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True Winter Jewelry to 13 Kibbes

May 20, 2012 by Christine Scaman · 5 Comments 

You can use lipstick to help you narrow down your Season among the 12, and in some cases, you tap the nail on the head. You would have to use those colours that nobody else could wear as well. You need to stick close to TMIT for each.

As when test drapes are truly useful, they may or may not be colours that you’re supposed to love or go out and buy, though you could. They’re intended to create a colour reaction to help make a clear either/or choice. You need the extremes. If you’re a Light Season, pick a light lipstick colour. On everyone else, it will erase their lips and undefine the face, especially at maturity.

David Kibbe wrote Metamorphosis in the late 80s. It’s still brilliant. If you had a salon for women to discover their Image Identity, it would be near impossible to do by trying clothing styles, though it can be amazing how well that works taking photos of yourself in dressing rooms mirrors. In your salon, you’d need too many sizes and styles.

Can it be done with makeup? The makeup guidelines didn’t seem different enough in Kibbe’s book. Watercolours vs sculpted looked much the same because the face beneath was sculpted or it wasn’t. I can’t imagine finding your KibbeType with makeup.

Jewelry, now, that could be done. Maybe hats too. Choosing True Winter was a way to keep colour out of it to make the lines more audible. There are a couple of colours used if they shift the perception as pink >> soft, even icy pink. Oh, to be a True Winter. Black and White and you’re on the  mountaintop.

Removing colour also adds the stillness quality so beautiful and true to Winter people. I tried to keep a frozen in time quality, since symmetric and smooth are not right on everyone. Even the rough pieces have something sleek or motionless.

On TW, a strand of pearls doesn’t match the presence of the person. Just by their natural colouring, this person is edgy looking, however soft their body’s lines. Simple pearls need something extra to make the same statement as the person, even a double strand is better.

The Classics

 

 

This is True  Winter. Even when its line are soft, it should look hard in density. I love about that SC necklace the way the pearl is ‘balanced’. That’s such a strong Winter association.

Psychology Section

I’m using this article as a place to say something. Please skip if not into self-discovery conversations.

I read messages and questions from women learning their new Season and feeling more discouraged with themselves than ever.  I am so happy to see that such a community of support and good advice has evolved on so many facebook pages. The free and generous cheering for one another is a most beautiful expression of an abundance mentality.  Women have shared their experience and knowledge without pausing to realize that they are contributing great gifts of service to others. Putting goodness out into the world counts.

The Naturals

 

 

Like all forms of growth, you have to give yourself 6 months to learn to use your new colour palette.  Your mind needs time to untangle how it has seen stores for the last 20 years. Practice patience. Think of this like exercise, which works for every single person who stays with it. You will find your best self because everyone else did. It always works. Women who have had a Sci\ART analysis would not go back to how they used to shop and neither will you. Give any doubts about that to the wind before you read another word.

You have to put in the time to get the reward. Like asking someone else to meditate for you, it just won’t work that way. You can’t miss the journey. The journey is the whole point, there’s no final destination. You have to engage it with conscious thought, not skim the surface or expect an automatic lock ‘n load. Don’t think about the endpoint or wish to be there till it’s fairly earned. Focus on moving closer and closer to defining your center. That right there is the entire point. You will get very, very good at your colours. Expect to return a few things – on those days, you’ll know even more about yourself. Move towards those moments.

I want you to be happy to be all of you, not just your natural colouring – which I guarantee you is beautiful enough to bring tears to the eyes of anyone who takes the time to really look.

The  Gamines

Broken lines are the deal here. Connect the dots, dashes, seeds, beads. Add in swirls for soft and multi-directional lines for Flamboyant.

 

 

We all have these “I hate abcd about myself.” conversations, me just as much as anyone. Please don’t anyone email me and tell me I’m not sensitive to women’s body issues. I’ve got first hand knowledge of having your most basic survival foundations shaken by anorexia (high school but I can go back there in my head in an instant), of being beat around as a kid (school, not family). I get what humiliation at the hands of others and my own feels like. I fight it every day too.

Thing is, everybody does. Nobody’s life is all charmed. When I learned my Season, and when other women do, I noticed that it had a calming effect. The expression in the eyes at the end of the PCA is peaceful. I just figured that was recognition of that which lives in us and letting it have its voice.

Then I learned my Kibbe style. Again, that was calming. There seems a frantic rummaging that goes on, being unable to let it go till the puzzle is solved, followed by a strong, receiving quiet. Again, it doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be closer  to the real you than where you were.

The Dramatics

Note to self: Soft Anything = smoother and rounder. Also smooth does not  = sleek.

 

 

We have seen or been the woman going into stores with her new colour palette and finding nothing, leaving her with an “I’m not this, I’m not that, I’m not anything.” type of discouragement. And then joins on the appendix “And besides, I hate my shape.” So, to find that allowing, satisfied calm about your shape, I think you have to learn it, just like it works with colours. Doesn’t matter if you find the perfect answer or the perfect jacket. It’s about starting to ask the questions and getting closer to who you are, sometimes through the Who You Are Not maze. This appears to be calming and empowering to everyone who experiences it.

Saying

“What good are these colours I have? I can’t find them in stores. If I see something close, I’m either not sure or the style is off. All I see is the black they said I can’t wear. I hate the weight that won’t budge, I’m so tired of having big arms I’m always hiding them.

What I feel is really far away from finding a way to communicate with me, like she’s actually trying to get away or hide so I can’t find her. Who I thought I was, her seat is empty, as if everybody left without telling me and I got left here alone trying to figure this out. I don’t even know where to start.”

doesn’t feel as good as

“It will take time to break away all the hype I now believe about colour and me – and decide what of that I want to keep that does speak to me and for me. I have new knowledge and new tools. I don’t have to worry. It’s all happening right now in my subconscious, even when I’m asleep. It took time to get how it was and it’s going to take time to go back. I’m going to calm down about it. I make a devotion to me to stay in the boat and give myself that time.

Spending more time in stores is just more depressing. What I need is to find the places where I feel good. Maybe that’s new makeup instead of clothes. Maybe it’s time with women who’ve lived it and are there just to listen. What the women on facebook notice about me never seems to be my thighs. Should I start thinking that I’m the only one who sees them? They see how I barely need foundation and the shape of my lips. If I learned a bit more about me, would I find more good stuff on my own? It sure would feel better to be paying attention to that.”

I’m taking the Dressing Your Truth course now. I love Carol Tuttle’s honest, been-there style. I love her basic premise: There is nothing wrong with you. Not one single thing. Any fault lies with the fashion/cosmetic/marketing industry that has trained you with false proof (meaning that if the mannequin’s clothes don’t suit you, you must have a problem) to believe that you’re not perfect. And, since you can’t solve a problem till you’re mature and accountable enough to own the problem, a little fault lies with all of us women for allowing this to happen. I know it’s insidious but we’ve also been too easy a target. We gobble it up when we should turn the page.

And so again, following the same pattern, I went from the statement “I’m a Type 4, 3 secondary” to recognizing that little jolt of empowered and hopeful. I read what those Types give and take in the world and found them in me. They gave me direction, like knowing where you’re supposed to be going, like something definite to move towards, cushioned by all the good things that balance me.  Instead of feeling closed down if your palette doesn’t work, consider expanding yourself even more. The colours will fall in your lap when you’re thinking about something else.

We’ve seen the photos at the fashion collections where the  models parade down together at the end – can’t recall a better rendition of Clone Planet. Of course, we don’t look at their faces. We’re supposed stare at the clothes. But we don’t live in The Matrix, and who’d want to? Once we allow ourselves to graduate to another level, to be released from the magazines that try to get us to erase our me-ness, we can say

“I am an energy Type 2. That’s why I can feel so hurt for myself and for others. It’s not weak to try to make others feel better, that makes me stronger. I’m a Light Summer. When people look at me, they see the hope and feel the lift of a rainbow.  So I’m not tough. So I don’t wear black. I’d still rather be me, all of me, than anybody else.”

You might just feel so good and right in your own skin and everything you buy that you’ll have to work a wee bit harder at keeping your humility grounded and your joy contained.

The Romantics

 

 

Your truths are where your power is. What is true about you is what is strong about you. By the time you’re 35, you’re going to need a shovel to get at that. It won’t bubble up on its own for most of us. Those brave, intelligent, and very giving women of facebook didn’t start that way either. They started by talking the talk, hearing themselves in the stories and advice of others. They taught each other. They have come out on their other side, easily and steadily and continuously walking the walk. You will too. Just join the party. Look for the least contaminated truths you can find inside you when you talk. It’s really hard to do, but do it anyhow. Put yourself in a place of learning, only that, and make it good enough. If lovely clothes start finding their way into your life, fine, but make the primary purpose to learn who you are.  Your most beautiful lipstick is waiting for you to do that.

The road to Heaven isn’t paved with high achievers, right? It’s a one-at-a-time brick road of finding your Self, and never living one moment beneath or beside that again. We have many selves. In our past, they get pulled out like the pages of a book and left behind.  The restlessness you feel will settle when you gather them back where they belong. The Kingdom of Heaven is, has always been, and forever will be, inside. Anything that helps you find what is true and real and authentic about you will bring you closer.

 

Bright Spring Neutral Colours and CE

April 22, 2012 by Christine Scaman · 14 Comments 

Colour analysis is interior decoration of the soul. If we could extract our soul from our body and stand it beside us, would the two be the same? How beautiful is it when the things we wear are like a window that lets others see to our ocean floor from high up on their own mountain road.

So Bright Spring. Here we go. This Season…this ode to the magnificence of colour so beautiful, a heart aches.

The knockout that is Bright Spring, this woman often looks formal and dark. Once she recognizes you, her smile lights her face and she exudes warmth and charm. She looks much more complicated than she is. You expect her to stand on ceremony and convention but not at all. Her personality is quite informal. The simpler things in life make her truly happy and she knows how to pause and recognize them.

In 12 Season personal colour analysis, the Bright Spring is the person whose natural colouring is based in Spring’s spunky, sunny colours. Winter added a bit of its blue and red, but her inborn colours are not nearly as dark and detached as you guessed.

Like the fox, the seahorse, and the swallow, she’s busy when she’s standing still. She is sharp, delicate, and quite sweet, like spearmint. The yellows, oranges, and browns in her eyes (and Bright Winter’s) are the glowing, pure, peachy red-browns of the animal below, which we’ll see later in dark carrot pants and clear topaz stones. There is no sense of weight, darkness, or toughness. Quite the opposite, she reminds us that the most generously coloured life forms and ecosystems are the most fragile.

 

Thanks to Heidi for helping set the stage for us. It looks like Winter but it so is not. It’s young, modern, energized, over the top, waiting to dance, exaggerated, and it never stops moving.
 

 

If you live in the US, access this version.

Bright Spring Colour  Equations

In the book Return to Your Natural Colours that you can see pictured in the right column above Recent Posts, a chapter is devoted to each Season’s persona, natural setting, relationship with the other Seasons, best styles, textiles, cosmetics, hair colour, and jewelry. There is also a section called Colour Equations (CE), a conceptual bridge between the Colour Book of swatches that you take to the store and how to translate into colour combinations. The CEs are helped by some illustrating.

 

Cheat Black In

No point pretending it won’t happen. And why not, but go easy. This isn’t a green light…and don’t accelerate for the yellow, it’s about to turn red.

 

Use the smallest real estate possible for the black and not right under the chin. Open necks are better. Just let black bring the picture into focus.

Break it up with a lively print.

Add animation as shine, details, and accessories.

Give the eye distractions. Use pure, juicy, colour so delicious that it can’t get bogged down in the black and keeps moving along.

If there’s black  in the top, consider not wearing it in the bottom too – as the triangles top with the light pants. At its best, this look isn’t overall dark. Still, black and beige just can’t pick up any speed and on this woman. Compared to her, the clothes seem to be moving in reverse. The look is not creamy or gradual, because the woman never is.

Few Bright Springs probably guessed their Season right. They’ve lived as Winters for years, or some kind of Summer. Darker outfits (blue purse outfit on R) can look quite fine but serious and Wintery, where light is being pulled in. Take the same top and add light in everything else, white pants, yellow shoes, transparency in earrings instead of density – I think it’s better. Spring emits light.

The two models lower L – the  blonde girl (perhaps a Light Spring) shows a dull way to wear black. It’s trying to own her. We lose interest in the girl and seem consumed with negotiating the black block. The woman to the R, very possibly a Bright Spring, wears similar colours in clothes with less weight and more movement. Bright Spring is not a heavy look, it’s like aluminum foil.

Like her Dark Autumn look-alike, Bright Spring is much better in black and cream (DA’s being a far darker browner cream) than in B&W.

If you wear black, choose warmth in your other colours and  accessories. Silver looks more Winter and a little dry.

Green dress/yellow purse in the center – this print is quite random for a Winter person. This could feel unbalanced or zingy on some Bright Winters, and just perfect for the show biz energy of others.

Darks with darks can look too dark. Build an office look with greys. Add interest and entertainment, like the pink purse at the top.

 

Even Grey Should Be Fun
 

 

Light and energy must come out of it. Vivacity is always present in the face, the eyes, and the movements. They are quick and neat.

Textures and edges are smooth and shiny because the person is.   The control of their Winter side won’t let them appear shaggy, haphazard, or erratic. They do look unpredictable and spontaneous. The song “Shiny Happy People” was inspired by Bright Spring. The cardi at top L is Lurex and you can still add colour and fun with the beads.

Every woman works out her best use of contrast on her own, it seems. A general rule for this group is to keep it high and clean. Outfits in various versions of the same colour don’t usually make sense (unless contrast is very high and/or edges very sharp), meaning distance between colour types and darkness levels is quite high. If she is older, the coolest looking lady at church with her white hair, dark brows, and turquoise eyes, she’ll bring these closer together to repeat what she looks like.

There is no true red. Here, we have clearest orange, many pure lipstick pinks, fuchsia pinks, and purple pinks. Red only appears in the Winters but you can cheat that in too. That red pants outfit, lower L – cover the silver watch and look at it. Then cover the gold watch. Isn’t that intriguing, that shift in what the eye notices?

Notice that the beiges are very very pale light, barely yellowed, not earthy browned. Rather like ‘icy beiges’.

A full grey dress (middle top) needs to be jazzed up with more colour. Sunglasses like those are small but they’ll get noticed and will hold the viewer’s gaze and attention.

Gold is good. Not too hot (yellow), very shiny.

If you look inside your eyes, many will see those dark carrot pants. So will many Bright Winters.

At the center of the lower band, see the girl in the grey blazer, two-tone shoe? Let your eye travel from the earrings to her face and across to the tank top. See all the repeats?

Watermelon and moon slices, outfit R side : On a person who looks polished and streamlined (your weight has nothing to do with it), pick jeans that are the same. Next to you, faded can look like a rag. Too dark is better than dusty, wrinkled, or patchy. Keep them ultra smooth and classy. And if you want to wear leopard stilettos (or flats), please don’t let me get in your way. It looks better than most other things.

Detail + Innovation + Restraint = Originality (Sp) +  Discipline (W)
 

 

As you overview the collection, can you feel Winter’s presence? It causes Bright Spring to have a much tighter way of moving the body than the relaxed and unconfined True Spring.

Mixing silver, gold, and other shiny metals is fine.

If you wear black, taupe, and beige, make the print electrified and the cut, cough, distracting, as the dress in the top R.

Black and white have tipped over to Bright Winter, perhaps more so in the colorblock print at lower R, regardless of how hot the other colours are. Try to avoid pure black and white together. If you wear one, don’t wear the other. B&W only really looks good on True and Bright Winter. Even the Dark Winter could think twice unless she is very cool in her colouring.

Pure stark white pants are one of those items most of us must think about carefully. To me, they look right on the True Winter, Bright Winter, Bright Spring, and that’s about it. Take pictures of yourself and look at them yourself. You can see oh, so right and oh, so wrong within seconds. Light shoes are pretty good despite having dark hair if contrasting with the clothes. Not white pants and white shoes.

Don’t get too matchy. You can be as Classic-symmetric or  Gamine-irregular as you body’s lines dictate, but keep the humour good, free-spirited,  and lighthearted. Even at a meeting, as outfit L side, keep shine and design interest in a grey jacket, wear a pink but simple watch, add dangle and sparkle in the earring.

 

Bright Spring = Lighting the Darkness

 
The icy blues and greens dress at top R – yes, it could be sunnier. Maybe this is cheating white. Wear pale gold earrings so as not to cool it further with silver. It could be more contrasting but that bit of black looks more at home on Bright Spring than anyone else. The print could be less watercoloured. Whatever. The dress is beautiful. Imagine seeing that woman on the dance floor. This is heart-stopping beauty that no other natural colouring could wear so well. Don’t take my suggestions too literally. They can’t apply equally to thousands of women. Make it work for you. The dress is also an example of high saturation light colours (Spring), without being so close to white as to be icy (Winter). We often hear “high saturation” and our imagination shoots right up to dark sapphire. High sat means not softened with gray.

Our red is a wardrobe neutral too, more out there than taupe but equally versatile. For the three Springs, traditional neutrals (grey, beige, taupe) can be too monotonous, like a dial tone voiced over a wind chime or a water cascade. No  match found. Wear your colours a lot.

Consider making the clothing coloured and the accessories grey/beige/taupe.

Details are good. Orange starfish (with diamonds), not orange balls. A shiny cap on a toe. A star shower, not a single star.

Could Miu Miu be the designer?  Something about this colouring is so very young that anything remotely kiddish accentuates  a feature that already comes across very strong and you might not want at the office. I’d leave ribbons, little animals, peace signs, and hearts for after work or to the Seasons who could use some de-formalizing, especially if they work with the public. On any Bright Sring, the Winter aspect lends a seriousness and maturity that may not suit very young additions perfectly, but they wouldn’t be as out of place as on Dark Winter.

Springs have known all along that life really is this much fun.

 

Dark Autumn Landscapes

February 6, 2012 by Christine Scaman · 22 Comments 

In 2 parts because Dark Autumns are among the most fascinating persons on the planet. As you’ll see, I can talk about this Season for a long time. Today, the colours, the landscape, the person. Next, the clothes and the Colour  Equations.

In 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis, the Dark Autumn Season holds those persons whose natural colouring is:

- Dark, the TMIT,  but richly dark, luxuriantly, glowingly dark. We are given robust red wines, lustrous deep olives, and ornately reddened browns and purples. This is the aspect of colours that they are first and most. Darkness before heat.

- Neutral to warm. In this context, Neutral means colours that have both some coolness (blueness) and some warmth (gold), as opposed to lower-case-n-neutral that can mean flesh-toned makeup or gray/taupe clothing. Sophia Loren feels much more toasty than she does black. Black feels uninteresting and thoughtless next to the hot, spicy fire she embodies. Always plug in the comparison. There are no absolutes with colour. I once called Winter skin rubbery and Summer papery. Kathy needed a moment to get past that. If her Winter skin were compared to rubber OR paper, well, my Dark Winter skin is for sure not papery or any woven substance. Focus on each separately: how does Sophia feel next to black AND how does black make you feel help up next to Sophia?

- Barely muted, not enough to notice. Dark, thick taupes, as hippo grey, not pigeon. Balsamic vinegar and tomato paste are dusty compared to Turkish coffee and  dragon blood (I meant oxblood but dragon blood was more fun to type). Dark Autumn is very colour concentrated. There is so little dusty here, it’s hardly noticeable unless you held up the colour next to the 99% pure Bright Season colours.

The Darkness (Is Not Black)

Dark Autumn means darkness releases the magic – heavy, hard, deep, strong darkness. It enriches the eye, attains the skin tone’s perfection, and infuses the appearance with a vital force that will set you back in your tracks. You unlock this mystery of Autumn’s blazing heat entwined with the coming Winter quiet with luminous, full, rich darks.  Spring and Summer have darks that are without the density of oil paint. Dark Autumn colours are thick and meaty.

Colour may be settling with the approach of Winter’s cold but the octane level remains very high. Black’s feeling of weight is certainly here, yes, but its more distinct voice of deepest, most sacred sleep, of stark outlines and a spare sensibility, are not yet in reach. Black can feel a bit leaden on those who do not contain it by Nature’s hand. Keep Dark Autumn darks penetrable and interesting. Choose the almost-black purples, blues, browns, and greens. In daylight, you should see colour. Almost black colours often look metallic like that finish on cars, and it’s never the cheap cars.

Once a woman hears that she ‘can wear black’, she wears it with a vengeance. On Dark Autumn, it’s not great or very good or good. It’s acceptable in small blocks with a lot of heat added in. Solid black is forbidding. It’s a wall, a very boring wall unless you are primarily Winter because it has no translation on any other body. Two entities that can’t find a communication place are not intelligible to one another (thanks to Sharon for the great analogy). Black is still a foreign language on Dark Autumn’s body, though there are a few phrases to pull out in emergencies. To the viewer, the person and the black have no unifying element. They remain a little separate, the clothes from the person, as if there’s a blank space between them with nothing it it.

Black is their toughest temptation but it looks far colder, harder, and heavier than they do. Wearing it looks a bit disappointing relative to what could have been in rich, hot, bronzed reds and browns. Play up the heat and to look spectacular. If she can’t get with tribal, then do military, urban chic, or nerd chic, but don’t default to black.  Do touches of black, in belts, shoes, a small part of a print. Avoid big, black blocks. And don’t do black with silver jewelry which is even colder. Even in pants, the near-blacks are leap years better than black.  The viewer sees you from head to toe in one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand seconds. You register others in that time, at least to make a first impression. The deep maroon pants got noticed with more pleasure than one more black bottom half.

Autumn is too comfortable and knowable, familiar and natural, for black. Invited into a home for coffee and cake isn’t black. The midnight fire dance or glass of brandy contain some black, but with the firelight flickering, surfaces are so much more red and orange and green than black.

Black keeps the world a little farther away, which is about where Winter likes it. Black (and Winter) is involuted. Autumn is not primarily that way. Winter disengages from anything they don’t want to acknowledge or pay attention to. Like it’s not even there. Like all the stuff in the house that needs dusting. Autumn isn’t that way. They are engaged. They’re sanding furniture, baking and sharing, attending charity functions, going to obedience class with their Bernese Mountain Dog, starting projects in time for Christmas, showing up for a friend’s three wedding showers with a gift every time, always trying to figure a better way of doing something. And dusting.

Dark Autumn can balance the weight of black. Therefore, they will not appear to gain weight when wearing it. So, it’s not completely random on this person but next to such a powerful force, on a spirit this strong, black looks colourless. Almost lifeless in an onerous, inorganic way. Cold-blooded on a hot-blooded soul.

The Lightness

There is no pure white until Winter is firmly in place so that tendency it has to brighten everything (like a Dark Winter face but not a Dark Autumn face) won’t be seen during the draping.  This face will appear greyer, without vitality, and more lined. Stay far from white. It’s an instant 10 years, a truly unattractive choice. Learn  Summer’s pastels too so you never buy them accidentally. See that blue book way up at the very top right of the page? It can help you with this.

These are the darkest light colours of the 12 Seasons. Even they have darkness, a scorched quality. Colours appear slightly aged, in the way that paper can be sponged with tea or coffee to be antiqued. The lights are substantial colours that can drain out any other kind of skin, like the sturdy colours of grains, brown rice, quinoa, that overlay of brownness but not blackness.

The light colours are distinctly browned, like vinegars and preserves. Browned spiced peach, chamois, November grass, and dark willow. Winter’s blue is coming in, neutralizing Autumn gold to some extent. What should strike home is brown as a dark warm taupe overlay, as brown rose and brown coral. Think of the dried apple, peach, and fig, compared to the originals. Spring is raw, Soft Autumn is cooked, True Autumn is flambe, and DA is what’s in the pan when the flame subsides. Dark Autumn’s lights are the colour of the bread or the sauce that got left too long in the heat.

Light colours are either right on or way off. Because darkness is very forgiving (meaning colours are more likely to look gorgeous just by being dark), it follows that light colour is the opposite. This applies equally to clothing as hair. The Dark Seasons are the most awkward blondes (remembering that hair averages don’t exist in the Seasons) unless Nature gave them light coloured hair. Don’t let someone tell you that women need lighter hair as they get older. To the person looking at you, it feels uncomfortable to see light streaks because they are so very far from who you are inside that it can’t be counterfeited in. Up floats the question “What was so wrong with who you were that you felt you had to be everyone else? I liked you fine before. Now, you’re making  me wonder. Plus, I feel kind of embarrassed and cramped and I don’t know why.”

The Heat

Still big smoke coming off it. An overcooked type of heat, where a carbonized trace is cooling the colour’s original heat. Moroccan colours. Darker than Bollywood colours. Persian carpets, Aladdin colours.

The reds look browned, as bricks, russets, bittersweets. That almost burnt quality is important. Burnt oranges and reds make beautiful lip and blush colours. Red is almost automatically a warm colour in that even when it’s cool, its message is hot. These lip/blush shades are not hard to find, certainly not in makeup. Dior Rouge Blossom lipstick is a beauty, as are Clinique lip in Chianti and NARS pot gloss in Medea. Wear sheer, but wear your red-browns. Look at Chanel Glossimer 64 in Sunset Gold (toasted apricot), Revlon Lip Butter in Fig Jam (sheer brown), and Lancome Hotspell (sheer bronze). They look incredibly good.

The Coldness

Just cool enough for a diamond to form, the hardness Winter brings. Nothing is flimsy. Soft on someone else looks flimsy here.

Temperatures are dropping. The fire is dying down, only embers left. If this is the picture I chose for the coldness, imagine what the heat looks like! Greys provide a cooling effect, situating the Neutrality of the Season.

Winter can have a bigger influence on character than its minority role in this palette should account for. This person can be more cool and formal or more passionate and dynamic, but forcefulness is always there. Move towards that heat. It looks good. The distinguished professor and the head of state are as Dark Autumn as the painted warrior. Reserved and serious are worn extremely well too, but there is a sense of might, as mighty, as Madeline Albright, as Indira Gandhi.

Google Scan their Images. The power of this person is awesome. As they age, Dark Autumn women become more formidable every day. Don’t reduce that by being one more blonde. I’m never fond of purple/dark magenta/burgundy hair trendiness either, which are only distraction on a very focused person, though these colours are stunningly good in clothing. Claim the power in the faces above, those of Cleopatra and Melinda Gates. Rise up to being who you are. In the beginning, right colour can feel like a disguise. In no time, the colours will have convinced you of your truth when nobody else could.

Dark Autumn can tap an infinite pool of strength. It is not in Autumn’s nature to be entitled (it can be Winter’s, of being outside the rules). They don’t make special concessions for themselves, they just get on with the work. Few can match Dark Autumn for taking on the big roles and getting stuff done. They have Winter’s enormity of scale built-in so the huge task doesn’t daunt them for a second. They are the strongest people in the world because they are not self-indulgent. And they could care less if their husband dresses better than they do. Allow the drama of grey in hair, a strong testament to your Neutral Season colouring where the warm skin/cool hair play together so well, or  choose the rich, dark browns you were blessed with in hair colour.

Cute lipstick looks gray, both makeup and skin. Blonde hair looks grey, both hair and skin. They look weak. A Dark Autumn must protect herself against trend at all costs.

The Feeling

The energy is still natural – though less than True or Soft Autumn, barely rustic or earthy anymore – which is why flesh-tones in makeup look better here than on a Winter face. Drama and the right costume can look very right too. Soft Autumn is pie crust, Autumn is whole wheat, and Dark Autumn is dark rye bread to dark walnut and mahogany wood, because among the feeling of its colours is hardness. By comparison, Spring is puff pastry and lots of sugar. Summer is petit fours. The Lights are meringue. Winter? I’m sure they have sweetness, .. I was asked what car a Soft Summer drives, it just came into my head, a Volvo wagon!…back to what is Winter’s sweetness…it’ll be hard and controversial, meaning many won’t  like it …edible flowers? rosewater candy?….. flourless black chocolate torte with a raspberry coulis.

With maturity, and these colours are Spring’s matured, come deeper waters, more complex patterns, more density of substance. Spring’s candor and innocence are much more about simplicity. Winter’s isolation speaks of a different type of simplicity, one of extremes of the cleanest surface fused with a most elaborately difficult interior.

Autumn has a steady rhythm. You can always hear the faraway sound of a drum. In Soft Autumn, it’s hushed as if under Summer’s water. The Softs are the Seasons of natural elegance. Their unifying grey feels steady and calm, more than cool or warm. Autumn’s complexity exists in all three Autumns, so the combinations of their colours look better to me than any one alone (and in this, I’d include Soft Summer), as warm dull apricot or browned rose with warm pewter, limitless possibility. In those Seasons, layers work well to give sense of pattern (as texture, complexity, and creativity, like the handmade harvest display on the front porch), and depth, both of which have an inherent rhythmic progression.

In Autumn, we march to a steady beat from colour to colour to colour, feeling the connections, the reasons for being together. At Dark  Autumn, words are more loaded, as luxury and control, almost ready for Winter’s power. Dark Autumn’s rhythm is insistent, unbridled, tribal. The greys look more like powder keg than soothing. Colours stand alone more, though layers still work quite well here, less well on Dark Winter. Autumn is questioning and curious. Winter is oblivious and listens to its own GPS. The Autumn outfit should feel stimulating and absorbing, like a pulse, moving from piece to piece. Winter is pulling away, its large empty voids depicted in stark and solitary use of colour and jewelry, and of course, black.

For Dark Autumn, it’s the tribal-as-in-undomesticated goddess, the wild horse. The untethered freedom. Your own hoofbeats pounding in your ears. The driving intention. The uncaring about reactions.  Can we go back and emphasize the word wild. Native. Savage. Unchecked. Untamed. All it takes is one scarf, one bronzed lipstick, one leopard print-backed glove, and the viewer just felt it in their chest (but couldn’t say exactly what they felt).

Autumn is good at dressing what is. Once they see the system work, they move on. They tend not to be conflicted about what suits them and letting go of other colours and styles but they need to see it themselves. This is not the ‘what do you think?’ group. They have to think it. And with colour, of course, they have to see it. When they look away from their face in the mirror in the white drape, I know I’m golden. Until they do, they look at you like “Yeah, colour, whatever. Let’s go buy boots.”

For many Dark Autumns who feel better as neighbourly and unpretentious, well ok. Your True Autumn origin is strong and doesn’t often care for theater. The tolerance for it can be close to zero. Everyone looking at you is waiting for you to pull out a shot of excitement, but we’re all our own biggest obstacle. You’re not alone in that. We all could look instantly more magnificent if we could unleash our inner somebody. Figuring out who that is is a little hard, but even after knowing, getting her decked out and let loose is another animal altogether. For me, it’s the navy pinstripe suit with the iced violet or dark rose shirt. I own neither item, but in my own defense, I have been trying on suits. None of this is easy or automatic for anybody. If you believe one thing, make it “When one door closes,…” Knowing the colours that are in you puts your hand on the doorknob. Are you going to do something with it?

If tribal feels nuts, even that one necklace, you might try giving your Winter side bigger air time. Dark Autumn is equally superb in classy suits, jackets, borrowing from elite sports like horse (English better than Western depending on the item) and ski, jet set safari and archeological digs. Like Winters, you look better when you’re done up dressier than anyone around you than when you opt for the True Autumn associations of everyday twills, denim, corduroy, and chunky wools. Dark Autumn is that wickedly good Season that looks good classic and good fired up.

The music can be monastic hymn. But then there’s this…the serpent, the danger. Feel the tension? True Autumn was a cheerleading camp  compared to this.

 

Slithering along, now more alone in the dark, the knot in your belly gets tighter, now just on Dark Winter’s doorstep:

 

We’ve set the scene, dimmed the lights. Next, we’ll think about clothes.

 

Cool Season Makeup Palettes

January 26, 2012 by Christine Scaman · 39 Comments 

Eyeshadow is the one cosmetic product that I find can be matched to the Colour Books without smearing it out on paper or on your face. How much eyeshadow can you really apply to your eyelid in one shopping session, let alone truly know if it suits you? Impossible. This is a product worth learning to judge from the pan.

Like every other aspect of choosing your  most beautiful colours, recognizing your best eye makeup depends in large part on recognizing everyone else’s too, at least in a general sense.

Tricia Bratley is a (trust me) beautiful (shockingly so and I’m going to prove it in the next post) Bright Winter. She lives on the Wirral Peninsula in the NW U.K. And she loves makeup, all makeup, not just her own Season’s, in which she is most accomplished. Tricia assembled the palettes you see below, took the photos, and so graciously sent them to me to share with you.

This series sets Summer and Winter neutral (as in grays and taupes) eyeshadows, colour eyeshadows, and blushers, adjacent. Within each palette of eyeshadows, you may find options for the three Seasons within each True Season, but Tricia focussed primarily on the True Summer and True Winter when she organized these collections.

These palettes consist of MAC colours. If you have any questions about specific pans, please post them in the Comments and Tricia will come in and answer.

Neutral Eyeshadows

Summer

 

Winter

 

——–

Coloured Eyeshadows

Summer

 

Winter

 

—–

Blush 

Summer

 

Winter

 

These photos are so good that there is nothing I  can add. Enormous thanks to Tricia for her work and her generosity

Never fear, the True warm Seasons are next.

Colour Equations Dark Winter

December 24, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 12 Comments 

Many people have no interest in their colours, but not just blandly so. They’re defensively so. They don’t mind being advice about other fashion guidelines but they do not want to be told there are certain colors that might not be best for them. Why colour?  Because colour gets below the surface. Colour gets into the hard-wiring. There’s more at stake if you let someone in. Let’s spend some time in Dark Winter’s personal space.

Ellen Page is an example of a very commonly seen Dark Winter face. Autumn’s squaring of jaw is often present (True Winter’s is longer and narrower, like Cher) but the colouring is cooler and clearer than Dark Autumn. The trace of Autumn heat is surely here in the hair, eyes, and skin unless the person is quite close to True Winter.

Sure, she could be a Bright or any Season for that matter, but this face is the dance of Dark Winter to me.  This is the very rare client that gets out of the car and I have to fight with myself not to push her into the one Season that’s fairly singing its own name. This is a far more difficult analysis, with much more second thinking, than with a person whose natural colouring group is less obvious.

And God love the girl for the natural hair and brows. She looks strong, young, healthy, and smart. The blue in the eye makeup isn’t blue enough to say BLUE EYE PAINT and it complements the orange tones in the eye. I think she looks simply great and you know how much it takes for me to say that. As women, we lose the sense of this being enough. We need to manipulate as if media’s solutions could make it better. Learning to see what is right in front of us as special is the PCA version of living in the moment.

 

 

I see this face over and over in Dark Winter. The size of Winter, fathomless and colossal as a galaxy, the space they need and demand, with the human warmth, the comfortable welcome, and the great generosity of Autumn. Tell me this is not (Sci\ART analyst) Maytee Garza‘s face.

Some Dark Winters have a longer face or softer colouring or lighter eyes, lots of variations. Some have a more gamine feel, like Victoria Beckham or Winona Ryder. We don’t do colour analysis based on these traits but every type of natural colouring repeats certain facial features a lot.

I talk about liking lips with colour more on Winters than the erased lip that mostly looks good on the almost-children in magazines. A young Winter is an exception. Even in her medium pinks and purples, there’s so much colour already that she can look like she’s dressing up as Mom. An icy lipgloss can really be great (Bobbi  Brown Sugar Lilac – I’m pretty sure that’s the name. It looks more iced violet than  grey in the tube.). Not pastel (more greyed, there’s tons of these frosty greyish pinks, don’t buy them). Not medium darkness, should go on very light. Icy is hard to find but it’s good. More age appropriate, conveys a coolness, and better at letting the beauty of the face speak for itself without cosmetic getting in the way, which is the best kind of beauty and the best use of cosmetics.

—–

I tried to do a Polyvore. And failed. I couldn’t even get a single one together. I’ve seen what’s there too many times. Going to try something new. For those who have, or will have, my book, you’ll see a section in each of the Season chapters that describes how I see the colour palette being used to best effect. Dark Winter is the first chapter we talk about so let’s begin with it here.

For me, these colours have an austerity, perhaps because they are dark and cold. They feel serious. Soft effects (draping, smocking, cute collars, floppy bows and sleeves, unfinished edges) or busy details (wildly random prints, buttons and stuff for no reason like insets or logos, tons of ruching), styles that show a lot of skin (because sex and power are opposite currencies, the more of one, the less of the other. Dark Winter is the oldest soul Season and look better dressed more quietly, as the philosophers they so often are), clothes that seem too big (batwing and dolman sleeves, shapeless) – well, you can read the book but I don’t care for this on a Dark Winter. This person takes all that and makes it look unimportant, trite, and fussy. Peter Pan collars belong in Spring’s Neverland for a reason. On someone else, those styles can be flattering, slimming, and fabulous. On Dark Winter, it looks like those projects where your kids took your antique silver vase to school and brought it back with beads and  macaroni glued all over it.

I’ve had Dark Winters see their palette and hear the way I see the colours interpreted on this person and feel un-represented. They wanted Bright Winter. They say “Oh, but I love colour!”  Believe me, colour analysts are not trying to tell you not to wear colour. We are trying to help you avoid colours that make your face look oily, old, heavy, and unevenly pigmented. As pretty as a colour is, it won’t be so pretty after that happens. Wear YOUR colours any way YOU see them. Could you meet me halfway and say that Mrs. Obama might not be doing herself favours in frosted coral eyeshadow, peacock blue eyeliner, and hot fuchsia lips? Even one at a time, she is not that person, regardless of her position in the world.

I tried to keep the negatives out of the book, but with maturity comes an easier acceptance that every quality we have is in equal measure our flaw. We will excel and surpass at some things, which must be balanced by those places where we are weaker. This is a self-contained individual, not one who shares a lot of the internal stuff or leans on others easily. Some have incredible intensity, far more than the situation warrants, while some are much more passive. Once the cage is rattled, the fun times are over, because once they let go…Dark  Winter draws a very clear line at anything that smells like B.S. Unlike the Summers, they will not necessarily keep your feelings safe. In colour, this translates as heavy, humorless, dark, unfriendly, morose, somber, and solemn. Don’t email me to say that this vision is grim and depressing. I’ll email back to say that your interpretation forgot the counterbalances that the hawk brings to the kingdom. Piercing focus, deep introspection, and the majestic, solitary stand-apart-ness that gets noticed first.

There is a core of stillness and hardness in Winter people. You can feel the steel rod down the center, and if tested, it will not bend, no matter how lightweight they seem on the surface. The palpable presence of that steel rod is the source of the strong vertical line element that I find works so well in the appearance of Dark Winter clothing. I think many of them sense this hard place too and translate it as “Earth”, that type of un-movable rock-solid center. For me, Earth energy (and I’m not an energy specialist) means secure comfortable homey regular everyday practical common-sense resilient considerate fair. That’s not Winter, that’s Autumn. Perhaps my misunderstanding, since analysts I respect enormously (Angela Wright in The Beginner’s Guide to Colour Psychology) attribute earth to Winter, where the world turns into itself, gathering power from the earth for the coming growing season, and the person of that colouring is similarly inwardly directed. I feel Winter’s need for big elbow room more strongly and feel an air association, as in space rather than breeze or wind.

At the center of Winter is a titanium wire – wait, this is Dark Winter, make that a tungsten cable. Its strength is not in Autumn’s sturdy squareness, but rather in its thin linearity. Winter is the conflict, even the contradiction, of everything and nothing, black and white, playing themselves out at the same time. Winter is the superstar who never feels good enough, who thinks herself a loser. In True Winter, where the polarities are most widely apart, the line between the two becomes thinnest, near invisible, just a fold in a force field. You can feel the hinge but you can’t see it, like the flip side that must always be, eternal and joined as matter and anti-matter.

From the book, the section is here:

Colour Equations

• Black + white + a third colour block from the palette
• A medium-dark to very dark colour (or black) + a white or an icy colour
• A medium-dark to very dark colour (or black) + a brighter colour from the palette
• A neutral (grey, brown, or black) + one other colour + possible third colour in small area
• Two dark colours of the same or analogous colours
• Two colour maximum, where black, white, black-navy, black-brown, and neutrals count as colours.  Third colour possible, as small area only, in an accent or accessory item.
• Overall medium-dark to dark effect

(Note: For the equations above, and those in the following Seasons, the terms light, medium, and dark signify the darkness level within the palette itself, not on a full white to black scale.)

 

 

 

————

From the top graphic:

Your hair and makeup are already a colour. When you look at others, you register every colour, meaning them plus their stuff. Chemical hair colour and  makeup already add a lot of colour activity for the viewer’s eyes. Clothes and jewelry beyond that and the eye has nowhere to land, nowhere to focus, and nowhere to rest. Dark Winter looks good with a lot of still territory. Gray, white, black. Perhaps the lipstick in the tuxedo image (#1) is enough, imagining in the earrings, hair, and eye colour adding three more colours.

#2: We’re always needing big separation between lightest and darkest. And an overall dark look.

The red and navy (#3) – feel how much more energy there is just by adding the blue. That navy is so close to black but it feels a lot busier. Not wrong, might be great in your eye, just a different feel. Anything added would be white, gray, black.

When the lower block changes to black, it’s such a small thing, but the feeling for me is sharper, cleaner, calmer, and could accept another small block of colour better. With black (#4), as with white and gray, there’s a feeling of settling that is right, as life settles at night, as moving water settles to frozen ice. Contrast is always high. Winter is not a tone on tone look. Contrast can be high without sparks flying, as large blocks of purple and yellow could achieve, and more so if they’re very bright and clear purple and yellow.

I like a lot of red on Winters. Red is a big colour on Winter. When you get your red right, it becomes a neutral, like gray in your wardrobe. We wear a version of it in lipstick every day. I think Jennifer Butler said that everyone has their neutral red and I agree with her. We are conscious of the colour red in every other person, though not the same red. Dark Winter could wear Bobbi Brown’s Rum Raisin lipstick and cover it with her Sugar Lilac gloss (to clear and purple and lighten that lipstick a touch more) or White Brightening gloss and that would be very good. If you want lips that last till noon, put a good coating of Lauder Double Wear Ruby on, then another coat, then cover it MAC Fast Play which dulls and browns it that tiniest trace to accommodate the Autumn influence that lives here.

Complimentary colours together are very energizing and heated, so work better on the hotter Seasons. When the feeling is colder and stiller, the teal (blue) and brown (orange) in small areas bring in that mutually elevating effect without being revving the motor more than a dark and quiet group logically would. The lower block in #5 is black-brown. That’s your eyeliner, clean, red based, dark, Cover Girl Vivid Ruby. The teal could equally be a stone in an earring, a necklace, a clutch, a laptop case and can go much darker.

Two darks together are aferocity that Dark Winter does well. It’s become hard for me to discuss this character and separate myself, but they seem able to generate a strength of intention to be reckoned with. This isn’t a warm and fuzzy person at all. They’re business and move to the power position pretty fast. All black is kind of too mafia. Two dark but different colours works for me. The Dark Seasons do an overall dark look very well (#6). It’s their thing. For DW, I like when the colours are close if not the same, like a tuxedo, like a pinstripe suit, all those linear vertical elements. All black is, well, you know, never amazing.

I love grey a lot on all 8 Neutral Seasons. And T. Rex gray is right about perfect here. Pants, jackets, eyeshadow, socks, wristwatch bands, it’s all part of the final picture and it’s all getting noticed. Bobbi Brown’s Rock eyeshadow mixed with the darkest colour in Clinique’s Totally Neutral trio and you’re there. Make lighter versions for the lid and darker version to put above the crease.

From the second graphic:

As my friend and Sci\ART analyst, Mary Steele Lawler, from Mississippi, pointed out from her colour mixing courses: ” If one paints a warm bright color in a landscape background the painting will be distorted. This is a color fact, because in real life distance causes colors to cool down and become mellow while Bright and Warm make colors advance.” So, you get what she’s saying, that it would look like foreground-type colour plopped into the background for no good reason. The picture makes no sense. The viewer doesn’t get what they’re supposed to make of the whole thing or get past the question: “Why in the world did the artist do that? What can I be missing here?” That’s yellow highlights on a Soft Summer head whose natural pigmentation is of coolness and distance, so background colours.

Therefore, the coolness level has to be the same throughout the elements of a composition that are in the same plane for you not to look dizzy. Nobody understands the concept of colour consistency better than artists. Colour is just as disciplined as drawing. Until the vanishing point in drawing was understood, nothing looked anchored down. This is a set of rules artists don’t break if they want their work to look real. They don’t take liberties with the natural physics of colour behaviour either if they’re aiming for a believable work of art. Kalisz explained her PCA system by simply saying that it adhered to “how colour is”. She didn’t add or invent arbitrarily. She stuck to those rules that Nature put in place long before colour analysis came along.

#1 – somber, grave, looks good on these people, on this personality.

Since this is a Neutral Season (in 12 Season personal colour analysis, these are the 8 groups of natural colouring that are made up of blends of 2 True Seasons; their personal colour palettes contain just slightly warmish and just slightly coolish versions of every one of their most perfect colours), I set the saturation to pretty high. I stay on the halfway-to-cool side of a colour’s warm to cool spectrum. The dark cool olive and the cool yellow (#2) are the same at the same coolness and provide a high value (light/dark)contrast. Any added colour block is quiet. Picture a colour here, it’s too agitated.

In the next one (#3), I was aiming to show a print. Though the two greys are quiet, the print adds energy and so does a saturated cool coral pink, a variation of red, a  colour to which humans are highly perceptive. The lower block is inert, or has no inertia, if you think of each element as having a momentum, a propulsive capacity to itself. Because each one of us is an energy field made up of light. Our appearance should have inertia, moving towards other people, our future, our goal. Isn’t that person just more fun and memorable than the static one (whose foreground colours are plopped in their background – does that look like you’re moving in reverse?) ? That lighter gray, I’d even take to cool light oatmeal or champagne, outside the swatches, but the Autumn blend makes those colours very convincing. If that’s what’s in the store but the pink is perfect, fine.

The  purple and black (#4) is overall dark, where the purple energizes, warms, and dulls the black to the right extent (which is  to say not a lot for DW). The clutch is meant to convey silver. Could be earrings, cuff, watch, necklace. Substantial diamonds are good because they add big presence without putting in another colour block.

#5 is there to remind that A. we can do a lot without black, that  B. all teals are important colours on Autumns as turquoises are to the Spring blends, and that  C. white is fine but not alone unless you’re very cool and near True Winter.

———————

Dark Winter does say December to me.

To all of you and to those in your lives who remind you of how much there is in you to love,

I wish you the happiest holidays of all!

 

Cocktail Dresses For 12 Seasons

November 16, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 8 Comments 

When I search Polyvore, I normally set the price less than 250 because that’s the world I live in. Not today. My apologies to all, especially the Springs and Summers, but there is no price limit here.

Today, I was looking for something I would notice the hot minute it walked in the door if the right woman wore it. The other requirement was that I’d feel comfortable in it, could eat, drink, and dance, wouldn’t be constantly hitching up or pulling down. You know how that goes.

 

Spring

 

Light Spring is across the bottom right. Pretend you don’t see the orange belt. Replace with gold, silver, violet, so on. Summer’s flowing water is here, making peace with the larger fraction of Spring’s livelier colour and unrivaled ability to sparkle. Is the sequined dress too browned? Could be, but I’m trading on the sequins delivering lighter colours in the highlights, making it Spring, and a colour that is not oranged, so the dress doesn’t convey earthy (Autumn).

True Spring takes up the left side. Notice how the colours are yellower and more activated than the Light. The styles are also more energized. Though this person is far more resort-relaxed than manic, she can easily dominate colours that are less vivacious. The whole effect then goes dull. Her makeup is equally way up there. Lip and cheek colours are noticeable and she looks alive like there’s no tomorrow. She’ll be up till dawn, the smile won’t leave her face all night, and she’ll do it all again the next night.

Bright Spring is shown in the top right. In 12 Season colour analysis, this colouring is a blend of Spring’s with Winter’s pigments. Its very ability to confuse makes it all the more flexible. This woman often looks very Winter, seeming cool and dark, and yet her natural colouring is far closer to Spring’s yellow light than to Winter’s red and dark blue. Because of that, she can cheat black in very nicely, though better in small blocks and not too near her face. The rest of the outfit should have Spring’s movement, whether in beading, ruffles, a play of light on fabric, like flapper styles. The elements of play and frivolity are so good on Spring, but toned here by Winter’s seriousness.

 

Summer

 

Light Summer is in the bottom left. A stronger water rippling effect than Light Spring. The feeling of being inside a cloud or a bouquet of flowers. As Summer arrives, Spring’s foot on the gas is letting up even more. Summer is appropriate always, though in Light Summer, daydreams are still about play. If Autumn’s around, daydreams are about the next job. Summer’s water has a sequence, a cascade, a fall, a flow, like the lines of a ripple or wave, like a ruffle, or even the colour wheel sequence of monochromatic colour schemes. Spring disorganizes, even though there’s only a little. In Light Summer, the dance feels like the wings and flight patterns of butterflies.

True Summer is in the top left. She will be classy, cool, and correct. She may have had a tray of Champagne but you’ll never know it. She won’t give away what she doesn’t choose to. She controls herself utterly (while Winter tries to control everybody). I think of streaming water, of composure, of modern femininity. Is the pink dress too red of a pink? Maybe but I’d still put it on her. The package works.

Soft Summer is on the right side…that navy dress, is that not greatness? I have sat and stared at that dress. Just knocks me over. The muted mauve-raisin-quid semper (Latin for what ever, now that you ask), that is the most interesting colour. I’m pretty sure its pinkness pulls it into Soft Summer but it sure borders Soft Autumn closely (and is a match for Dior Addict Londres lipstick). I love an interesting colour and I love it to pieces on the exact right person. A match made in absolute heaven for the eyes. Then the makeup that jives so right…you cannot stop looking and couldn’t repeat what was said when you spoke with her. Your sense of sight took over your whole brain.

 

Autumn

 

 

Soft Autumn is on the left. I left the dress in the bottom left that is in Soft Summer too. That’s a fascinating colour, rather halfway between both palettes. I think it’s a little purpler than orange, but a Soft Autumn who is a bit darker or not too freckled and apricottish, and maybe even if she is, could look beautiful. All black parties are deathly. They’re like a boredom and a depression all rolled into one. All these beautifully coloured humans swarming around dressed like a cloud of black insects. Especially at a party! It’s a celebration. Even the Softs should shine a little. One day, we’ll have traveling PCA & A Party, a block of hotel rooms, too much wine, too much song…the admission ticket, no solid black. Don’t care if you’re a Winter. Digression done. As Summer leaves and Autumn comes in, fabric has more weight, more structure, still with the feminine grace of Summer.

True Autumn is in the top right. Words fail me with the red dress but that would be way too much red for many a TA. That could sure be your lipstick with the other two dresses. Is the skirt on the golden one too gathered? It’s very important when you read these ideas of mine to think about whether you feel it the same way and not just accept it. All I’m really trying to do is have you hear, smell, taste, link, and feel what these particular colours awaken in you. Connect your five senses together and trust that what they say to you is true. What I like about the gold dress is the overstitch pattern which reminded me of a quilt, an Autumny association. Jacquard says Autumn to me most of the time.

Dark Autumn, bottom right, like Bright Spring, can impersonate someone whose natural colouring contains black. If the area is small and the rest is hot and dark, what comes across is mostly hot and dark, which is just right. The dress in the center has lace. On a woman who is not really all that lacy, its effect is overridden by the solid dark bands. It’s interesting how a detail can make a feeling. A light grey cardigan could be Summer’s if it’s sheer or ruffled or has same colour buttons. It can be Winter’s if the buttons are more prominent and hard and shiny, like big diamonds studs. Here, those very ordered lines bring more structure than the lace softens down.

 

Winter

 

Yes, I know it’s 3/4 black. It is a colour that Winter’s style just looks right in. And, as every woman reading this knows all too well, choice is limited at any price point.

Bright Winter is the group on the right. There’s no stopping with dress-up looks for Bright Winter. Hopefully, she has an excuse to wear many dresses in the next three months, this is her time to shop and to shine. I was looking for intense sugarplum which I didn’t find (but did see yesterday in a fleece at Old Navy and I can guarantee it would cost less).

 True Winter‘s dresses are in the top left. True Winter is so cold and clean that it has an edge that cuts. Without Spring’s delicate flirtiness and Autumn’s blunter touch seen in Dark Winter, True Winter is unadulterated biting cold. Associations of cut or bite: knife, sharp, snake, scrape (as in diamond edge). So why the flowers? To me, they were edgy and abstract.

Dark Winter is bottom left.  I wasn’t sure about the dress with the roses, but there was something Spanish about it that I kept coming back to. Winter isn’t really a traditional floral type of woman but it’s interesting to see a style rendered in a way that makes it untraditional. The textile felt too heavy for a Bright. I’m also thinking about ‘matte glamour’, hardware, cannon black, gun grey, always the Winter edge but one dulled by Autumn here. Bright Winter is the laser relative to DW’s cannon. Dark Winter’s is the simplicity that can own a room full of more is more. A Bright could wear the gold leaf but I put it here because the gold seemed deeper and browner, rather than the BW’s titanium type of brightness. A braided rope belt is Autumn’s touch.

 

Wearing The True Autumn Landscape

October 28, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 36 Comments 

In 12 Season personal colour analysis, there are 4 main Seasons, or True Seasons, named after the 4 natural seasons. True Autumn is the homeland for the most flattering colours of the person whose natural pigmentation is made of colours that are:

- absolutely warm; even the colours we think of as cool have been warmed by comparison to their appearance in the cooler Seasons; like True Summer, True Autumn is more saturated than people think. Most folks’ ideas of True Autumn and True Summer live in the Soft Autumn and Soft Summer palettes.

- muted, but not nearly as much as the Soft Autumn; yes, True Autumn’s salsa and curry are muted compared to True Spring’s fruit punch and citrus, but we don’t think of them as grey ; we do think of Soft Autumn’s cactus as greyed; True Aututmn’s entire palette viewed at once looks like a hot glow, well beyond rosy blush; to emanate that kind of heat, we are moving away from pink and into red

- medium to dark in value; most colours are medium, few are very light, and none darken all the way to black ; the overall look needs some darkness to give the feeling of richness and depth, too much lightness looking too powdery

This series of landscape articles (True Summer, Soft Autumn, True and Bright Winter , and Bright Spring have been posted) serves as an opportunity to see ourselves with objectivity. Unless we transfer colour and clothing decision outside of ourselves, objectivity is too far to far reach for most of us, certainly for me. We are far too invested in our complexities to have any idea how we look to others.

The world is full of odd psychology, a common one being to inadvertently reward ourselves, our kids, our pets, for the very behaviour we’d like to be rid of. We want to look like our friends or like celebrities, but what if we’re imitating them and not really loving how they look? Buy a magazine aimed at your demographic and mark the pages of the women you would love to look like. How many have complicated hair? sparkly eyeliner? sparkly purple eyeliner? frosty pale lips? Is their hair and makeup like yours?

It’s also interesting that in trying to look like our friends, we end up looking less like them and more like us. All those blonde highlights out there accentuate the differences between us rather than making us more similar, which only works in your favour if yellow in hair is flattering to your skin. If you put a room full of women in the same red dress and really looked at the women and not the dress, the differences between them, meaning who looks good in that red and who doesn’t, become easy to see. What looks good on our friends doesn’t help us know what enhances us.

Finding people of similar colouring to ours to try clothes, makeup, or hair on can be very useful if that person can be found but there’s such variation of appearance among members of the same Season that our counterparts are not always available. Or, the celebrities look like the average for the Season and we don’t. Still, some retain enough of themselves to have good real world comparison value.

Keri Russell could be a True Autumn.

So could Susan Sarandon. You can see that their overall colour effect feels toasty, medium on a darkness scale, and glowy. Their natural coppery heat just looks better surrounded by warm, muted, medium dark colour. Scan their Images and decide how dark their best hair is to flatter the face. It’s fairly dark. Many True Autumns wear their hair too light (Kathie Lee Gifford) and the glow be long gone. Red hair is by no means a necessity but these women are very seldom beautiful as blondes or in ash hair tones.

 

We belong to our planet home at such an organic, elemental level. We each hold wondrous beauty and the divine unknown within us. We each represent a painting of a scene that we know, love, and trust, but we can’t always see the resemblance with ourselves. Like music, colour is a language that tells us information about the world we live in. Like technology or medicine, the value of the language is so much broader when we can use it to live better, happier, freer, stronger, and more connected to the people that matter to us. Oh, and live cheaper, let’s not forget that.

What’s the world feel like for the very timely True Autumn Season? In Canada now, we are given these:

 

Melinda feels it this way, from this photo:

I love the traditional pictures of fall leaves and sun shining softly through a canopy of colors, but for some reason these pictures just stir up something else in me that I feel so connected to.The first set of pictures, the rocks and bronze river, reach into some deep emotions for me. Warmth, intensity, passion, strength, and solidarity all come to mind. Such a range of emotions that are rooted deep in my soul.

The pictures below speak to my surface, if that makes sense. The bright vibrant trees and the gentle softness of the sun echoes an almost tangible warmth, comfort, coziness, and welcome that you just want to walk into. The leaves add a crispness that just makes you feel like dancing. Joy lives there and you can feel it.

 

 

What they all have in common:

- warmth: well, yes, we know this, but replace the word with passionate heat for this article; if your mind says greyed before it says richly glowingly warm, hand the item over to Soft Autumn.

- darkness: it’s getting darker; daylight hours are shorter; in the overall effect of an outfit, there’s still enough light to read by.

- dryness: cooler air holds less water; the grass is browner, the harvest is dry enough to bring in ; not very shiny or reflective, no sparkles.

- dustiness: the Earth is busy and dry.

- productivity, we know there’s cold on the way and we need to get our house in order, but the sun can still warm our back and make colours and faces glow.

- a sense of depth, which you’ll recreate with layers, darkness levels, and patterns

-  the overriding presence of brown in every colour we see; a petunia would stick out like orange pop at a coffee shop ; Autumn is Spring, oxidized, the wine and the nectar, not the fresh-squeezed juice.

- there are no cool blued colours; the reds are not direct red, but indirectly lit as rust, muted red-orange, and browned reds; even the light seems indirect, as though it’s coming from lower down in the sky, which of course, it is.

- texture:  Melinda loves several photos that are stone based and I see True Autumn that way too; the glint of metal is not here yet, not till Dark Autumn arrives, which is still not very flashy, but it’s ramping up, and ramping up more in the Dark Winter, the least flashy of the Winters, and then more as it gets colder; True Autumn can work in small metallic elements well because they look metallic but too much is too hard on a person who really isn’t.

True Autumn Clothes

- never met one who likes clingy fabric, possibly related to age

- that blue cardi in the center may be too muted, may be Soft Autumn, not warm enough for True Autumn, but I like it and I could adapt it here because of the darkness; shopping ain’t perfect; you might love an item that’s close enough; there are swatches that can look pretty similar between unrelated palettes; at the mall, make the very best match you can and know that the rest of the outfit will situate the colour into your Season; makeup may be a bit less forgiving because it’s painted right on the face

- if Winter’s fabric extreme is the scuba suit, True Autumn’s is burlap, the ultimately brown colour, the utilitarian feel

- the camel is really oranged; I like the way a turtleneck frames the face and hair and even better if it’s a great colour that distinguishes it

- coloured and textured and opaque tights should be worn, they’re good

- not quite cute enough to be cozy to me, though many people do get that feeling from these colours. I find them too hot to be that benign, but the colour heat is still comfortable, not reckless. You can touch it without being burned. In fact you can hold it as long as you want.

- about white, remember how it didn’t really fit well into Soft Autumn’s landscape? , it will add yet another 5 years here

- about black, it’s too cold to harmonize with anything, and many colours don’t get that close to black, so I hope that skirt to the left of the amber beads is chocolate; the overall darkness effect should leave enough light to read by; having said that, concessions will make shopping more fun ; if you found a perfect faux leopard short jacket and it happened to have black buttons that were not enormous and the overall effect was of rich caramel, gold, and chocolate brown, and if your hair were medium dark or more, that coat might be absolutely lovely

- red is by nature a warm colour and I love a red coat, it gets noticed and manifests the very strong lifeforce of these persons; seemingly low key, they have some of the strongest moorings I know, levelheaded and reliable as the stone we saw earlier, absolutely nothing darting, fleeting, sporadic, or flighty ; I love neutrals (black ,white, grays, beiges and greiges in the U.K. ) a lot, but on both True Warm Seasons, I absolutely love lots of colour, personifying people that are so alive, busy and loving their life, not fussing, just getting on with it

- not the military style that suits Dark Autumn better, who is a much more straightened out, direct, vertical person, approaching Winter’s stationary vertical line (Bright Winter’s line will shift to the diagonal, Spring’s is becoming horizontal, explaining why horizontal stripes look so good to me on a Spring, and in my head, Summer’s line is horizontal wavy, like a ruffle) ; this character isn’t so “with intention” as the Dark blends, who lock onto a target; that rigidity is muted in True Autumn, as the colours are, so you have a straightforward person no doubt, but not shot out of a cannon

-  what’s the theme song? It’s a steady beat, not as threatening as the Jaws movie theme, a Winter gets that, more defined contrasts and all,  Dark Winter, I’m guessing. I’m looking for a steady drum, maybe Adele  Rolling In The Deep? Close, but not hot enough…The Circle Of Life, maybe… heat makes molecules agitate and move faster. Thinking. Not Spring’s reggae. Hotter, darker, tribal, smoked light, uncontrolled heat (this is the part where the True Autumns say “Who me?”) Hotter than Soft Autumn’s Hot August Night. This is pretty hot,

Dhoom Again

 

Once Dark Autumn arrives, Winter will put the cold clamps on and there will be heat but it won’t be on such display.

- what do they drive? A Dodge Ram 1500? Too truck. Classier? Cadillac Escalade? Too flaunty. A Navigator? Better. A Jeep Wrangler Rubicon? Feels about right. Dark Autumn drives a Jag XJ. Dark Winter drives an Audi A6 Avant after they trade in their 2010 Nissan Maxima, having found an Audi that comes in Batmobile black. True Winter? Black Porsche. Bright Winter? Lamborghini with the doors that flip up. Bright Spring? A Merc E Class convertible in a smart and snappy colour. Back to our topic.

- I like the bow in the jacket at the mid-top, it’s not too ribbony, it’s solid and square in a very browned neutral; strength and femininity together are curiously magnetic, I feel

- no real pinks present; mix pink with pumpkin puree and that’s True Autumn pink, looking much better in clothes than makeup where browned colours are better unless the pink is very golden

- no pinkish reds; if you take tan leather and dye it red, that’s the cool red, maybe like a red Frye boot ; that’s the red lipstick too, like paprika, not as dark as chili powder ; I like a browner day lipstick – if Soft Autumn’s was the rosy cinnamon stick floating in the warming pot of apple cider, then True Autumn is the cider itself, and Dark Autumn is the clove

- Spring thought about peach, blossom, and candy; Autumn thinks of the jars of preserves, not the raw salad (Spring); Autumn thinks about strong, heavy, straighter now that Summer has gone, mead and liqueur, Bailey’s, Kahlua, a duller finish but lots of touch information (fur, flannel, corduroy, tweed, leather), nectar (colour is getting thicker, more opacity), the hive, the honeycomb (repetition, industry, work = functional (Spring=fun, Winter=flash, Summer=feminine); the bumblebees of the world, going about their business, these are the builders; think of blocks, bricks, order, structure, steps, strength, progress

- colours start at medium, not light; only the beiges get very light and they’re still browned, like vanilla whipped into cream, like brown buff, light wheat, light brown peach; cottage cheese is too light and mozzarella too yellow

- I find it harder to know if I have lots of golden heat when I assess a possible True Autumn colour vs. Spring, where I can always tell max yellow heat. What I look for is a bronzed brown glowing feeling, like hot copper overlay, which how the person’s skin tone looks. I want to sense abundant sultry heat, not greyness, not lukewarm, not summery, though still very hospitable, nothing hostile.

- very little blue, just one bronzed colour; the blues are quite greened because the yellow contribution harmonizes better in warm coloured outfits while cool blues don’t; I love purple with the warm hair tones, it’s unexpected and not very red because Winter isn’t here yet

- there are warmer and cooler greens; the cooler greens really are green, not teal or avocado, and a little dull, like Green Bay Packers green

- as more distance between colours on the wheel are fabulous when combined, we get a very rich cornucopia effect; profusion was Spring’s word, abundance is Autumn’s

- animal prints in small surface area supports the lifeforce without looking swallowed; Dark Autumn can balance a whole item better and same with metallics as Winter’s hardware orientation arrives; this woman isn’t that decorative and feels overdone in glitz, she’s got 1000 cookies to bake for the Cookie Exchange, is hauling the boat out of the water by herself, wants to fit a bike ride in this day, has a pie crust to roll out, and would love to hear about how you’re doing once she’s finished what she set out to do; she sure looks gorgeous with a  metallic thread in a scarf, a copper glint to her lipstick, a gold or brass buckle on a belt or purse, or stripe in a shirt

- using matte and dull finishes makes the odds of getting the colour right higher automatically by creating some muting, as some of the shoes below; the green heeled sandal at the top of the Polyvore below may be too emerald but in sueded fabric, it could look like dull teal and fit into this painting

Here are the shoes, the belt, the bag, the HAIR!! (See also True Autumn’s Best Hair Colour). Warm, rich, lustrous, and brown. There is nothing faded about this palette.

 

She wears a purposeful watch, maybe a menswear style,

to go with solid functional bag, square like a briefcase or at least not completely slouchy,

shoes you can live a real life in,

and a necklace with weight.

Supremely business stylish, this lady is up-to-the-minute, resourceful, and lives in the present. Autumn is grown-up, self-sufficient, and mature. Her male counterpart is Indiana Jones, though they dress him as a Soft. U2′s Bono sans glasses seems True Autumnish.

Think about the quiet light and stony strength of the pyramids, not the blinding jackpot glare of El Dorado. Marketers have a much better handle on what young women want and how to sell it to them. If True Autumn has trouble finding clothes, it’s because the styles in shops are too young and her colours are often limited to brown and green. Imagination belongs everywhere.

The pieces have some weight and bulk, not Spring’s hearts and lucky charms, not Summer’s lacy water, or Winter’s hardest-substance-on-Earth jewels. To add interest, touches could be Egyptian, Bollywood, hot stone-lava, old coins, wood, jade, brass, enamel and ceramic which remind of firing and heat, and natural semi-precious stone. Even stones should be noticeably browned down. Leather looks great, strong without being hard, in Southern Comfort colours.

She can accessorize endlessly, with items from many categories at once. Scarves were made for this woman because they look textured and warm and give the impression of depth. What she does best isn’t really to accessorize, like Bright Winter who can wear jewelry on her neck, ears, and wrists, all at once. True Autumn layers.

It’s easy enough not to stumble into Dark Autumn, just keep black out. Colour can go pretty dark but you should be able to see that it’s not black in all but the dimmest lighting, and this applies equally to shoes and eyeliner.

Reptile can work if it’s quiet, not too cold and slithery. True Autumn is more plain-spoken. Dark and oily don’t belong in this brew, they look like a black panther marching up the forest path in the photo above. Panthers don’t march, they prowl. She might do crocodile, though Dark Autumn better. Snakeskin is best on Winter, but if the colour is very gentle, even a Soft Autumn can look great. The texture offering is good, it just needs adapting because of the message the wrong version can send.

Periwinkle is supposed to be an Autumn classic but it doesn’t send thrills through me. I do love the Soft Autumn in their version.

Going back through this to pick out random keywords that could define this colouring: abundant, deep as in plush, deep as in layers, medium-dark, texture, strong but not maximally hard, work, build, structure, browned, coppery, golden, matte, small to medium metallic or fur or animal element, functional, opaque, molten, rich hot glow.

Spring  may be excited, but more than any other, oooee, baby, True Autumn is exciting.

Susan Is A True Winter

October 21, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 6 Comments 

So, we arrived.  And because we were late, we did not waste any time jumping into it.  Lauren asked me about my previous PCA experiences. I told her, and she said, “Well, I think you might be some kind of winter, but whenever I start a PCA, I throw everything I expect out the window and start like I don’t know anything about what season you might be.”  Good advice for many endeavors, I would say.

The warm drape was obvious – I was NOT warm.  No big surprise there.  Then the neutral drape.  Hmmm, not as good as I expected, but then, we started with the lightest colors, so difficult to tell.  Then the lighter cool drape.  I tried to be open-minded from the start and give the cool drapes a chance.  Hmmm, not bad.

There were four sets of test drapes for warm, neutral and cool, and cool won out every time.  By the time we got to the deepest cool, a beautiful purple, I couldn’t deny the clearing of the skin, it looked so smooth and even.  Though I (and I’m sure Lauren, too) was pretty sure of the outcome by then, she still ran me through all the paces of each season, showing me how BAD the autumn drapes were, even compared to spring drapes, and how BAD the summer drapes were compared to true winter.  It really wasn’t much of a contest, but I’m really, really glad I got to see the evidence with my own eyes.

After the draping, we got out my makeup.  Lauren went through all the colors, and finally decided on the brightest fuschia lipstick I owned, Revlon wild orchid, for my lipstick.  Bobbi Brown pale pink (not really pale, actually, quite hot in my opinion) would be the cheek color, and we used hardly any eye makeup at all, partly in the interest of time.  Still wearing the grey gown, I looked at myself in the mirror.  Was that me?  Did we get it right?  But I knew we had.  I had seen it with my own eyes.

Then Lauren began draping me again with the true winter drapes and the makeup.  And I’ll admit, I looked into the mirror with that lovely pine green drape and the tears came, unbidden as always, and with some measure of surprise.  What was this?  Why was I crying?  Was it the relief of finally knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt?  Or was it that as I looked in the mirror, I looked different, and as I have said before, different just looked too different to be good?  After the emotional moment passed, I looked again and thought, “Who IS that woman?  Is that really me?”

Well, of course it was me.  I knew that.  My bottom hadn’t budged from the draping chair, even when Lauren graciously offered me a water and bathroom break.  No thank you, I’m good, I replied.  Keep going.  This is fascinating.  Besides, I’d waited a long time for this experience.  No breaks needed, please.

But still that face … that reflection, did not seem mine.  Pale skin, practically glittering eyes, deep pink lips … that reflection possessed a combination of delicacy and radiance I certainly wasn’t familiar with.   Very high contrast. Striking I could deal with, and often felt on some occasions.  But delicate?  Radiant?  I was reminded for a moment of the makeup colors used in films to depict geisha girls, only this reflection possessed an energy and strength more vibrant than any Oriental stillness.

I couldn’t decide … was it the eyes that surprised me?  Or the pale skin?  Or the vivid lip color?  I decided it was the eyes more than anything.  I had on so very little eye makeup that my eyes felt vulnerable, center stage, almost.  And even as I write this, I am reminded of a winter trait I read that true winters don’t mind being seen except when they don’t want to be .  Very accurate, that one.

So it was the eyes that threw me, as they had others in analyzing me.  Those eyes that had learned to be sensitive as a child, to read the signs around me, and act accordingly.  I learned to play it safe, because being good, fitting in, being perfect = being safe (maybe).  I became, underneath all that poise, the anxious child who learned early on at the appearance of negative emotion to “fall back on her safe but limited repertoire.  [I] did not take chances ….and turned my back on the unknown”  (Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness).

I won’t go into my history here of how these dynamics played out in later life, as daughter, wife and mother.  It is interesting to me, however, to notice the times in my life I lived and felt in harmony with my TW colors vs. the times that I didn’t.  Many women have written eloquently here of those stories.  They are worth reading!  But suffice it to say, looking back I do notice a pattern of how color mirrored my perceived expectations of how I should act and be.

And now, here I was, face to face with a woman I knew, but not in her fullness.  I come from a long line of strong women, but their strength is more in what they endured and not necessarily in the strength to be their authentic selves in a consistent manner.  My mother was fortunate enough to enjoy that kind of freedom in her later years.  I am so proud of her for that.

I realize that sometimes we get so busy and on auto-pilot that we become  vulnerable to outside expectations.  We forget the power of choice is still within us.  We forget the lives of intention we dreamed about as young women.  We just get on that treadmill and go. (Or maybe this is just a true winter thing?)

I left my draping feeling freed yet vulnerable at the same time.  I think one reason I subconsciously wanted to be DW was I felt the autumn colors would ground and empower me, as well as make me more approachable with their warmth.

I wrote to Christine that evening: Way back when we were making collages with the Style Statement book, someone mentioned the phrase ‘vulnerable strength’ in regards to mine. At the time, I was struck by the phrase but didn’t want to own it. After seeing the drapes on me today, I realize my vulnerability, that delicacy, is one of my strengths, when I allow it to be. But it is also what I have most feared … I still can’t believe that kind of delicacy can balance those strong true winter colors, but it does … there was NO denying the drapes.

Christine replied: But ultimate vulnerability and ultimate strength DEFINES True Winter. The most extreme opposites must exist at once. That’s the contrast that the colours speak of. It must have been a beautiful experience for you and a big leap towards making peace with yourself, what we’re all trying to do.  

 Well, I would be lying if I said I am ‘already’ totally at peace with myself and my true winter colors.  In clothing, I think TW is easier for me to embrace than in the makeup, perhaps because I have always loved makeup and enjoyed using it to achieve a certain ‘look.’  I’m sure I’m not alone in this … it is the mindset, the foundation, that cosmetic sales are built on.

A template, or model, is usually helpful, at least when one is trying to visualize a season IRL.  And I found one in the most unlikely of places … Christine’s mention of Elizabeth Taylor as a possible true winter.  That example just clicked with me, which is odd because my husband and others are constantly telling me I look like Sela Ward, but even DH admits Sela has a hardness about her when compared to me.  He says my demeanor and expressions are more like the French actress, Marion Cottilard, whom our own Rachel feels might be TW.

So, why Elizabeth?  I look nothing like her, I am built very little like her, but I found in her the epitomy of extremes that define TW.  If you look closely at her acting and the roles she chose, there exists the ultimate in vulnerability, and strength, and oh my goodness, the range of emotion that woman could access and display!  And it was in being true to that range of emotion that she was always herself.  She was vivid, radiant, even striking at times, but also, undeniably human, so she felt just a bit more accessible to us in her films than she would have otherwise.  We trusted her because she was Elizabeth, always.

So, I ask the question again, Why did I cry, beyond the relief of finally KNOWING after a year and a half of WONDERING?  I understand and live every day the notion that winters are about control, and oh, the relief and elation of knowing moved me.  But I also felt a LOSS of control as I viewed myself, at least initially.

I knew, even before I walked into that room, that I would have a choice to make.  I could fight the results, or surrender.  And I had already made the choice to accept whatever the outcome might be.  On reflection, I think I cried at the sheer beauty (and relative newness, at least for me) of the experience of surrendering to what was.  I’ve lived long enough to know that it is only through accepting and validating what is that we can move on to what can become.

I’m not sure how this newfound sensibility of BEING true winter will impact my life with myself, my husband, my children, and others around me.  I’m done with being something I’m not, whether consciously, or by habit, or to remain safe.   No one really liked me that way, anyway.  What’s that lovely Dr. Suess quote?  “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind.”   

 So, as I review the pictures of myself and remember what the drapes told me, I ask, “Is all that delicacy and strength and vitality and radiance mine?”  You betcha.  And nothing can change that.  Not to be overly dramatic – but I am a true winter after all, so here goes — it’s a part of me no one can take away.  I’m feeling less than myself?  I’ve got my colors to remind me who I am.  Someone is messing with me?  Yip, colors still there.  Struggling with a problem?  My colors are there to remind me of how to access my strength and creative, even joyful, solutions.  We all need that tangible reminder sometimes, of the energy that is ours, that energy that is part of our unique offering to the world.

In his book, Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman wrote:  In a commencement address to a Canadian girls’ school, Robertson Davies asked, “As you come up to accept your diploma, what is the word in your heart?  Is it no, or is it yes?  The last twenty years of my work are summed up by this question.  I believe there is a word in your heart, and that this is not a sentimental fiction.  I don’t really know where this word comes from, but one of my guesses is that it forms drop by drop from the words we hear from our parents.  If your child hears an angry “no” at every turn, when she approaches a new situation she will be anticipating a “no,” with all the associated freezing and lack of mastery.  If your child hears an abundance of “yes,” as e.e. cummings sings:

yes is a world

& in this world of

yes live

(skillfully curled)

all worlds”

So, given all this, I choose to say yes to my colors.  I say ‘yes’ to those extremes of feeling vulnerable, and being strong, and all the places in between, because it is only through acknowledging my vulnerability that I can develop compassion for myself and others, which compassion I believe to be the root of all strength.  I say ‘yes’ because I CAN – yes to playful and serious, soft and strong, wise and confused, sassy and kind.  I say yes to these things because they are ALL me and because the choice is mine, radiant little control freak that I am .  The choice really was mine all along, but PCA provided me with an undeniable experience of seeing how I could live with more intention vs. living in the shadow of my and other’s perceived expectations. I think PCA helped me to let go of living in that shadow because my PCA so didn’t turn out how I expected.  But what did materialize was even better …

 

3 Great Colours On The 12 Seasons

October 8, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 53 Comments 

These are the colours that my eyes like to look at best on the 12 groups of natural colouring, what we call Seasons in personal colour analysis.  The serviceable greys and browns evoke less reaction, but they’re the scaffold the colours hang from. They matter a lot, though the colours below might be more interesting to look at. They seem to translate the meaning of the person into a new language form, like you suddenly see them in three full dimensions, almost extending beyond the boundaries of their skin.

Since I hang my drapes in this order, let’s look at the colours this way:

 

Light Spring

- a very light yellow green

- a clear blue, not purple enough to be periwinkle

- purple, which transforms Springs into someone you’ve never seen before

- with note that the aqua-turquoises for any Spring blend are a sure thing, just like teals are no-brainers in any of the 5 Autumn blends.

True Spring

- the home of Jello colours

- every green is beautiful, but pure golden leaf green is such a proclamation of life on this planet, the interaction on True Spring colouring is phenomenal

- beige yellow, one of the hair tones, it affirms the delicacy that Spring always has in their behaviour and their face, like Joni Mitchell, so spiritual and creative and never ever over-bearing. Lovely people. In The Emmas Are True Springs Part 2, Emma 2′s face always reminds me of these qualities (and that artist).

- sunny orange red, and this is the lipstick intensity that’s needed or this person will dial less vibrant colours down to greyer and boring

Bright Spring

- intense teal

- sharp mid-dark grey, which looks elegant and interesting as can be because the person is quite colourful, so it’s intriguing when the clothes play the role of quiet counterbalance without reducing the overall thrill

- the u-tone (undertone for future ref) blued rose

 

Light Summer

- their marshmallow white

- violet-washed sky blue

- clear red; muted colour can be hard to show in this format; it’s the cherry Popsicle

 True Summer

- swimming pool blue, a happy colour as Ashley said so well, lovely and young on this skin

- pure rose

- dark stormy sea blue is very powerful, an essential in a business suit; add the whitecaps in jewelry, like filigree silver

- with honourable mention to the undertone, forget-me-not blue

 Soft Summer

- antique turquoise, try to find it in pearlescent, it is simply beautiful in fabric

- muted dark pine (the best eye colour intensifier on every single person, if this trick doesn’t work, I’ll doubt the Season)

- pale mauve, it looks very pretty with every suit, feminine without being girlie which this Season does not identify with; it takes only a mist of pigment to have enormous effect when natural colouring is very gentled with grey, colours as soothing as the person (Light Summer and Spring are not soothing, they’re more get-up-and-go, somewhere in the sunny>> jolly>> spunky>>bouncy spectrum) (now I think of it, True Summer isn’t soothing either, or not soothing to me; if Winter wants control, True Summer wants precision)

- with runners-up burgundy and pewter, both very sexy masculine on the men

 

Soft Autumn

- brown; I like brown on this Season best of all, not a favorite on the other Autumns, though they certainly have brown

- some form of warm willow green (can anyone think of a better name? avocado, I guess?)

- warm muted yellow, they glow in this colour and never seem to have any idea, I find it really captures my attention

True Autumn

- chili pepper red

- their very green teal

- glowing hot gold, add a metallic thread

Dark Autumn

- blackened colour is so good; sometimes, the person seems darker than a Dark Winter, whose whiter whites and pinker pinks can make them seem lighter because they’re clearer; DA has light colours but they’re hard to find, would almost need custom-dyeing ; it’s amazing to me how the colour is quite coal grey and still so intensely purple

- my favorite being the black tobacco; the dark grey brown of loose black tea is also great, makes a fabulous eyeliner

- cherrywood brown, very defining colour

 

Dark Winter

- battleship grey is always here, maybe because I love it, it’s the eyeshadow, it’s an essential neutral in a Season that wears them more than anyone to reduce the overall number of colour elements, and it looks real good; I’ve been thinking a lot about how the colours are made lately; interestingly, I made this one by making a balanced R-G-B-equal grey, like duct tape grey, then decided DW’s heat is Winter red and Autumn orange, but more red, so I raised that setting. So that’s interesting to some of us.

- those who read here know that saturated purple-brown-more-purple-than-brown is where my thinking of where DW’s undertone lives but undertone floats from warm to cool, depending on the position of the person in the Season. This deep currant is the warmer position. To make it in lipstick, use Lauder Mulberry Double Wear. Bite Balm in Claret is an outstanding way to brown colour without darkening it, something I spend a fair bit of time doing. This will get you to lunch, even with a cup of green tea and a client every 20 minutes.

- black-navy showcases the majesty best, but iced violet had to be here

True Winter

- it’s B and W, not B or W, and more B than W

- dark purple blue, the u-tone

- icy pink, not sure why I always like this, perhaps it insinuates the high contrast of the extreme of youth and innocence in colour on a person that is ageless and enduring, solid and hard, the extremes of dazzle and hard rock reality

 Bright  Winter

- sweet, funny, cute people, they need sugarplum purple

- always dimples or mischievous eyebrows (interesting, I see this more in the Spring/Winter blends, not the True and Light Spring), and BIG colour capacity, fantastic in electric blue, not too dark, hard to look away from; worn in a tank top with a white tank beneath, it looks really right

- the lightest of the Winter group; Winter red + Spring yellow makes an icy peach, my favorite of the icy lights on this colouring; they look great in iced white gold gloss over every lipstick, iced peach eyeshadow highlighter; to me, it’s gorgeous

 

 

 

True and Bright Winter Landscapes

October 1, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 23 Comments 

Imagine leaving the house at 6 am and walking along a street where you live on a freezing cold morning. What kind of things might you notice?

1. Tightness. Your skin, the ground beneath your feet, your emotional range, and every texture around you is compacted. As that happens, things becomes smoother, shinier, stiffer, harder. Fabric is smooth, not rough. It can go from uniformly smooth for True Winter to so slick it looks wet for Bright Winter, like patent leather, shimmer, a wet seal. Dark Winter was crocodile (textured danger) and its best black was matte. True Winter is shark (monotone danger) and its best black, its best everything, is featureless, constant, and even. Seals are the least dangerous, the most cute, and the most quirky. Makes sense, Spring is on its way.

In 12 Tone seasonal colour analysis, True Winter represents the natural colouring of people whose inborn pigments are

• maximally cool, without the slightest heat from yellow, gold, orange, beige
• quite dark to black
• icy light to white
• highly saturated pure colour, not foggy or dusty, not even a speck

The colours that pre-exist in Bright Winter‘s skin are similar to True Winter and influenced by the mixing in of a small amount of Spring’s yellower, lighter pigments. They are

• not max cool; the earliest sunbeams of weak pale yellow shine on them, so it’s a Neutral Season, with a warm and a cool  version of most colours
• quite dark to black, but that sun lightens them a bit
• icy light to white
• highEST saturated pure colour, powerfully pure pigment

2. Darkness. When you started your walk, light was absent. For the most part, you couldn’t see colour at all so the shape of things became really important, like the shack on the frozen lake. This is True Winter. Form matters. This person looks good in solid blocks of single powerful colour set off by neutrals, especially black and white.

To see a colour, it had to be brilliantly strong. Often, it appeared alone, like the last leaf on a tree, the single red berry on the shrub, the blue deck chair left out after the snow fell. Use one colour whose importance is amplified by its aloneness and empty surrounding. This colour doesn’t go ping, it’s not a series of taps, it’s one solid punch to the gut. The wind is knocked out of you. You’re pushed back hard, you have to react strongly, the colour’s violence gives you no other choice.

3. The night is the constant in a world that keeps changing. Regardless of species or century, we are forced to pause and submit to life’s right to balance light by letting darkness pour through and around it. Like state and ceremony, True Winter is timeless which is why trend looks so odd on True Winter, even the young ones. These are old soul types, for whom mermaid hair, beach hair, and mapped hair were not intended because they are defined by a specific moment in time. True Winter doesn’t heed time or any other man-made thing. Mind, the shape of the haircut is very important.

4. Dark colours recede. They seem out of reach. You behold but you don’t come close, like the Ave Maria. True Winter is the single star, glory only known from afar. Like Cher, she was probably a grownup even as a kid. I could never see Elizabeth Taylor as a Bright, one, because I could never see any heat, but secondly because she was so classic, so untouchable, old world glamour, not at all cute.

Bright Winter is the star shower, or maybe the shooting star, still Winter’s oblivious indifference, still unto itself alone, but a friendlier feeling. More approachable, maybe it cares about you just a little. The carefreedom of sprinkles is still far, far away in the Spring group, but there’s a distinct lightness of being coming in. Let sweetness creep into clothing but with a lot of control. That’s what Winter likes best, even over power.

Mod can be more of a Peace&Love Spring esthetic, but Winter can fake it really well if their character takes them there because colourblocking looks so good. It reminds of the glamour of old James Bond movie stars. Bright Winter can be incredibly cool, the white tuxedo jacket, the black pant with the sequin stripe down the seam, the choker with the red rose pinned to it. These are people who hold a lot of red and a little of Spring’s magic and movement. Below, the BW undertone (as I see it) and why the palest golden gloss in lipstick looks so good.

5. The sun is rising as you make your way home. Your lashes are still frozen together and every attribute of coldness still applies but you feel less guarded, more expectant. Stop reading and think about what the faintest sunrise feels like compared to the complete darkness of night. Have you ever watched the sun come over the horizon or anticipated seeing it as the horizon began to lighten? Every living thing turns towards that light and feels the surge of hope down to their bones. Energy skyrockets to fuel the day. The colours around you take on that faint yellowness. The styles you wear express that optimism. This is Bright Winter.

6. With more light, you see more detail. Much of this world is based on frozen water and we become aware of the delicacy of ice. Frost looks like lace. The sun glinting off the snow blanket looks like glitter on fabric. Bright Winter is that, but the hardness is still here because we feel that words like shatter are appropriate.

True Winter’s ice is a solid block, very little detail. No taste, no smell, no motion, forbidding, uncomfortable, uncompromising. Minimally interactive, unforgiving, it just is, always has been, always will be.

5. You don’t go to the gala every day, or at least I don’t. But both these groups should dress like they might be.  Adding a shot of luxe only looks better. It’s hard to find this apparel on a budget, hard to find stuff you can throw into the washing machine, hard to find non-slouchy clothes in these powerful colours. So much is made to blend with the crowd, using textiles that don’t hold a dye. And then to find a shoe with some reason for being besides shredding sheets, explaining the delay for this post.

The Bright Spring and True Winter are the only Seasons where I will agree that shopping is a challenge, both makeup and clothes, unless you have significant disposable income and time, or you go to the opera every day of your life, or are willing to wear horizontal stripes till friends ask you to stop. What they have to suffer through to come up with one outfit… no wonder they all wear black or revert to Summer and Autumn. Dark and saturated clothes are made so flamboyant, like the designer couldn’t get stopped with the details and the stuff, the ruching on every seam, the bells and whistles, like life is a Christmas party, glitter required. This obsession interrupts True Winter’s unbroken, inviolate quiet.

6. Learn your purples and wear them. The Winter Season is based on red and darkened with a lot of blue, a lot. The result is a huge purple group. True is bluer because it’s darker, so more royal purple, blue purple, red purple, pink purple, and cold fuchsia. BW is a lighter Season with there’s less blue to darken it, so less blue purples, but much more red, red purple, and pink purple, sugarplums and candy canes. True Winter left, Bright Winter right.

7. Tailoring. Cozy on Autumn looks like schlumpy on Winter. It’s fitted and it’s perfect, period. Winter doesn’t compromise. This is for whom all those black, tuxedo, and dark pinstripe suits were made. The transformation of Anne Hathaway’s character in the movie The Devil Wears Prada is perfect illustration of True Winter’s potential and how I see that woman at her absolute best. This trailer shows the before. She’s everywoman. She is wearing jewelry, lipstick, clothing, but she might as well not be. The woman at the end is a unique entity who has heard the beat of her own  drum.

Always with the high contrast, the shirt is white or icy. One can never overdo contrast on Winters. Big, big, big distance between the lightness of the light block and the darkness of the dark block.  Not every colour is at the dark or light extreme, of course. That’s not the  most important thing. For True Winter, the crucial thing is to not see one degree of heat.

8. The superlative True Winter look remains black and white in a quiet, symmetric layout. Add one colour and consider that the lipstick is enough. Know when to stop.

9. More makes these two Seasons the same than makes them different. All Winter is very formal, but True the most. Leave raw edges to Autumn who does that better. There is no boppy feeling, no schoolboy/girl effects, no Peter Pan stuff, goodness mercy, Wonderland is Spring’s eternal youth playground.  True Winter is very grownup, no tiny pockets sewn here and there, no cutesy stuff, these bodies don’t move that way, nothing loose and falling off. What would the Ruler Of The Kingdom would show up for work in, even with the ruby silk-lined cape? Do I even dare say the word Dracula?

10.  True Winter faces don’t move much when they talk, no big eyes and big expressions. Jewelry and hair should be that way too. Keep your hair still, or at least don’t touch it all the time. It may look graceful and ladylike but that’s not your deal. It detracts from your power. True Winter is unspoiled, almost sacrosanct. Surfaces on the jewelry are smoother, though the facet of a precious stone isn’t out of place, like the face of the iceberg. The scale is unbelievably big. Much of the jewelry could go to both Seasons, but for True, I looked for glacial coldness and hardness first. Or do I have it backwards? Is this fire so hot it burns white? True Winter left, Bright Winter right.

11. Hold on to the most important thing for your colouring to look its best. Bright Winter’s is purity of colour, colour taken its most extreme possible level, blinding colour. The blues are bluer than even True Winter’s. Pure white pants are too blingy for anyone but the Bright Winter, and every other item should be dark.

12. Bright Winter also has Spring’s youth and irregularity. Patterns are more random, colour shots are added more spontaneously, though in small areas because Winter’s muscle is still strong. One line of purple eyeliner is plenty.

Spring is younger than Winter. Where Winter was never a child, Spring is always a child, the magnificent paradox of the Bright Winter. Youth brings in the modern. True Winter is classic glamour, Bright is modern glamour and textile but still formal and way more serious than frolic. Bright Winter’s jewelry is not crystalline or bead, it’s still sharp enough to hurt you, we draw points on stars for a reason. That bejeweled snake only looks pretty.

13. Spring brings in more fun. The dazzle, the glitz, the ruffle. True Winter is the crowning ceremony, Bright is the party after. Bows and bells can work and should be all-out fabulous, not prim, sweet, small, fussy, or anything else Winter isn’t. The Stars and Stripes is the magnitude we’re after.

 

14. If Dark Winter is the Russian empress, then Bright is the Manchurian empress. Asian effects look good on many, especially with those with that eye shape and colour. Chinese Dragon colours.

Those with transparent bottle green and turquoise eyes will work other effects. In a discussion on facebook about how Winter faces look good when all the features are very distinct on the face to respect the enhancing power of contrast on this colouring, we thought that bold lips with lighter eyes is another way to introduce that contrast. Bold lips could mean dark, to work the light-dark contrast. It could also just mean vivid and bright, the Bright Seasons being the natural home of the colour pop.

Note that we visit here because we all agree that it is more beautiful and more relaxed for everybody if your work with yourself rather than against. If you have pale brows, be grateful for the gentleness and flexibility this gives your overall look. If you feel crazy in scarlet lips, get to know Dior Addict or the  many other sheerer lines of lip colour. Karla Sugar comes through with one of the  most accurate photographic representations of Addict lipsticks, or any makeup, that I know, here. You might try Perfecto and Fashion for True, New Look and Rose Shocking for Bright. Wish there were more violet purples, please do share any with us that you love.t

For those new here and hoping for more on seasonal cosmetic colours, you may be interested in the recent post How Winters Intensify Eye Colour.

15. Mechanical stuff looks good on all Winters, silver better. Zippers, snaps, jewelry. Really, nobody does this as well. It’s too hard and cold for the Lights, Softs, Warms. Consider that the Darks and Trues wear orderly items better, like zippers. Bright has more hip, more flash, they’ll wear aviator glasses, heavy silver wire, grey to black lenses, an extra wire across the bridge for weight, and a black bar.

16. Last words : all black outfits = shooting blanks.

 

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