Personal Colour Analysis is about looking better on less wasted money. 80% of this venture involves correctly talking yourself OUT of wrong color items.

Process

These are the questions I ask myself. There’s no particular order, though I usually start with “Is it clear?”, since that can be the hardest call.

..Is it clear? Is it clear = blossoms/candy/fruit punch/popsicle  OR is it muted  = grayed, dulled, not-vivid, not-bright?

.. Is it light? If yes, is it pastel and heathery Summer, OR icy and frosty Winter?

..Is it warm? If yes, is it orange-brown-Autumn leaves OR yellow-tropical-Spring?

Example 1

We’re looking at the brown hoodie. I always step back see a color, allowing it to be surrounded with other things. Color is understood by comparison to other colors. A proper Personal Color Analysis is based entirely on comparing one color’s effects to another. We’ve all played the games of seeing ghost colors when our brain adds in complementary color around an object, of seeing items of the same size appear bigger and smaller next to other colors…all optical illusions. That is exactly what colors are doing next to your face and body, making your features appear  yellow, oilier, bigger, smaller, etc. Your Personal Colour Palette is determined by which colours make you look most perfect.

Back to the hoodie.

Clear or dusty? >> dusty.

Light? >> no, more medium, I think.

Warm?>>no, not obviously orange or yellow.

So, the item is dusty, not clear. Therefore, Summer or Autumn or one of their blends are more likely.

It’s medium in darkness, not overly helpful.

It is neither orangey or yellowed. In fact, it’s almost pinkish. Therefore, Autumn and Spring are not likely. Is a weak Autumn blend possible? Sure, but then it won’t belong to one of the 3 Autumn Seasons.

Seems likes we’ve narrowed it down to Summer.

Trying to categorize it to its exact Season in the 12 possibilities isn’t really useful. This present exercise is more valuable as a way of EXcluding items from your shopping cart. Nobody whose main Season is Winter, Spring, or Autumn would buy this. The fine tuning is left to matching it to the Colours swatch Book.

Dominant Characteristics

There are color analysts who use this Color Me Beautiful technique very successfully to analyze human coloring. In my hands, that method seems to shake out a few snakes in the weeds. For analyzing clothes and makeup though, I like it. I could see how someone might call that hoodie dark and set off on the wrong track, but if you stick to the characteristic you’re absolutely most sure of, here being heathery-grayed-muted, it’s a good way of classifying an item.

So Sometimes, I’ll start with “What is most obvious?” on the 3 Colour Scales? The light/dark, warm/cool, hi/lo sat? To  me, the most obvious thing about Example 1 is that it is dusty (low saturation). You could say cool too. There is a tendency to call all browns warm at the outset, like we tend to call all greys cool.

Example 2

So often, it’s the browns that mix us up. OK, mix me up. Another tendency is to give browns to Autumn. Autumns do look unequalled in their browns, but they’re usually wearing another Season’s shade of brown (before their PCA, of course).

This very cute shoe is at ShoeMall. The photo is linked

It’s clearly light. Heathery- grayed or clear and intense? Not sure, grayed I guess, like a pastel beige, but it’s hard to decided how gray a grayish color is. Maybe somewhere in between the two. (See Icy Colours and Pastels to understand the distinction between grayed and clear color.)

Warm or cool? I’d go with cool because I can’t see sunshine yellow or dull rust in it.

So it’s cool-side and light. Therefore, we’ve EXcluded True Autumns (orange-warmed and medium-dark), Springs (yellow-warmed and light), or Winters (icy lights, never pastel, and cool). Disqualified too are their strong blends (meaning, the 3 variations of each of those True Seasons). If you’re one of those 3, you probably wouldn’t buy this.

There is still room for error because all 3 of those True Seasons have some lighter colors in their palette. Maybe this is a color that any of the 12 Tones (Seasons) could wear, though not in shoes if the hair is a really different color. Could this be an example of a color that anyone could wear, that would be pulled together by the rest of the outfit?

If I’m really not getting a fix on a color’s position in the 12 Tones, I’ll switch to how it makes me feel. This beige feels cool, light, fresh, clean – Summer. The triangles and funky design say Spring. So I’ve probably EXcluded Autumns and Winters based on that.

Lesson : Check the Colours Book. Some colours are tougher to classify and unexpected in that Season. Some are also quite close between all the Seasons and very versatile workhorse colours.

Example 3

This great sequined doublet cardi is at J.Crew. I adore J.Crew’s way with color, but I had to think about this one to find its Season.

At first glance, I can see how you might say Autumn, because it’s golden-like. You might even see that shiny doublet piece peeking out and think “…and that dazzle is incongruent with Autumn’s feeling”.

Autumn is the nectar. Spring is the juice. This top might seem cider. Doesn’t help.

But Autumn doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel heavy or dulled enough. Nor does it convey mellow, cozy, or strong, all Autumn sensations. It might be orangey, but somehow the color feels too clean, maybe even a little sharp. It’s not greyed, certainly, in fact it seems quite saturated. The color is more strong than weak. It would be hard to saturate it more (remember that saturation is quite different from darkness), to make it more intense.

If we were looking at a landscape, would this color be in the foreground or melting away in the background? It would be near because it’s still vivid. It’s worth noting here that this element of saturation can give color a third dimension, a position of depth in space. Our brains understand that far away color is greyed, less brilliant, lower in saturation.

[A question for the color experts among us : Could the same be said of cool and dark colors? Both recede. A mountain range’s colors are cooler near the horizon. A forest is darker in the distance. Are all 3 parameters, hue, value, and chroma equally able to be the 3^rd dimension of depth?]

Since the clarity of it might be confusing, though I see it as very clear (not at all cloudy) (apple juice, not peanut butter-a comparison I’m using to compare degrees of clarity, not the precise color itself), could we work it out based on its warmth? So, yes, it is a warm color. Is it warmed by Autum’s dull rust or Spring’s daffodil-buttercup yellow?  I don’t get dull rust here. It’s more some kind of yellow-ness, right?

Does its lightness or darkness help us? Well, it’s more light to medium. Since it’s warm, we don’t talk about icy or pastel. Not really helpful.

My feelings tell me it’s clear (high saturation) and yellow. I look in the Colours Books. I find it among Bright Spring’s colors, with a gentler version in True Spring. The whole outfit is outstanding for Bright Spring, with the small but important element of black, yet overall light effect. Suddenly, the sequins make sense.

The Lesson is : Never shop without your Book.

.. you won’t remember color accurately, though you think you will; after 6-9 months, you’ll be better at it

.. for Including items in your cart, there are in-between levels of light/dark, warm/cool, and hi/lo saturation. For the 8 Neutral Seasons, you won’t get the degree of in-between-ness correct. The color analyzed swatches can be unpredictable. The color variations in the 12 Seasons are quite unique, to a level that the fashion industry has not nearly caught up with.

Your Suggestions

I enjoy this type of exercise because color is surprising and we all learn. If any of you have been confused or intrigued by a color, LMK. We’ll do another one of these articles.

In the comments for the article “Handbags for the 12 Color Analysis Seasons”, Donna Cognac, a highly certified color and image professional, said this.

I just wish that you could also address the 4 types that get ignored in 12 type color systems. The types that are a blend of Winter/Summer; Summer/Winter; Spring/Autumn and Autumn/Spring….with the first word the dominant harmony in each type.

In the Sci\ART Twelve Tone System, there are no categories that combine any of the 3 Summers with the 3 Winters, or Autumns with Springs. Most other PCA systems disagree.

Logic would have me begin with Munsell facts, but that’s not the reason that resonates most strongly with me, so I’m going to go evangelical first.

Extensions of Our World

We are children of this planet. Its colors live in us and through us. So do its patterns, its clocks, its and yearly rhythms, from the molecules on up. There is a very strong repetition of the way humans look and how it feels to interact with them, and the Season they represent. They seem almost as extensions of their particular month in appearance and behavior.

If True Winter begins January 1, then

Bright Winter is February

Bright Spring = March

True Spring = April

Light Spring = May

Light Summer = June

True Summer = July

Soft Summer = August

Soft Autumn = September

True Autumn = October

Dark Autumn = November

Dark Winter = December

True Autumn looks, dresses, and behaves as “comfortable, abundant, strong, productive, natural”. Spring, holy cow, does not.

Sure, of course, some people may have both Spring and Autumn characteristics. Some people don’t seem to behave like their Season at all, so the relationship between color and personality isn’t tight. Still, if anyone is going to behave or look like their Season, it’s more often in the absolutes, or True, Seasons, making them harder to merge.

For some, consistency with the planet’s color cycles has no relevance. They might say “If that were true, then why isn’t every color you see in August right for Soft Summer?”

Fair question, but I can only answer it as I see it. Our accord with our Earth’s own palettes and her cycles means that flowing between the 2 warm or 2 cool Seasons doesn’t make sense. Autumn and Spring are on opposite corners of the world’s phase clock. So are Summer and Winter.

Color in Nature

Kathryn Kalisz is the artist who created the Sci\ART system. Prior to her tragic death, I asked her why there are no pure warm and pure cool blends.

She answered,

There is a natural order of color that we cannot and should not change.  It follows the spectrum of light (as seen in the rainbow) and when connected at both ends, the color circle is created. In this natural order of color, color moves from cool to warm, or warm to cool. An object never reflects just one single hue, but always three visible tones of the color, from cool (usually the shadow side) through the neutral or true color, to the warm tone where the light hits it. Complementary colors are based on this natural order of color. The 12 tone color system is a natural color order system, which reflects the way colors move in nature.

Color never moves from cool to cool, or warm to warm.

Shopping Well Is Hard Enough

We can talk about how adding to blue to cool must also darken, meaning we move towards Winter as we cool color more. We can talk about how 12 distinguishable tones are sufficient. You could have 40 Seasons but who could tell them apart? Seasonal colour analysis clothing and makeup colour is already hard to match because they’re usually colored in random, market-driven shades. They’re not in the business of making real women look strong and lovely, they’re moving garments off racks and colored powder out the door.

For me, the point is this: No new classification is needed. Sci\ART uses the Munsell system’s 3 dimensions of color. They’re enough. Kathryn created a set of drapes whose colors are calibrated to move through 12 levels of the 3 dimensions of color in all the possible combinations. Straightforward, easy to understand, easy to explain, just like Warren Buffett’s investment strategy.

You get a personal palette that matches YOUR level of the 3 dimensions, no borrowing, no crossing over, no overlaps.

Sci\ART Color Measuring Tools

A.k.a., the drapes. Someone reading this (and disagreeing) might argue that the Sci\ART drapes just aren’t set up to reveal these cool/cool blends. Well, what would that look like?

The cool/cool would be bluer than True Summer, but not so blue as to darken to Winter? And fairly saturated, but not at Winter’s level? I suppose you could create such a palette, but me, I’m not convinced that it’s necessary. Women already have trouble telling Summer’s reds and blues from Winter’s, let alone finding them to buy with confidence. This all has to be learn-able and use-able by real people in real stores.

What about the warm/warm blend of  Autumn+Spring? This one, I really don’t comprehend. Autumn and Spring are warmed in completely different ways, one with dull rust and one with clear yellow. A recent client looked to me like he might set this issue to rest. We’ll be looking at him soon.

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.

True Autumn is one of the 4 True Seasons. Far more people fall into the 8 blended or Neutral Seasons. This is 12 Seasonal Colour Analysis.

I keep reminding myself that the colours are not very dark, a little darker than True Spring’s.

What these colors are, above all else, is warm. That’s the pivot point of the whole Personal Colour Analysis cosmetic colour and clothing colour palette : warmed by gold (not yellow).

Gold is grayer than yellow, hence the blunted or dulled colours relative to Spring’s. Are the colours drab? Only if you consider pumpkin, curry, warm teal, and deep periwinkle dreary. There is way too much heat and glow to be monotonous.  True Autumns are often practical women who run from excessive show, so they need practice to get comfortable in their color temperature.

The color I most typically think of as simple brown is not here. It’s in True Spring, in Soft Autumn, and other groups, but not here. Most Autumns love brown, and wear a lot of it, but very often some other Season’s version. These browns are greyer, greener, redder, or more orange. There is a browned effect to all the colours, compared to other palettes, but brown per se is only here in the darkest tones this Season has. Quite fascinating, really.

Frost over 40 is usually a mistake. Still, the skin of True Autumn can look like a recent dermabrasion, the skin tone is so smooth in the right colors. Seems a shame not to work that a little. Matte bronzer is a fabulous way to heighten the warm burnish of the skin.  These are not really pink blush people, but a touch of warm gold blush along with the bronzer is hard to beat.

They also can have metal colors (gold, copper, bronze) in the iris, a most amazing effect. A warm gold eyeshadow, placed as a dot in the center of the upper eyelid, just above the eyeliner, then covered with the usual matte eyeshadow, adds dimension and accentuates that impossible gold in the eye. It’s like fire inside the eye. A particle of MAC Woodwinked gives an antique gold impression.

Their makeup looks like this. Are there other possibilites? Sure, your Colours Book gives you about 15 eyeshadow/lipstick/blush choices.

Are you a True Autumn? Look at Clinique lipstick in Paprika, Lancome Couture Suede, and Revlon Sandalwood Beige. Do they look too bright? Is it because your hair color is too light/blonde/cool?

The yellowing effect of ivory on Summer skin…

The drained, tired skin of an Autumn in soft white…

The disappearing Summer bride in Winter’s aggressive, hard, cold, frosty, sharp white…

Know your perfect white with a Personal Colour Analysis. Achieve your skin tone perfection on this of all days. Your wedding gift to yourself.

Have your Colour Analyst send 3 e-mails.

One to your dress shop, so they can choose the perfect color and style.

One to your makeup artist. If she works with a PCA, there is a cosmetic colour palette and particular radiance in her head instantly.

One to your florist. If he understands PCA, he makes a composition, knowing the flowers to use and not use.

Your jeweler, your hair colorist, everyone needs to know. When the team works together, you become extraordinary.

Are you getting warm? I am.

We look at the colours of satin for the 4 True Seasons. In correct Seasonal Colour Analysis, there are 12 personal palettes. The other 8 are Neutral Seasons, or blends of the 4 Trues.

(I do not own the Sci\ART Bridal Drapes Set of 12.)

Did I say grey when I should have said white? Yup.

Did I say Summer when I should have said Spring? Yes again.

I was trying to be animated, you see…

The makeup that looks most believable, youngest, the least severe (synonymous with ‘aging’), and the least fake is dictated by our natural coloring.

Anything else can look as off as a herd of grazing cats. It just feels wrong, you know? Not impossible, just crooked.

Choreograph your appearance to keep repeating.

You begin with a natural colour palette that is specific, not random.

Repeat it with your clothes.

And again in your hair colour.

Again in your makeup.

Once more in accessories.

Level after level after level of building blocks that stack up precisely. Every element is aligned. That looks like strength.

Learn which of the 12 palettes is yours with Seasonal Colour Analysis. The cosmetic colour palette below will be in your personal colour palette swatch book.

We’re going to go through the True Seasons first. They don’t have a cooler and warmer alternative. The True Spring is purely warm, the most important thing about its colors.

This palette is a little different from True Summer’s. Even purely warm Seasons have greys, they’re just warm.

The best lip/blush (because they should be the same) fuse with the basic undertone of your skin.

You adjust the depth of your makeup colors to the darkness of your coloring or complexion. The lip colours should be about the same intensity as the hair colour.

In learning who you are not, the release will flood you with amazing freedom.

In understanding who you are, you will be renewed – and you will look rejuvenated, by 10 years at least.

Well, in Seasonal Colour Analysis, there’s Soft, True, and Dark.

But Autumn’s blends include Soft Summer and Dark Winter too.

Only 1 True Season, and 4 Neutral Seasons all comprise some Autumn colour influence.

Autumn’s biggest misconception is the copper red hair. Usually, these people have brown hair.

The Autumn=copper association is often extended to include clothing colours, skin undertones, and makeup colours.

In fact, the shade of brown used to warm Autumn colours doesn’t attain copper’s heat till you’re way into the middle of the Autumn action.

Let’s start at True Summer. No orange. No gold. No yellow.  The brown is grey and the grey is blueish.

As Autumn starts phasing in, we move to Soft Summer. A little brown is being added. A neutral brown, not orange yet, not even amber. The blue undertone is taken out. The colours appear to have a faint tan.

Soft Autumn comes along next. We see a soft amber brown. Yellows re-emerge, where True Summer barely had any, and they are golden as an amber-brown patina lays over all the colours of this palette.  This is the beginning of the metallic quality we talk about in the skin and hair of Autumn people. It’s hard to describe. It doesn’t look like a tan, it’s much more in the skin than on it.

Finally, True Autumn. NOW the undercurrent is truly orange. Not before. Brown, remember, is just dark orange. This is an orangey brown. It is in the skin. It is also in the eye colour.

Up to Dark Autumn, a trace of Winter is felt. Winter’s colours are cooler and bring in red, the essential colour of the Winter group. The result is the red-orange undertone that defines the perfect disappearing blush and lipstick on Dark Autumn. Colour Analysis is all about cosmetic colours custom-coloured for your skin.

Since Winter is dark, we must add another Winter effect for Dark Winter : the addition of perceptible black. What orange remains is turning neutral brown again, like it was in Soft Summer, but a darker version caused by the black.

Now, we leave Autumn altogether and it’s True Winter. Orange is gone again.

Watch me do it.

Be careful.

Soft Summer’s hair is almost always too light and too highlighted with a colour that’s too yellow. At first glance, they seem like light people and it looks ok. The Colour Analysis drapes soon show us how aging the light hair is for the skin tone. Once it’s corrected, it is much better.

A Soft Autumn can too easily be put in too red hair. It is overkill every time. Unless Nature gave you red, it is VERY hard to get right from a bottle. Like thinking a bottle can replicate your childhood colour. Won’t happen. This is light tawny hair.

True Autumn in light tawny hair looks F-L-A-T. And instantly 10 years older. They need warmth and rich colour. They do not need highlights, lowlights, or other bizarre f/x. The colour should speak for itself.

Dark Autumn often adds a red rinse. You NEED to know if you’re on the warm or cool side of the Season. If the red is too cool, like red wine, it can be very artificial. Artificial works on the staff of the hair salon, not the clients.

Dark Winter should do what all Winters do. Think twice before lightening hair. They can have a dark force that is to be reckoned with. Breaking it up with  frosted tips, well… I’d rather have the force. The skin-perfecting hair colour is a dark neutral brown, most of the time.

What’s the hair lesson? Nature will never give you hair colour that is your skin’s perfection. They accord automatically. Your natural colour is always your best base colour.

The Warm Seasons of the Springs and Autumns have skin with a yellow-to-gold undertone. They are lively, busy, talkative, and active.

Colour makes us feel certain feelings and think certain thoughts. A big block of why that is comes from the most primitive associations humans have made with colour. It is embedded in our genetics and the evolution of our brains from the beginnings of our consciousness.

Just as the energy of the 4 True Seasons follows the course of the year, from

the short-lived but almost frantically busy, almost reckless, activity of Spring

to

the hazy, flowing, genteel days of Summer

to

the time of yields and returns in the fields, of efficiency, and security, and responsibility in Autumn’s solid personality

to

Winter’s withheld reserve and its contrast of frozen yet shocking beauty. How can such austerity and colour severity be so beautiful? How can something so motionless be so compelling?

So does the warmth and coolness of the Seasons alternate in every 24 hour cycle.

Spring is a colour riot. It corresponds to the early morning’s optimistic business. The light is pale yellow, but there is a definite promise of heat to come.

Summer’s colours are seen between 12 – 3 PM where activity slows as the heat induces a softness and relaxed peacefulness to how we feel, as well as what we see.

Late afternoon light mellows and heats the colours of the world around us, just as it does to the coloring of people in the Autumn seasons.

Winter individuals, whose personal decoration in clothing, makeup, jewelry, and hair colour is stately, formal, and symmetrical, look best in the colours of the darker time when motion settles. This is a feeling of colour restraint worn in simple, contrasting ways.

Though there are 12 colour groups, or Seasons, among human beings, each has their special edge, their special effect. Learn what yours is and your appearance will crackle. Colour is above all a FEELING. People will keep looking for why you send sparks but they will not know.

Your thoughts project outward from you as a vibration. They are like your inner colours. You send an energy vibration by the colours of your body too. You have a wavelength all your own. Wearing wrong colours is a constant irritation because the wavelenghts don’t jive. You’re emanating too many frequencies that are all clashing.

Trying to look like what you could not be never works. Think about how you were INTENDED to look. You came here, meant to look a certain way. Are you close? You’ll feel it when it happens.

Spring colours are all:

Lightness or Darkness? > light, or at least never very dark

Warm or Cool? > warmed, and by yellow NOT orange

Clear or Soft? > clear, or highly saturated, NOT dulled

The premise of Seasonal Colour Analysis is that every colour in your natural colour composition answers those 3 questions in the same way. Your swatch book is a group of colours that fit on those scales in those exact same positions too, thereby replicating the colours in your design. That is how the magic happens.

I can see how one might look at the light-medium warmish brown hair and see warmth, light, and clarity.

Her eyes are not warm though. They are a medium-dark blue-grey.

The dark brows could make Winter cross your mind.

But nevermind the hair and eyes. We established long ago that they are not used in defining the Season, they’ll just lead you astray. We look at skin.

Without a proper analysis, you can’t really understand skin. You have to watch how it reacts to colour. Are freckles not a sign of warmth? No! They’re another red herring, kind of like the “clear eyes” concept. You have to look beyond them, at the skin. So we’re back to Plan A, with how did the draping go?

Both Elisa’s skin and her eye patterns performed precisely as True Summer does. The moonlit, luminous translucency that only True Summer does so well was there for sure. The absolute inability to handle the slightest degree of heat, or it’s instant pasty skin, was there. This skin tone seems to look turquoise in turquoise, and melon in melon.

In fact, Elisa is a study in contrasts. She has warm hair, dark eyebrows, deep blue eyes, and freckles (which feel warm). She could be placed in any number of Seasons, but none would feel right. Once we neutralized all the variables, it was clear that she is a True Summer.

Makeup often seemed too conspicuous so became something to avoid. We looked at how to accentuate her features with the same understated elegance that is true of her entire palette. These are Grace Kelly clothes and colours. This is the skin and eye colour that was made for BlueGrey eyeliner (Annabelle makes a perfect (and perfectly inexpensive) pencil by that name). Everyone can wear makeup beautifully, but the fragility of this skin is easily overwhelmed.

Elisa has some natural shadowing around her eyes. It was least pronounced in the True Summer colours, but wasn’t obliterated altogether. That’s called Photoshop. Many women fight that (and many other “imperfections”) with too much concealer, which ends up looking caked and even more obvious. There is a little foundation here, but no concealer. I usually apply concealer or foundation, but seldom both. Those products are overdone, and take a lot of time. I want to show you how to recognize your cosmetic colours.

Cosmetics counters and makeup artists are usually good at matching foundation. If they won’t allow you to take a few samples home to try in daylight, don’t buy the product. I ask women to bring their foundation to their PCA. So far, none have been wearing the right colour but they knew that already.

In your right colours, you will see the area under the eye become as illuminated as possible. Wear a little makeup, but allow your face. Ignore our magazine-obsessed culture that has us trying to delete our individuality.

One of the biggest misconceptions about True Summer’s colours is that they are all dusty lavender and Wedgewood blue, “old” colours. In fact, the most important feature of True Summer colours is NOT their dustiness, or softness, or grayishness, all the same idea. It is the COOLNESS.

These are not at all confined to being light colours, though Summer is thought of as light. Relative to Winter, it is lighter, but they can do surprisingly dark colour.

In this graphic, the high saturation (hi sat) colours are on the left, as you can see.  The lo sat colours are only softer BY COMPARISON. They’re the colour of denim and flower petals. The True Summer personal colour palette contains these same beautiful colours, at about 50% saturation or less.

The hi sat shades on the left are pigment-saturated, pigment-soaked, pigment-logged. Winter needs them and usually doesn’t wear them saturated enough, in part because they’re hard to find except in workout clothing. Few women over 25 feel safe buying these colours.

Elisa is married to the most mannerly man you’ll ever meet. Aggression and confrontation are disturbing to this personality. Hurry and pressure flusters them more than most. It is very calming to this character to be able to depend on certain things, especially decency and kindness. Courtesy is the most essential prerequisite of all.

How we decorate what’s INside on the OUTside?

The Soft Summer person

These people are very True Summery in most ways. They are not reclusive, shy, or introverted. They don’t need to be the boss, though they could be good at it. They don’t require center-stage attention. Theirs is a more subtle, serene, quiet energy.

The trace of Autumn puts a different spin on things. The Soft Summer is usually more sporty, with faster and more focused physical energy. They have a cut-to-the-chase practicality that gets the story told or the job done sooner, without True Summer’s inclination to dwell on details.

Petal and pearl necklace. Love it in charcoal too. Love it.

Jewelry for the personality

To speak for them, their jewelry must follow the same tendencies. The pieces are less lacy and feminine than True Summer. There is a feeling of more solidity, but they’re by no means chunky. Autumn and Summer combined can make for a very headstrong individual. The jewelry should not feel retiring or lightweight. These can be among the most persistent, immovable personalities so a persevering quality in the jewelry is appropriate.

The metal is silver, unless they border their warmer neighbor of Soft Autumn quite closely. Theoretically, as a Neutral Season, gold could be worn in small proportions. It would be the deeper, more mellow gold of Autumn, rather than Spring’s very yellow gold that just looks cheap on anyone else.

Good behaviour and personal restraint are the hallmarks of the Summer personality. What better jewel to define that sophitication than pearls? I think they suit the Soft Summer colours even better than the True Summer. The colours of a misty morning, of a foggy harbor, with the light of day coming through…I love the feeling of that with a seashell- coloured pearl. Creamy pearls would even work well, just not too yellow.

Soft Summer’s colour code

Just as clothing colour combinations can venture further from True Summer’s best monochromatic (several shades of the SAME colour) look, so can jewelry. Different colours can be combined, as long as they all remain true to the personal colour swatches in the Colours Book.

Remember that while you may mix different colours from your personal colour palette, such as antique rose and jade green or pearl with orchid, how beautiful would that be, all the colours themselves are of low saturation. The whole look of this season revolves around that concept. We saw in What Are Clear And Soft Colours? that these colours are all closer to grey than in the Clear Colour seasons. Are they dull and drab? No way.  They’re just relatively a little grayer. They’re willow, sage, and clover, not grass.

I’m so happy to be doing this season, I get to talk about one of my favorite companies, J.Crew. All the pictures are linked back to their site.

Shadow facet bracelet at J.Crew.

The bracelet above is gold, but there’s not much of it. The colours are of low saturation. This mauve or brown-tinged gray is basically your eye shadow. The weight is heavier but there’s a classic and understated feeling.

I’ve been wanting to put these up. They are so sweet. You’ll find many types of pearls on this site, but these are so pretty.

A dainty but more solid pearl.

The Pearl Twisted Hammock necklace is stunning.

J.Crew doesn’t do a lot of silver in jewelry or I would have posted it. Also, keep watches in mind for all 5 seasons comprising some Autumn, or jewelry that DOES something. Autumn’s song is the “search for the truth and get the job done”. Functional pieces represent the efficiency they exude.

You’ll find more of these pieces.  Look for classic with a kick, the summary of the Soft Summer person.