply it. When you start hearing “Just apply a thin layer and blot it to a stain”, forget it. If you need all those shenanigans, the colour is wrong and besides, it won’t last 10 minutes. We all know what makeup- sitting-on-top-of-skin looks like. When the colour melds with the skin, you can apply quite a bit before it starts looking fake.
Put a light, wishy-washy colour on a True Winter and unattractive things happen. Their eyes are dull, almost empty. The person so dominates the colour with their inherent colour intensity, that all you see is a face that appears ill. The skin is dull and shadowed. What happens to the skin happens to the whites of the eyes. As they yellow or grey, the crispness of the eye colour is terribly diluted. It makes you FEEL sad to look at that face.
Emily’s colouring is so strong that she wore many of the Bright Winter drapes well, the most brilliant shock colour there is. Bright Winter requires a little heat in the skin, which Em doesn’t have. As a result, the Bright Winter drapes drained the colour from her face and turned her skin grayish, like the walls of the room.
Though I’ve often said eye colour isn’t relevant to Season, I want to clarify that. Any Season can have any eye colour and that remains a fact. But just as the drapes are looking to make a connection with the skin, so are they searching for the like colours in the eyes. They are astonishingly and precisely coloured to A. force a reaction in the skin, and B. to detect an exact colour match in the person’s skin. When the association is made, it’s electrifying. Em has navy blue in her eye. Watch it come out when like colours find one another.
Lessons
1. If you’re not used to lipstick, use sheer colours but stay true to your swatches. The blue-eyed winter with a soft feeling about her may do better in soft fuchsia than red, but too much colour would be outside Em’s comfort zone. We used Cover Girl Amazemint in 615 (Cozy Plum) and it’s lovely.
2. Even young people should use shimmer makeup very carefully, if at all. Even on a young True Winter, it makes Emily’s upper eyelid too prominent. Frost is attention-getting. It says “Lookit me! Lookit me!”. Classy makeup doesn’t do that. It’s your supporting player but it is not YOU. Let your makeup be a diffusion of your own colours floating over your face, but let people look at your eyes because they are the shine in your face.
3. Here is an example of Winter who might deepen her hair to match the brows, but always remaining true to the base shade. Nature will never colour you wrong. Her hair is the right colour but Emily could enhance the dark brows/milk skin effect more by deepening her own shade a touch. It will look real because the brows are dark, but more dramatic (not necessarily better, just a stronger visual effect).
4. This is also a place to think about how bad it looks if a Winter were to lighten her hair. The dark brows become more prominent, and look severe. Severe=aging.
For any Season, even if you don’t do much with your brows, there will be more attention on your eyes than ever before. Finding a stylist who can remove stray hairs without altering the shape to look like Pamela Anderson is good.
5. As a Dark Winter, my eyeliner is browner and lighter (MAC Grey Utility). Em will wear a crisper darker grey (Graphiti). I don’t believe anyone of lighter complexion than Frieda Pinto can wear black eyeliner, certainly not in the daytime. True Winter’s grey consists of black and white. It’s a pure, true grey.
6. You all know I think blue/green/purple on a face that can be seen as a color is a cartoon, right? Don’t ever wear it to a job interview, and only to work if you are an artist of some sort. Estee Lauder Black Plum and Merle Norman Sapphire are examples of colour that doesn’t look like colour. They are less hard than black and the viewer doesn’t strongly perceive purple or blue.
When she saw her pictures, she didn’t recognize herself.
It takes a certain courage to step up to a personal colour analysis. Like having your fortune told, as empowering as it is, you may hear some things you’re not ready for. I’ve been told that I read palms. What I really read is potential. To see yourself as you never have, both inside and out, takes endurance. It also brings the responsibility of answering the question “What are you going to do with it?”
Em will travel her own colour journey. It won’t look like mine or yours or anyone else’s. Some of it may not gel for years. Doesn’t matter. She’s got a lifetime to refine it. She’ll feel confident and beautiful wearing makeup and know that people see the real Emily. It takes more time to convince yourself of all that it can be, and how powerful the final effect is, when every element meshes.
Once you get to the makeup counter and are told that you don’t really need to follow your personal colour swatches, you really have to dig deep and find some fortitude. Why would you NOT use them? Why would the sales assistant NOT use them? If they’ve never had a PCA and watched the process, they don’t understand why you’re holding the book you have, or what the other Books look like. They’re tremendously good at what they do, but colour analyzed skin tone perfection is a key that can only be turned one way.
You have become empowered to know things about your skin and colouring that they simply can’t know. But YOU know. YOU saw it. This is one situation where close enough is NOT good enough.
Colour Analyzed Cosmetics
September 7, 2009 by Christine Scaman · 2 Comments
The best makeup is invisible. It should enhance your features without needing to be noticed. This is often called Neutral Makeup, heavily weighted with beiges and browns. Fine, but what if there are not many browns in your natural colouring?
We should clarify some terminology. Neutral Makeup can mean a generic, flesh-tone, beige and brown group of shades, like many of the neutral collections makeup companies come out with. Any of these colours probably looks good on someone, but none of them will look perfect on everyone. Any given colour is still only right on certain people, neutral colour or not. Wrong colours will sit on the top of the skin and look like an island of obvious colour. These collections sell well because they feel safer when we’re not sure what better colour to wear. The problem is that it looks flat and lifeless on those it’s not meant for.
The other definition of Neutral Makeup has to do with finding YOUR neutrals. That means colours like brown and gray for eyes, and pink/peach/purple/red for lips and cheeks. This is the makeup that just becomes part of your face and that others don’t notice before they notice you.
The best makeup for any face will make use of Natural Colour. These colours enhance, rejuvenate, brighten, and define, but never look artificial. When the makeup colour is right, it will disappear into your skin. It will fuse with your face believably because the colour is already there. That’s the magic of Colour Analysis. We can identify the precise shades that are present in your natural skin coloring and give them to you in your Colours Book. Match those shades when you buy makeup and you will never look “made up”.
What if you knew exactly what cosmetic colours would look custom-made for you? No more hit-and-miss or believing wrong advice. No more having 5 tubes of the same shade of lipstick at the bottom of your purse. No more drawer full of makeup you’ll never wear. What if you owned 3 eyeshadows, 2 blush colours, 2 lipsticks, and a gloss, and they looked so perfect that you never stopped at the makeup counter again? With PCA, this is so easy.
Eyeliner and eyeshadow are any shade of brown or grey. That’s it. Now, that still gives you access to about 50,000 different colours, and includes blends with white, yellow, peach, mauve, orange, and black. How do you know which shades of brown and grey are yours? Don’t worry, the answers are in your Colours Book.
You will never get blue, green, or purple makeup from me. You might get navy or eggplant, but in a shade that will not be obviously blue or purple to the viewer.
Why not? Isn’t green more interesting than grey? Maybe, but interesting in the wrong way. People look at the green line, which demands the spotlight because it doesn’t belong on a face. It competes with what they should be looking at, which is the colour of your eyes. If you’re dying to put turquoise around your eyes, the right shade will be in your Colours Book.
You will never get frosted makeup from me, with the possible exception of a softly shimmering gloss or eyeshadow highlight for Winters, Springs, and their blends.
Why? Isn’t shimmer makeup pretty? Shimmer looks appealing in the package or tested on your hand. By comparison, the matte colour seems terribly dull. On a face, it’s the opposite. It’s the matte colour that enhances without drawing attention to itself. Shimmer can take over. On Summers, it looks hard because the complexion is too delicate to compete. Unless your skin is as tight as a 15 year old’s, and mine certainly is not, painting shimmer over it is a good way of making sure people see every crease and crinkle.
Lipstick should have more colour than “nude”. If you’re 25 or less, with the great lip definition of youth, you can wear flesh-toned lip colours. Even then, the only women who can wear lip colour that is lighter than the skin are on the pages of magazines. If you’re mature, you lose lip colour and lip definition, and a brighter shade looks more youthful.
The trick is getting the brighter shade that is so right that is matches your skin, eyes, and hair perfectly – and you’ll find it, all laid out in the gorgeous choices of your Colours Book. Armed with the knowledge of your perfect lip and blush colours, who wouldn’t choose those? It looks sophisticated, fresh, and younger.
Are there makeup colours that everyone can wear? NO! Your natural coloring dictates your perfect makeup and there are 12 different types. If you wear the wrong shades, it’s like wearing someone else’s size or style of clothes. The effect is disorganized, which translates as weak. It does nothing.
Are there makeup colours that are shared between Seasons? Not in a perfect world. Unfortunately, the cosmetics industry offering is mostly disorganized. Even when you know what’s right on you, it can be hard to find.
Why don’t they teach it? The fact is that it cannot be taught. For each woman, it must begin with a PCA. Nobody can tell your undertones, overtones, or true colours without it. Nobody. There are too many variables and too many confusing distractions.
Once you know your precise inborn tones, you’re no longer going out on a colour limb when you buy makeup or choose a hair colour. You’re making educated choices empowered by self-knowledge.
So, do you sell makeup collections for the Seasons? No. I’d have to deal with too many different companies. I do give you a list of specific products and colours to test. I may go makeup shopping for you, but since the Reveal line by Darin Wright came out (see below), I get fewer requests for that.
I very strongly encourage you to visit Sci\ART analyst Darin Wright at eleablake.com. Darin is THE source for correctly-coloured cosmetics for the 12 Seasons. The quality is outstanding (in fact, this product changed my mind about loose powder makeup). The colours are precisely matched to your Season, whether you are looking for light, dark, gray, or coloured products. I am happy to see that the job of right-coloured cosmetics and easy shopping for women has been done right.
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