How Winters Intensify Eye Colour
September 10, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 8 Comments
How the other 9 Seasons intensify eye colour has been discussed in previous posts (Spring, Summer, Autumn). I neglected Winter because I figured these eyes don’t need a lot of help, they tend to be self-emphasizing. I thought I wouldn’t have much to say (will I ever learn?). But I was wrong, there are still ways to make what you have better, and really important ways not to make things worse.
Previously, we said you can emphasize eye colour, or any colour, by repeating it, by using the complementary colour, or by using contrast.
For All 3 Winters
1. Coloured eyeliner, of course. Sometimes repeating your eye colour works, sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, it’s because there’s conflict with your inherent pigmentation, skin and eyes being usually made of very similar pigments. Stick with the personal colour palette. Once you get a perfect colour for your skin, it will automatically be perfect for your eyes and hair. At what point obvious colour in eye makeup becomes too young is your decision, and might depend on your age, your taste, where you live, and what kind of day it is.
The exact colours to buy are in the swatch book. If you try to guess at the best brown/blue/purple/green, you have about a 20% chance of being right. Think of how many blue or green eyeliners are available. If you know your Season, you could look at the colours Sci\ART analyst and makeup artist Darin Wright has posted, and sells, at eleablake.com. Go Personal Makeup Colors > Liner > Eye Liners > then pick your Season. Some of us couldn’t scroll down to the lower ones, but one smart woman pointed out that using the up/down/left/right keys works for her, and it did for me too.
You have darkness, so very dark pure plums, violets, and sapphires can look like a softened black if obvious colour isn’t to your taste.
These eyes are very hard to dominate. Heavy liner looks fine, certainly on the Darks and Trues. Bright Winter is a more delicate face, always something of the sprite, and some may need a lighter hand with dark liner. IMO, black doesn’t suit anybody unless you’re very dark, darker than Halle Berry, because it’s too hard. Very blackened browns and greys look more real and less pharaoh.
2. Wearing your eye colour in clothing, which is more effective than eye makeup since the colour block is bigger. The high colour saturation in Winters strengthens the effect even more. Winter looks cluttered and fussy wearing many colours at once but the colour(s) they do wear are very bold. Since there’s less colour distracting the eye, the one colour it does see is maximally compelling. If it happens to match the eye colour, they carry each other that much higher.
3. Wearing makeup. No group looks more heightened with makeup than Winter and they know it, often not leaving the house without a fair bit of it – but, boy, it can take them places. If any group can carry a little too much, it’s this one.
4. Generic brown eyeshadow is too hot, flat, and safe for this group. They are far more grey people. It looks cleaner and sharper. Grey includes a thousand choices from ice to near-black. The Darks will wear iron and diesel smoke. The Trues and Brights wear stainless steel and coal.
It becomes essential to learn your right greys, the colour I think is the most challenging and often the last one people get very comfortable choosing after their PCA, but such a high-efficiency engine in clothing and eyeliner. I appreciate that the idea of saturated grey is oxymoronic. Closeness to greyness is how we decide a colour is of low saturation. What does Winter do, who needs high sat everything?
It comes together in an item that looks densely pigmented, like a heavy layer of paint, not gauzy or watery or dilute or sheer. Light wouldn’t shine through it – or so it should feel, even if the item is sheer. The grey consists of B&W only, which looks harder, not bluish or pinkish or any ishes, which look softer. Sound softer. Hear ish and the whole message softens, like speaking with your head straight (no ish) or tipped (ishy). Seeing another colour with the grey, like Summer’s mauve greys, feels like the compromise we associate with softening or muting, the presence of 2 colours at once. There’s no iffiness about Winter’s colour. It is or it’s not. Water can be lots of colours but nobody argues over the colour of blood. Solid B&W grey feels like no bargain, no deal, no give…why, just like Winter!
6. These eyes can be black brown to the point that no detail can be seen in the iris and the intensity of the colour doesn’t seem much affected by colour. What is strongly affected in every one of these eyes will be the crispness around the edge of the iris. In wrong colour, it blurs and fuzzes, which, of course, is happening to the whole face. The same colour suggestions apply regardless of eye colour if the skin Season is Winter.
7. Complementary colours exist opposite each other on the colour wheel. In each other’s presence, they set up a current, almost a pulsation.
Notice the blueness of the white of the eye above? In right colour, that blueness is accentuated. It acts as a complement for orange-brown in eyes. Self-emphasizing eyes, just by pulling on the right shirt!
This seems easy. The usual pairs are,
Blue if brown eyes.
Brown for blue eyes.
Purple for yellow.
Red for green.
Be careful. You need the right complement. Every single blue and every single orange don’t come together to make the vibration of adjacent complements. It’s not just low-lying fruit. The money shot depends on getting it right. Make your blues more purple, the complements get yellower. Make your inborn blues more saturated and redder, complements get more staurated and yellower.
Luckily, once you know your inborn colours, you Colour Book contains their inborn complements. It’s actually really hard to know your exact eye colour and which pigments matter to make the colour effect work. A blue eyed Winter isn’t going to have big use for yellow in makeup, but can sure wear primary yellow in clothes. She’ll repeat the blue in liner and then contrast the white of the eye by choosing a dark blue liner.
Play with your eye colour and this tool (enter Complimentary under Scheme and play with the Sat and Brightness sliders.)
If you have a brown eye, all the blues in your personal colour swatches will complement the orange tones, brown just being dark orange. Pick the ones that make sense to you as eye makeup, like the black sapphire liner.
Green eyes are obviously not going to pick red eyeliner, they’ll pick red clothes. Many Winter greys have a red undercurrrent because red is a huge part of the undertone. I have really never seen a subtle red presence in grey in clothes or eye makeup. I doubt these items are coloured that specifically. If you could find it, it would be interesting with eyes that contain green.
8. Contrasts?
When I say contrast, I’m almost always meaning light-dark contrast, or value contrast, though there are other types. Wearing the lightest lights and the darkest darks at once is as important on Winter as getting their colour right. It applies to makeup as well as clothes and jewelry.
A very defined and precisely shaped brow is so important. It can be almost old-world movie star stylized. Elizabeth Taylor eyebrows. Casual is not so successful on Winter. Can you even imagine her in sweats? It’s almost impossible. Winter finds it hard to make jeans work and easy to dress up.
Define the brow with pencil or powder of the same colour, not darker, which can be picked out a mile away and looks cliche. Some Winters have a light brow. Go with that. To thine own self, right? It introduces gentleness that’s not expected and is extremely approachable and attractive.
Another way to define the brow is to surround it with light colour (highlight below, foundation above), like they surround the lips with light colour on makeup ads to make them jump out of the page. Always find ways to heighten the contrast on Winter. Winters will choose an extreme icy light under the brow.
You’re using very light and very dark eyeshadows. The eyeliner is quite dark, almost black. These 3 Seasons look good with dark eyeliner on the inner rims of the eyelids. Everyone else looks too vicious. Winter looks fierce, which they already look like anyhow (and are) so the stretch isn’t beyond credibility. It looks hard and they look hard, both in a good way. Great partnership (terrible grammar, sorry, Word is sending me all sorts of flags.) You haven’t altered course. The needle is still pointed the same way. You’re elevating what you are already, the name of the game.
9. Mascara is blackest black and lots of it.
Dark Winter
In 12 Season personal colour analysis, Dark Winter is the group whose natural colouring is mostly composed of the Winter palette pigments, incorporating an Autumn portion that will darken, mute, and warm the colours as though 4 drops of darkest chocolate were mixed in. They might look like Demi Moore, Sandra Bullock, or Paula Begoun.
I apologize to women of colour who get tired of being outnumbered by women of light Caucasian skin in these discussions. My own experience is with light complexions so I’m more comfortable suggesting makeup for that skin. Among my clients, one woman of Indian ethnicity was Dark Winter. Asian women have been Bright Winters and Bright Spring. One African-American was Dark Winter. I used the very same makeup for them that I do for light women and they looked great. No doubt, more intense and darker colour would have worked as well.
Eyeliner is black brown or dark gunmetal. Dark Winter is not playful, they’re functional. When I wear coloured liner, my children say “Mom, you’re just not that happy.” I just found out I am an INTJ personality, same as Bill Gates, which is weird because he doesn’t look Dark. Ben Bernanke, now, that makes complete sense. I quite love the eleablake liners in Currant, Walnut, and Midnight Blue. If Dark is going to do colour, do it right. It gets cartoony quick.
Teal matters. As a repeat to teal in the eye colour or to complement the orange tones in brown eyes, whether in makeup or clothing or jewelry, this is an important colour for everyone with any Autumn in them. Some degree of gold-orange, in this Season it’s the darkest, coolest version as darkest chocolate brown, is present in the skin and overall colouring.
Eyeshadow is dull dark grey (with an icy highlight under the brow). Clinique Totally Neutral is good. I see Edward Bess Soft Smoke and Chanel Gris Exquis online and they look good. MAC Smut is a contender, with a good name. Dark Winter grey is like a dark, dull, dirty (not dusty, which lightens as it dulls) grey.
The Darks can do a brown in eyeshadow better than the other Winters because of that browning-by-Autumn element. It is purpley. I mix Dynamic and Groovy.
True Winter
Could be Liv Tyler, Josh Groban, Elvis Presley, Anne Hathaway.
Eyeliners are black brown, coal, black if you insist, black sapphire, and dark purple.
True Winter is quiet. They are not working (Dark) or playing (Bright). Shape and outline matter more than colour. A perfectly lined eye using white and mid to darkest gray, that would look no different if seen on B&W TV, has unbelievable impact.
Red is the signature colour of the Winter group…and so eleablake gives True Winter the perfect cool, dark green liner in Eucalyptus.
Of all the Winters, True adds the fewest colour elements. They are perfectly defined and refined by B&W alone in very symmetric but strongly defined shapes. Colour in clothing can almost get in the way of the eye colour. One colour should stand alone, like one leaf left on a frozen tree, one red berry on a bush. Let that one colour be the eyes. And then the lips. I’ve never seen any other group do this B&W+eyes effect with such force. They’re just electrifying (explosive will be the territory of the Brights.)
Chanel Smoky Eyes is a good all-in-one quad. It’s sparkly, which looks good on the young. For the rest of us, it’s those cleanest greys in a matte version.
Bright Winter
Bright Winter describes the natural colouring of the person who is primarily Winter, with the faintest yellow light shining on the colours, making them lighter, clearer, and a bit warmer than True Winter’s. Who? Zooey Deschanel, Audrey Hepburn, Liza Minelli, the cute pixieness of Spring but the glamour is bigger.
Fun not functional applies to all Spring blends. Winter is the bigger gun in Bright Winter and brings with it glitz and shine. When you mix the two, the flash can’t be held back. Cat eyes, shine, colour, it all works, but stay true to Winter’s need for control and just do one thing at a time in a reserved way. Winter holds too much back to fit 100% with thrills and bright lights.
Here, coloured eyeliner to the point of crayon actually makes sense. It can also backfire if you get it wrong and take away from the eye colour. Depending on your colouring, this is the lightest of the Winters. Your eyeliners are here.
Purple is to any Spring what teal is to any Autumn: important. An element of yellow is present in every colour in the palette/person. Know your purples. Yours are lighter than TW and DW, more variations on sugarplum and poster violet than majesty purple.
The Chanel Smoky Eyes quad is a great choice here too, or equivalent colours. I think L’Oreal makes a Smoky Eyes. MAC has a number of greys, though I wish they weren’t all so dark and similar. They need to make the same grey range that they’ve done so well with brown.
Examples
First: Reminder: The importance of blush to heighten eye colour can’t be overstated.
With such strong eyes, a lip with enough colour to at least be natural is important or the eyes look spooky. The TW face seems off-balance. You’ll see the current page number above her photos and the Page option below so you can move around.
The lips should be in contrast with the skin just like every other feature. On a young girl, fire engine lips can look like playing dress up. She’ll wear clear fuchsia pinks, sheer reds, and purple glosses. The whole strong eye-pale mouth look, I never love it on any Winter. Lip colour doesn’t have to be dark, especially if lips are thick or thin, but the lips should not look like they’re wearing concealer or be chalky. Choose a sheer plum. Wear a nude look, but your nudes won’t be in the same tube as Soft Autumn’s.
The bottom of page 2 is bizarre, like Snow Princess disguised as Cinderella-pre-prince. What could be has been diminished utterly. I couldn’t find this girl till the second last photo Page 8. I can’t even talk about the one above it. Hair colour matters. Even on a Winter, spending all your time on the eyes and forgetting the rest isn’t a look that works outside of magazines, like the second one down Page 10.
As a general impression to the viewer, these colours on Elizabeth Taylor don’t hold a candle to these. The eye colour is grayed, the liner is too hot so the whites of the eyes are yellowed, the face looks pudgy. Quite possibly the most beautiful lips ever given to a woman just make you want to turn the page. The next one is the goddess. Do you know what the waterline of the eye is? The inner rim of the lower lid. It’s a makeup effect to draw a white line on it because it looks so clean and healthy (off whites and beiges on other Seasons). In right colours, it will be very white on everyone, very important effect on Summers who can be quite pinkish to begin with. See how white it is in the good photo – that’s been edited in but it just elevates what’s already there. If it were placed in the worse photo, it would look weird or sinister, it could never fit in. And yet it belongs on this woman.
You can see some very lovely examples of Winter eyes and line patterns in the Our Eye Album: Winter article. Accompanying the Bright Winter eye 5 photo are some suggestions as to how a woman with those eye colours might approach intensifying them.
Our Eye Album: Winter
July 24, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 13 Comments
Many Winter eyes.
Dark Winter
This colour appears mostly cool, not a lot of warmth in the eye. The petal shapes are undoubtedly Winter. The brow is light. The woman draped out most fantastically as a Dark Winter. One of the most amazing transformations I have seen.
Freckle colour is not useful for determining Season, but they are interesting. Below, the brown is netural (not orange), and as often happens, similar shades appear in the eye. The natural hair colour is dark cool brown with red glints in the sun. Notice the coolness of the skin – the magic of the Dark Winter, cool skin with warm effects in hair and eyes.
I put the eye below here because it feels like it belongs, though the woman has not had a PCA. There is darkness here in brow and hair, and a feeling of slight muting in the skin.
In the next photo, you see the Dark Autumn influence, the eye of the tiger. The determination in the straightness of the brow (look for it in Soft Summers too, or anywhere Autumn is found), the hint of orange-brown in the skin. This woman draped better as a Dark Winter.
Below, me.
—
True Winter
Once you stop wondering what brand of mascara this woman uses, notice the blue-whiteness of the white of the eye.
Lots of geometry, lines, patterns, usually means Winter.
Remember how Summer had that well-defined line-free ring around the pupil? Notice that in Winter, that space has lines going right to the edge of the pupil and its edges are not as clear.
Wow. Ice princess.
Below, my daughter, whose eye I’ve tried to capture for years. In every shot, the brown seems to snap to black. I had to lighten this shot so you could see anything and it’s still not easy. Many Winter people have black in the eye that comes out in Winter’s blackened colours.
—
Bright Winter
I have only one. If you had to pick between yellow and orange in the skin, which would you choose? Note that this is a man’s eye. The pigmentation in men is often more intense than in women of the same Season.
A new Bright Winter, below. Intense concentration of pigment in the hair, high contrast with the eye colour, the promise of early sun in the iris and in the overall appearance.
And another. This woman must look simply striking in her colours, with the unexpected ability of what seems a gentle colouring to balance a palette that is anything but gentle.
The eye below is as interesting as it is beautiful. The iris has certain properties that could be seen in a Light Summer eye – a space around the pupil, the hint of light beaming out from around that space – but there is drama, intensity, and darkness that would make you take a closer look for Winter. At the 10 oclock position round the pupil in the center, you can see the line pattern beginning right at the margin with the black. At 3 oclock in the iris is a petal shaped formation in the blue that is often seen in Winter. The similarity between Bright Winter and Light Summer is reasonable – both begin with a pure cool Season and both integrate the same small portion of Spring.
The intensely beautiful colouring in the photo below features eye colours quite similar to the first Bright Winter eye. By comparison, this person appears to have cooler skin (that might just be the lighting, of course) but more black in the brows. The hair of the man in the top photo is the darkest, most saturated black brown you can imagine. In the woman below, the pigments in the hair have that same intensity.
The owner of this eye asked me how she might intensify her eye colouring with clothes when her eye colours don’t appear per se in her personal book of colours. I suggested this:
Your eyes appear as warmer browns and greens that would not be in your palette, it’s true. First thing to remember is that the exact pigments that make up our eyes are not what they appear to be – meaning that you probably have many of your palette greens in your eyes and when you wear them, you will see the connection with the eye colour as the eye colour intensifies.
You also have a lot of Spring’s yellow out in the iris, shining out beyond the dark orange center. Wearing all the yellows in your palette will find that same colour in the eyes and yellow will radiate out of your eyes as if they were lit from behind.
That center of clear warm orange-brown is not one you will wear directly because it will yellow your skin. That colour is composed of Winter’s red (so wear all your reds and red-oranges – the undertone in the RTYNC book) and Spring yellow.
Wearing complementary colours energizes a colour just as much as repeating the colour does – so your sugarplum purples (incredible on BW, complements to your eye’s many yellows), reds, and blues will almost electrify eye colour in a Bright Winter because saturation and clarity are so high.
A Blonde True Winter Part 2
June 30, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 22 Comments
Perhaps you met Hanka, the newest member of the Sci\ART family of personal colour analysts, in the first article, A Blonde True Winter.
If you have watched an analysis performed, you could accept any result as amazing, surprising, but completely plausible. The Sci\ART process forces you to just see what is, not what you think should be, a reality check.
Your eyes only need to see this once to go through to the other side, where the Season stereotypes have evaporated. You know the feeling of being dragged to your colour frontiers, resisting all the way (because the change we resist the hardest is the one we need to make the most to reach our next level), and surrendering the preconceptions. After that, like with all change, you realize it was harder to think about than to actually do.
But enough philosophy. Hanka responded to some doubts in the Comments of the previous article. People very rightly ask for visual proof. I’m not posting the blonde photo here, I’m hoping you’ll see this one first, and let it imprint itself in your mind (and you’ll turn inwards and find an awareness of the pathways your mind immediately starts to set out on, with so little substantiation; until you’re aware of that, you can’t have a roadblock ready for next time.) Hanka has done a lot of work in voice and theater, and sent me this photo from a performance a short while ago.
I never analyze skin from photos, far too many variables going on, so I look for other things.
1. Am I looking at makeup or the woman? The woman. I see intensity of colouration, whites are sharp, colours appear highly saturated, no soft, misty feeling. No sunshine, no earthy feelings, even in the skin, from what I can see.
2. Did dark eyeliner close in the size of the eye, because it would on someone who couldn’t balance the darkness? No. In fact, the eyes seem bigger with crisper outlines and better definition from the face. Our eyes are the focal point of our body. When our appearance expresses us truthfully and most beautifully to the viewer, others are looking at our eyes and listening to our words, no tensions, no distractions from busy colour F/X elsewhere. The eye wanders around the composition with ease, very happy that all the colours belong reasonably together, no feeling of a colour battlefield.
3. Does the hair colour steal colour from the face, or clear the skin to look clean and fresh, but not yellow or grey? Seems clear and fresh, not older in any way I can see.
4. Does the hair colour dull or drain the eye colour, or intensify it? Intensifies it. The eyes can balance and corroborate that hair colour. They are able to vouch for each other and seem believable on the same head. I’m not saying that Hanka should darken her hair, which I have never, ever seen improve a person. For most of us, our best hair is the colour we had around 25, when we’d settled into our Season but before we darkened with maturity, and then lightened a shade or two to soften the concentrated pigments of chemical colour. My opinion only, very open to being convinced otherwise. Like lipstick, though, wigs are an interesting means of ‘draping’ and seeing what happens. You can be surprised.
5. Do my eyes keep coming back to a too-bright lipstick, or am I looking at eyes, but having the lipstick in the same visual field and feeling good with that? The latter. Is the lip perfect, maybe not, but there are certainly some things about it that work.
6. Flip the lip colour to something nude. Does the face lose definition and freshness, or is it a relief? No relief, it would be boring and flat. I like lip intensity to approximate the intensity of hair and clothing, adjusting darkness a bit for complexion and occasion. On a lighter Season, our eyes would be stuck on these lips and keep coming back to the lips, unless we applied an effort we could actually feel to drag our gaze elsewhere.
7. Look at other things in the photo. They will have an effect, which is why PCA is done in a grey room. That wall plaque behind her may be throwing some heat into the skin. Does it feel like it belongs with her, could she wear a turtleneck that colour and would you feel good, or feel like “Uh, Hanka, have you got anything else to wear?” Maybe I’m not sure. You don’t have to always know. If I can’t make a decision with certainty, I don’t make it. I keep going. It might not be her best outfit, but something about it might work…the darkness level? the rosiness? Not sure. I like it better than the yellow-brown doorframe off to the right, and I feel better all of a sudden when I block it out with my hand.
8. Is the makeup just making the hair colour work? Again, not sure, but the face is not so different from the body, except that it photographs whiter as makeup always does.
9. If you have progressed far enough in your understanding of personal colour to agree that hair colour can be variable (even if you can’t get to admitting that it should have a place in the Season decision), if I showed you this woman first…would you still say Spring? Or were you really just seeing a blue-eyed blonde and got stuck in the trap they taught us oh, so, well, way back when.
PCA is about skin and one photo tells you next to nothing about skin. Colour is understood by comparison because pigments x, y, and z in your skin, though they look like everyone else’s skin, will react totally differently to colour A than Hanka’s pigments, or your BFF’s. Skin may all look similar, but it reacts differently. It can’t be predicted, expected, or assumed. Stereotypes are assumptions.
A Blonde True Winter
June 19, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 30 Comments
Kathryn Kalisz’s Sci\ART 12 Tone system revolutionized personal colour analysis in many ways. By conforming only with how light and colour behave in Nature (instead of restructuring), by creating 8 Neutral Seasons (whose colours were exclusive to each), and by insisting on a level of colour accuracy not previously attained, a new standard was set. She also shook up the status quo by ignoring, even denying, the entrenched beliefs and the stereotypes. Hair and eye colour are variable in every Season and will mislead if allowed into the Season decision. Season can only be known with certainty by observing the skin’s reaction to specific colours placed adjacent to it.
Hanka Kralikova is a newer member of the Sci\ART family of colour analysts. I’d like to introduce her to you by letting you read her story, in her words. Even colour analysts have to climb the wall of who they think they are and who they’ve been told they are, to meet themselves as they really are. We have also stared dumbfounded as the evidence that comes from our own colouring, that has always been there to be unveiled and understood, becomes less and less deniable. For an analyst, I think it’s extremely important to have personally lived this experience. I expect that many readers will recognize Hanka’s journey.
Hanka is opening a studio in Prague. Should you wish to have a consultation, she can help you with accommodations, another reason to visit this most beautiful city. You can email at hanka@topimage.cz. A website is in the works.
—
Here are older photos to show my natural colouring.
I have been a freelance make-up artist for several years and became a certified Image Consultant last year. I realized that I needed to get the colours right as they are the core for everything. I first tried colour analysis as a client about ten years ago – not the best experience. The analyst told me I was a warm Season and since I am blonde and blue-eyed, I must be Spring. Full stop. I bought some make-up for Spring, used it several times, did not like it, and left it at the bottom of my cosmetic drawer. I decided colour analysis was good for nothing.
Couple of years later, during my make-up artist course, we also talked about colours. The tutor even analyzed us. This time it was different – they were already using the 12 Season analysis system. The only problem was – someone translated it from English and misinterpreted bright as shiny. Again, I was blonde, there were no standardized drapes (everybody trying to do analysis picked their own or bought them from someone who did so), no proper lighting, no neutral surrounding. So the result was: I am light and more cool than warm but True Summer colours are too muted for me – I am probably Light Summer.
Next time at a style course I was told (without any draping at all) that I was Light with no predominant warmth or coolness. I could choose if I wanted to be Light Spring or Light Summer. I tried both since each had something that worked. I liked the brightness of the Spring and coolness of the Summer but never was able to find a good lipstick for myself. I should have realized by then – cool and bright are quite good indications, but first I was blonde and second, hardly anybody can be objective about themselves. I always thought about myself as kind of wishy-washy, light and quite soft looking.
At the end of 2009 I was searching the Internet for some information on colour analysis, convinced there must be some system that could tell me exactly who I am. I really mean that. Knowing my colours really helped to better understand and accept my personality. I found it. It was called Sci\ART, it was based on real science (both my parents are physicists so I must have some science somewhere in my genes) and it made sense. I bought the book Understanding Your Colour and received it with a personal note from Kathryn. I loved the book and at the beginning of 2010, I put the money together to go to States and learn it. Unfortunately I was too late. Kathryn was not there anymore. I had never met her but still I felt as I had lost a friend.
I struggled with colours for another year when I gave it another try. I searched the Internet again and found several people who were Sci\ART certified trainers. I was lucky that one of them, Terry Wildfong, had been thinking about retiring and she was looking for someone to train who could then buy the business from her. We exchanged several e-mails and in the end of March, I was in Grand Rapids waiting for my life to change. And it did.
At the end of the first day of my training after we went through all the theory, Terry did my draping and showed me how to perform the analysis. I was expecting her to confirm I was Light, finally decide between one of the two Light Seasons, hoping that the Sci\ART ‘scientific’ palettes would have the right colours for me. I had my hair and clothes covered with grey so I could see just the face. The draping began. Terry did not need to say much. The first test drapes showed I was cool – there might be a little warmth but not much (“so, I will most probably be Light Summer”, I was thinking to myself). But then came the shock. We compared different Seasons drapes in between each other and I could see which ones were better but still was not able (or did not want to) to put it together. I looked great in brighter colours – I had never realized how bright my eyes were – and much better in cool colours then in warm ones. Black was not bad at all, crisp white looked perfect. Still, my brain was not willing to accept it. Then Terry said “So, do you know which Season you are?”
I went through all the results one more time – cool and quite bright, I can handle quite dark colours, I look great in icy pastels, there might be a little bit of warmth but not enough to make me a Neutral Season. No, it cannot be – but what else? Can I be a True Winter? Terry agreed. I was in shock. “It is not possible, I am LIGHT. How can I be WINTER?” Terry put some winter make-up on me and we went through “Ooh and Ah” session with a set of luxury drapes. I have never looked so good in my whole life. Thank you, Terry.
What was I going to do with my wardrobe full of pastels, those coral T-shirts, and a jacket I bought only recently? My head was swirling around when I was leaving that day. I slept very poorly that night. When I woke up the following morning, first thing I did was hold up my new True Winter palette next to my face and looked in the mirror. “Ok, I am True Winter, then. Let’s start new life.” That day I was analyzing people Terry had scheduled for me. I was very happy that I learned my lesson the day before. Some people can be very obvious – the moment you see them you know what Season they are and the draping just confirms it. With others you get surprised. I do not try to guess anymore, I wait for the drapes to tell me.
Instead of lunch I went shopping. I bought a pair of black jeans, white T-shirt, black tunic, bright blue, white and black dress with geometric pattern, and a bright pink lip gloss. It felt great. I had not worn black for ages and I fell in love with the deep berry lip gloss I never dared look at before. When I got back to Prague I spent a day sorting my clothes and found out one interesting thing. There were some pieces, mostly impulsive buys, which were spot on or very close to my Winter palette, mostly in purple, my favorite colour. I also had some brighter blue T-shirts and tank tops, one pink sweatshirt, and a dark chocolate jacket and suit. The jeans could stay, too. In the end I got rid off of some clothes, mainly in coral and some soft colours that I never wore. I could wear and combine what was left easily.
I still want to add some black and white, new for me, and also some other colours. I never go shopping without my True Winter palette anymore. I do not bother looking at things that are not in my colours. And above all I get compliments on how well I look even from people I would never expect to notice such things 
And one more thing – I have started to experiment with my hair colour (naturally mousy medium blond somewhere between 7 and 8). I got rid of the highlights and tried something a bit darker than my natural colour. It is still not perfect but I am getting there. I have got several comments that my eyes are looking brighter with the darker hair so I think I am heading in the right direction. BTW I had always thought my eyes were dull.
—
Here are the ‘dull’ eyes, dearest readers. They contain stars.
And since this amount of cuteness would brighten any day, here is the child’s colouring.
Don’t let your left brain see patterns it is convinced that it recognizes, and proceed to dictate to you what they mean. Left brains try to do that, but they’re best relegated to data processing. Data assimilation is better done by the right side. Your eyes see snow and your left brain tells you that you are seeing white. Your right brain sees what really is, that snow is affected by the colours around it, including that of the light, and can be blue powder, a violet cloud, a sparkling yellow carpet. Patterns led to confusion and lack of trust in colour analysis, but they sure are hard to resist, even when you’re aware of their ambush. Approach every person as though they could be any of the 12 Seasons.
If you have questions or comments for Hanka, please add them to the Comments. She’ll be checking in here and on Facebook.
Feeling Right With True Summer
June 3, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 6 Comments
No palette seems harder to accept as one’s own than True Summer, with Soft Summer second. Both are hard to guess and assemble without help. These women usually arrive believing themselves to Soft Autumn if they’re Soft Summer, or a Winter if they’re True Summer. Where does the doubt come from?
From the women I’ve known, watched, shopped with, and listened to, these ideas recur :
1. You know it’s all about the colour feeling on this site. Many misinterpret the personality that the colours invoke. True Summer’s profound morality, planning, gracious demeanor, attention to detail, consideration of others, and strong self-discipline are all well and good, but where are the passion and commitment? We have this idea that strong colours express these better.
Here’s the choice: Do you want to wear royal purple, or do you want to look good? Compare True Summer’s deepy hospitable blue with Winter’s cold and darkly receding ultramarine. Summer’s lighter blue is psychologically easier to associate with wisdom, peace, trust, and commitment, as dependable as our ancient affiliations with sky and water. Winter’s blue is unapproachable to say the least. It stands on its own and needs nobody for nothing.
Winter’s in on the left because
- the colour is strongly saturated; Summer’s are not at maximal intensity
- the colour blocks are distinct; in Summer, the colours flow together
- the pattern is bold, geometric
2. Thinking that the colours all look dowdy, not expressive of the power today’s women know. It’s not all Wedgewood blue. Among sky, orchid, wisteria, watermelon, raspberry, soft teal, turquoise, eucalyptus, clover, pearl, and moonsilver, there is no dowdy. There is unwavering strength and kindness.
As a True Season, True Summer has been around longer, so the stereotype is more deeply entrenched than say, Bright Spring, where there is very little old baggage to displace and is usually learned from the ground up. True Autumn labored under the similar fallacy of army, khaki, and brown until 12 Season personal colour analysis extracted and clarified the Soft palettes.
True Summer is mired in fashion concepts that feel outdated for the self-determination that women today wish to convey (small prints? are you telling me to wear calico? dainty?? are you kidding me?). Boston- based Image Consultant Valeria Chuba resolved the dilemma in this way : “We tend to make the link between color and emotion very easily, but things like pattern, texture, and shape have the same effect as color. Body conscious clothes, silk and cashmere, your version of animal print – these are some of the things that will express that inner passion and still allow you to use your best colors. ”
True Summer’s shares a subtext of grace and strength with classical ballet. Women love to embody this essence, but modern women also sense a submissiveness, or modesty, that they do not identify with. Any Season is only as restrictive as the woman’s vision and what she can seem at home in. Professional, sexy, cool, modern, intruiguing – it can be done with every palette. Get the colours right. Don’t forget how much is conveyed by style. Ruffles feel like someone else’s clothes? Don’t wear them.
The colour on the left is (Dark) Winter’s because
- you can feel the presence of black
- it doesn’t feel fresh or refreshing, like the Summer on the right; it feels imposing
3. The frequently encountered pink phobia. Many True Summers would not wear it. Why is pink so bad? It is the undeniable and proven force of feminine power, not savagery. Winter’s red is more raw, barbaric power. (Are Winter people more ruthless? Not going there, but give anyone 3 words to describe me (Dark Winter) and nice would place between 6 and 10.) True Summers hear gentle and decide that must exclude brave, innovative, potent, powerful, but it doesn’t. Even the most darkly coloured True Summer wears decency and kindness very near the surface and would not be prepared to give that up. Two of the funniest women I know are True Summers.
4. “I can’t wear black”. Enough with the black. There’s too much of it out there and it owns too much of our attention. Black is too easy, too mindless, a uniform, and not more interesting than any other uniform. It requires zero imagination. It sucks every colour of light into itself and gives nothing back. It can be dramatic and selfish. Those people who can wear it don’t look so hot in jeans. Get your head into a stormy grey sky space and move on.
5. True Summer’s nature is to question rules, categories, and restrictions. It rubs against their profoundly held standard that every human presence is individual and unique and sacred and worthy of respectful treatment. Who is anyone to tell anyone else what they can and cannot wear? They will rebel against any infringement on another’s human rights. (Winter will rebel against encroachment on their own human rights .)
6. Remembering what is most important: coolness. The print below is one that True Summer and True Winter could wear because colours are cool. Some are saturated, some aren’t. The colours flow and blur together to a medium degree.
Dark Winter adds a drop of dark chocolate. Bright Winter adds a drop of yellow sun. No Winter ever compromises very high saturation.
7. Don’t use darkness as a gauge. Many will look at Summer’s colours and think “Wow, those are dark, don’t they belong to Winter?” Darkness doesn’t make Winter colour. Saturation does. Winter colours are shocking, intense, bold, loud. Think of the Winter person. Big theater with big analysis. Think of a Winter landscape. It gets everything and more from barely nothing at all. In every respect, including emotion, character, style, form, and design, Winter is at the far ends of every scale. They wear one colour at a time, but that colour is deafening. Wearing two such colours at once would feel tiring, which is where B&W come in.
Winter:
If you look at the garment and think “Gosh, I’m not sure”, it’s probably Summer. If the thought bubble says “I can’t really wear this, can I?”, you may well have a Winter colour.
Summer:
7. I think this is the biggest one: To understand True Summer, you have to understand True Winter.
Many True Summers can wear Winter’s light colours. Why wouldn’t they? They’re light and they’re cool. That’s two things that True Summer is. What tells a Winter from a Summer is the ability to wear Winter darks. Winter is colour right out of the tube, straight pigment. Few would even want to take it on.
Colour Analyzed Makeup Favorites
April 27, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 2 Comments
Awhile ago, I got a makeup kit from Darin Wright, the Sci\ART analyst who developed cosmetics custom-coloured for the 12 Seasons (see the article The Ultimate Colour Analyzed Cosmetics.)
This was so interesting to me because of the opportunity to see my Season (Dark Winter) translated through another analyst’s eyes. Just because I see it one way doesn’t make it right. I get stuck in Season and appearance ruts just like everyone else. Being given a new way of looking at something is destabilizing, but its gives a much broader interpretation of the person, Season, and colours. More inputs means more choices and looks for the wearer.
With this product, you are using the smallest dusting of product to deliver big, blendable, pure colour. Imagine opening the pressed product you use now and picking up the least amount possible. The learning comes quickly but you have to retrain yourself in the beginning to barely touch the brush to the powder.
The blushes are my runaway favorite. There were lighter and fresher in every sense than any other I’ve tried, and very skin like. I loved all three. I mix Vehement with Frisky or Driven to make a colour that is neutral, warm and cool, just like the Season. (Miss November is the bronzer/contour for this Season. It is so awesomely good that it gets its own section further on.)Rub some on the end of your finger and you’ll think “Oh, jeez, it’s coral frost.” Fluff a dusting on your cheek and you’ll think “Oh, jeez, I’ve never seen blush that becomes part of my skin like that.”
From L, Frisky, Vehement, Driven, Miss November.
When I first looked at the blush, I had frost worries but it is barely what might be called glowing. It is a bit reflective when light strikes it, but you can’t see shimmer particles without a magnifier. You use such a sprinkling of product that frost doesn’t have time to really get going. Play with it. Its presentation is fun and using it is more fun. The mixability of these colours is probably their second best quality after colour. A dab on a brush picks up a few grains. I blend them on the side of my hand, or on a sheet of regular paper under the pots to see the colour better and catch any bits that might spill.
I think my biggest reason for this post is to show you the bronzer/contour. I used to wear Clinique Stay Matte 06 along the sides of my nose, at the temples, under the cheekbone, and along the jaw. I knew it was wishy washy on my Dark Winter skin and better for a lighter cool neutral like Soft Summer, but big range in this product would take years to find. Of the 4 cool Neutral Seasons (Soft Summer, Dark Winter, Bright Winter, Light Summer), the only woman I have ever seen improved by conventional bronzers is Light Summer, and that’s only if she’s buying peach-gold, not earthy tan. On the others, the skin looks duller. They do better with cool powders, a few shades darker than the skin. Hard to find.
Miss November is awesome. It’s one of the darker browns that are in already in Dark Winter skin so it has complete credibility on this face. Its darkness gives it more ability to carve features than the Clinique powder did. Use the tiniest amount and just lay down a shadow. It won’t be overdark (unless you use too much, but it’s controllable). Sometimes, I mix a little into the blushes if I’m wearing a browner lipstick. I also have it from a most discerning True Autumn that her Season’s version is beautiful as well. See how it’s redder than the foundation powders, and cooler? It is a brilliant colour.
From L, top row, Vehement, Driven, Miss Nov. Bottom row, 3 foundations.
My opinion is just my opinion. It’s not necessarily right. Darin has a pinker vision of Dark Winter than I do in lip colour. That’s fine. I mix colour constantly because it seems to bring the best out of each colour. This is a great way to learn about colour interaction and make that colour you have in your head, instead of spending money on tube after tube of near-identical lipstick. I have a browner vision of my Season, and I brown it a lot. I mix Lancome Perfect Fig (too dark alone but a great brown mixer for DW) about 50:50, with the eleablake lip colours or my previous standbys of Lauder Double Wear Ruby (too cool but I love the formula) and Arden Sugarplum Shimmer, to make my vision of browned raspberry (mix Fig with Double Wear Mulberry to make a browned red).
These are the eyeshadows. There are perfect greys, browned purples (which a very central colour for DW), matte pewters (Self-Reliant below; though it didn’t stick to the paper, it delivers huge colour on skin), and Dynamic, an excellent redwood brown. I am compelled to mix everything, as in the lower photo. Isn’t it great how the two colours come out at once? If that isn’t DW grey, I don’t know what is.
From L, Dynamic, Groovy, Self-Reliant, Proud.
Mixture of eyeshadows, Proud and Dynamic.
Darin is a professional makeup artist. Of course, she’s going to stretch the artistic limits. She’s going to know how to use and apply colours that I wouldn’t know where to begin with. There are mattes and shimmers. There are colours right from your swatches and some you won’t recognize or will wonder about. There are conservative colours and further out options. I’m not a coloured makeup woman, i.e. blue, teal, green, etc. Half of you will agree. Half will think BO-RING and wouldn’t leave the house with only grey and brown eye makeup.
Talk to Darin. She adjusts and adds colours and formulas all the time. Believe me, she understands that there’s a learning curve and is there to listen and help. I hear she has a new matte deep berry True Winter blush called Brainy that is said to be lovely. She could have a menu. I’d be the colours-from-fan/greys-and-pinks/matte-only-please person that probably puts her to sleep. Using her makeup is like having a second analyst chime in on your Season. Think about why she included each colour and you’ll only understand your Season better. Don’t love a colour? Exchange or return it.
If you love colour, ESPECIALLY if you love colour, at least know you’re wearing the right colour. There are beautiful icy pink and lavender eyeshadow highlighters for this Season too. Madcap (not shown) is a gorgeous iced lilac, that applies more as iced grey – which is my idea of coloured makeup: it has a unique effect by virtue of the colour, but the viewer doesn’t perceive purple.
Definitely buy at least one eyeshadow. Applied, it looks like coloured skin, not coloured powder on skin. Maybe a bit like a cream eyeshadow. Really good.
I admire that Darin is doing this, in a most beautiful product. eleablake is already closer to stellar than anyone has approached. It is your feedback and constructive responses that will allow her see her creation through your eyes, the consumer’s eyes. Tell her what you like and are not so sure about. Like me, it was from your comments that I got a sense of what you wanted me to talk about. You can pick, choose, and return, and Darin will keep tweaking her colour formulas.
As it is, you go to the department store, wander from counter to counter thinking “Wow, is it just me or does all this stuff look the same?” Yeah, no kidding it looks the same. I often think it pretty much is the same. The one-thing-fits-all formula that women recognize. We feel safe so we buy more.
Getting used to new things can feel annoying, as one woman put it so perfectly. We wonder why we didn’t just stick with the formulations and packaging we were used to. Because you didn’t want more of the same, that’s why. Because, with your PCA, you finally understood colour, real glowing pure colour, as it pertains to your skin. Remember when you were getting used to your Season? That was annoying too. You had to force yourself for a month, but it brought you to a better place. Who thought texting was fun from the start? Who uses the same mascara wand they used 8 years ago?
Choosing The Best Grey
April 18, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 9 Comments
First thing I ask myself when I’m trying to put a grey into a personal colour analysis Season is: “Does it contain any colour other than B&W?”
If I can only see black and white, it’s Winter. Winter’s greys can be the lightest light, colours known as icy, or the darkest near-blacks. If your eye doesn’t pick up anything other than some rendition of black, this is a Winter colour.
Grey is a most underused colour and the most important neutral colour. Grey can be your lights, mediums, darks, and neutrals. It is more imaginative than black, what isn’t, and makes an outfit look much more interesting. It’s elegant and sophisticated and far more slimming on most people. Grey is also wildly underused in eye makeup and suits more types of skin than brown. The drawbacks may be that there are so many versions, but there’s only one good ol’ black. The worst thing about black is that it’s so easy.
Grey can take on a suggestion of the colours around it, so it looks purplish as eyeshadow if lipstick or clothing is red or violet. For this reason, getting too particular about placing greys to a specific Season within the 12 is not something to worry about. As long as you can place it among the 4 True Seasons, it will adapt nicely with the rest of the outfit. The Neutral Seasons stick quite close to the parent True Season’s greys.
Winter’s greys are usually pretty easy. The might-as-well-be-wearing-nothing effect that does Winter no favors happens when the grey (or any color) is gentled. You know that generic soft heathered grey used in men’s T-shirts? A Winter will dominate that colour entirely, and the shirt will have no character at all, like a big blank space. It looks like underwear or pyjama wear. Along with being made of B&W, there should be a definite sense of sharpness, like a knife edge, or darkness, like a charcoal. Winter’s taupe, at the bottom of the graphic above, has that Winter redness that comes out of it, giving it a sharpness, making it unlikely to strike you as soft.
Soft Summer greys.
Summer’s grey is easy to pick out. There will be a wash of blue, pink, or mauve. Even the taupes, which go from grayer oyster to Portobello mushroom are pinkish.
If it’s brown or green, it’s Autumn’s grey. Autumn has more colour in their greys and taupes. The greys are more obviously greened, like camo, or oranged, which makes them look heavy, like a velvet couch. They may also seem browned (because brown is just dark orange), or greened in the various shades of dry tobacco. The taupes look more brown.
Soft Autumn greys.
In a Spring grey, you can see sunshine yellow coming out of it. Grey is inherently cool and Spring is not. Grey is quieter while Spring sings of colour. Therefore, Spring has few real greys and many more browns, peachy ones and greenish ones. Their greys are yellowish, which I could never pick up unless I held up several grey items in the store together. The greys are actually so yellow, they can seem a little green. Spring is often that way, like dandelion yellow is almost green, like the unripe banana is greenish-yellow, like the hair of some True Spring children is so yellow, it can seem greenish in pictures.
Spring greys.
Does darkness or lightness guide the grey to a Season? Doesn’t help. Every Season has several levels of light/darkness in most colours, including grey.
Colour Analyzed Home Decor
February 20, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 30 Comments
It is my belief that the colours we project for others to see are a continuation of our inner selves. When the colours that we add to our bodies repeat the energy of who we already are, our beauty feels the most real and right, both to us and to those looking at us. The colours with which we surround ourselves may be even more important to our well being because we see them more than we see our own appearance. Huge thanks to Sci\ART Colour Analyst MarySteele Lawler in Mississippi for contributing this article and the colour layouts. They illustrate so beautifully one of the lesser-known, very fascinating applications of Personal Colour Analysis.CS.
Ambiance, light, color. Nothing is more important in a room. Like The Princess and the Pea and her stack of mattresses, I’m extremely sensitive to colored spaces and have never understood how hospital designers expect people to improve in rooms painted in sad colors. With my Sci/art training I have come to understand the underlying reason why there are comfortable or uncomfortable color choices for each person. Thanks to Kathryn Kalisz, I know why the effect of the same color can be either unhappy or brilliant for different persons.
A warm-toned person naturally will be ill at ease in rooms painted with cool shades and vice-versa. One might not be able to put a finger on the source of discomfort, but this distraction is because the room essentially was painted for someone else.
My increasing fascination with light and interior color prompted me to notice that successful designers are picky about the colors they choose for projects even if the color is just a particular shade of white. I began trolling through decorating magazines and web sites looking for popular paint references. That there must be room colors best suited to blondes or to brunettes logically followed the precepts of seasonal color analysis.
Since I am not a decorator, I leave the paint color selection to professionals. They have experienced that some colors more than others do well in any light in any part of the country. These popular hues that interior designers go back to time and again are the ones that I match from my Benjamin Moore swatch books to my Sci/Art color book. The result is a log of hundreds of tried-and-true designer paint favorites divided into the twelve tonal categories.
Such luminous beauties, these batches of whites, grays, violets, greens, and blues held together by a common chroma and temperature. Although there is some overlapping of paint colors between the seasons, each season’s entire collection of shades is distinct from all the other seasons. Each collection stands on its own in the loveliness of this distinction
Here are photographs of four ambient possibilities. There is an icy cool set of colors for True Winter including mountain peak white, crystal blue, topeka taupe, celery ice, and forty nine others. The list for Soft Summer comprises cool, velvety tones such as patriotic white, soft chinchilla, and mountain ridge, a favorite misty brownish- purple. Light Spring’s hues range from cameo white interior room to windmill wings blue and florida pink, a delicious pinky-red. Dark Autumn conveys its stylish warmth with rosy apple red, glowing apricot, pink corsage, and black satin.
True Winter palette
Soft Summer palette
Light Spring palette
Dark Autumn palette
My clients come to me already convinced of the power of color. I tuck a paint collection list into each information packet included in my consultation. This way, when it is time to redecorate, a client can experience the wonder of living inside a color that reflects her particular color harmony. I say, “I want you to look beautiful in your rooms. I want you to feel cozy and to shine within your colors, not only in what you are wearing, but also amidst your surroundings. I want you to glow in your home!”
My color business is called Luminosity. I operate from Oxford, Mississippi, but I pack up my drapes and travel if I have a group in another city that wants to be analyzed. The cosmetics updates that I glean from the contributors to the 12 Blueprints discussion board have been a wildly popular part of my consultation. Learning about one’s season for the first time can seem overwhelming, like sitting under an avalanche of compelling new information. I give clients handouts on everything from hair color to the types of wood and metal best suited to their homes. The more ways you can get at the uniqueness of your season, the better you can understand it.
If you know your season and wish to expand your harmony, save yourself legwork and choice overload by ordering your seasonal list of Benjamin Moore paint numbers. When you pull swatches from your local paint store you will automatically love the paint chips because they will match you.
One seasonal paint selection list costs forty dollars. There are sixty to eighty color numbers on each list. I am a Light Summer. I live in a pink house that is on my chart and I believe that everyone should be so fortunate! Checks should be made to Luminosity and sent to 307 Bramlette Boulevard, Apartment 21, Oxford, MS, 38655. Include your mailing address and expect your lovely collection in two weeks.
Rimmel Lip Gloss for 12 Seasons
January 15, 2011 by Christine Scaman · 26 Comments
Some folks take exception to my swatching makeup on white paper. They say you can’t tell how the colour would look on your face. They’re going to love the way I swatch lip gloss.
I find I can see the subtleties of the colours way better on paper. On paper, you can be more detached about the colour. It’s still far enough from you to be perceived as separate from you, and only on its own merits. Once it enters your Personal Zone, all kinds of meta impressions start happening.
The hot second you try to evaluate a colour on your own face, you’ve lost objectivity. Your imagination alters your face, and everything on it. We have no idea what we look like to others. The only thing we decide when we look at a new makeup colour on our face is whether it could be consistent with how we’re used to seeing ourselves.
The Sci\ART Colours Book is outstanding for matching makeup colours, the trickiest part of working with your Season. Good thing there’s lots of help to get you started once you get your Season ID. The swatches in the Book are on white canvas. At the store, I can smear the makeup on a white page. Back home and decide, in daylight, if the colours are the same. Any client who has done this with me during a PCA appt knows that she can look from the makeup palette we create on paper to her Colours Book, and find every swatch in her Book immediately. Her eye just goes to it, and she is right every time. This system works.
These Rimmel Stay Glossy lipglosses impressed me because of the good colour selection – or was it that I found Winter colours, usually so hard to do? So often, a line will have 3 good colours, and you stand there looking at the rest of them, thinking “I have no idea who would wear these colours.” In this line, the fairest and darkest have a choice, the most muted and clearest, and the Winter colours are actually wearable.
The gloss is supposed to last 6 hours, or 8 hours, or some big, impressive number.
Critical Thinking : the ability to discern what is probably right and what is probably wrong. A 6 hour lip gloss? You didn’t even expect that to be true. There’s no 2 hour lip gloss out there, unless you’re a mannequin, the plastic kind. Forget 6.
The product is plenty nice, and reasonably priced, whatever that means in cosmetics. Heavens, I’m being snarky today, but there is too much undeserved cosmetic raving going on out there. Every week brings a new rave. That’s how you came to have a used-it-once drawer. I’m just trying to keep the reality glasses in place so you never add one more item to that drawer. I am nice enough to say that there was nothing about the application that I didn’t like, besides the sinking ship of 6 hour expectations. This is also a nice product to apply over a lipstick, long wear or otherwise to keep it going till lunchtime without needing a mirror.
I swatch lip gloss between 2 pieces of tape to avoid having gunk all over my purse. I can spread it around and look at the nuances of the colour when I get home to daylight. I can see the colour next to other tones, because colour is all about comparison.
Once you see a colour you like on paper, and it seems to match your Book, I absolutely suggest you put it on your face. There’s more to a makeup buy decision than its colour. Also, no two women in the same Season look quite the same or will interpret their Season in the same way, or have the same comfort level with colour on the face.
I match the color analyzed swatches from the middle darkness colours, or the lighter ones for the Light Seasons. The darker swatches work fine in clothing but most light-medium complected women find them dark. The Sci\ART system is 12 Season Personal Colour Analysis, because 12 is enough without being too much, but you’ll refine your position within your Season with time.
The pictures are a bit randomly organized, and seem a bit sloppy (that’s part of the reality theme), but they cover all the colours, with some opportunity to compare. In Canada, we did not have Endless Night, Unlimited Gold, or Endless Summer, unless they are here with a different name. I haven’t adjusted any settings. Photos were taken at 11AM on an overcast day, on a sheet of white paper.
True Winter : Yours Forever
Dark Winter : All Night Long
Bright Winter : Timeless Allure, Fuchsia Fever
Finding a clean red-violet that has that purple pivot that True Winter hovers around is challenging, especially in a cheaper product. I like this one.
For many darker Season women, they don’t always want a dark lip. I’ll never (or not soon) be convinced that Sandra Bullock (probably Dark Winter), Liza Minelli (True?), or Audrey Hepburn (Bright W?) look their best in browned, flesh toned lips. Dark W wears a browned deep rose as a disappearing lip (NARS Dolce Vita), but it has little impact. A very good option to nude lips for Winters, which the intensity of the person’s coloring can still dominate too easily, is a sheer lip.
I hope you can see that Dark Winter’s colour is browner. Bright W’s is lighter and clear.
As a Dark Winter, I tried All Night Long. It’s quite similar to the Dark Winter always-in-your-purse anchor of Merle Norman Stolen Kisses.
Light Summer : All Day Seduction, Stay My Rose, Dare To Say, Eternal Flirt
True Summer : Captivate Me, Dare To Say
Soft Summer : My Eternity, Stay My Rose, Captivate Me
With the sheerness of a gloss, several of these colours will work across categories. Your own lip colour will come through and help adapt the shade to your face.
All Day Seduction has a gold glimmer in it, it felt best for Light Summer. Soft Summer can do gold shimmer sometimes, as in MAC Plumfoolery blush, but the base colour is deeper in that blush than this light pink gloss. Soft Summers are much cooler than they are warm and not especially light.
Light Spring : Non Stop Glamour, Always Lovely, All Day Seduction
True Spring: Here To Say? , Non Stop Glamour
Bright Spring: Fuchsia Fever, Timeless Allure, All Day Seduction
True Spring gave me some trouble. Here To Say may be one those colours that is too browned for a Spring and not browned enough for an Autumn. It is orange and yellow enough that it may work well, with just enough brown to make it more nude/flesh coloured. I try to picture it on Wayne Gretzky…not sure. I was hoping it might look like this.( I think Uma may be a Light Spring because pale lips look so good on her. True Spring does better with a shot of real color).
The beauty of a gloss is that it tempers brightness (as in Fuchsia Fever) and darkness (as Timeless Allure), allowing Bright Spring to wear both. They could also do All Day Seduction, because it’s a clean pink with a gold shimmer. Light Summer had this colour too, because there are similarities between it and Bright Spring (both can do well in medium-darkness colours, both have a trace of Spring yellow).
So Fabulous is a slightly yellow caramel beige. It is not orange, nor is it as heavy as butterscotch sundae sauce. It is a Spring colour, perhaps a good flesh-toned lip for Light Spring, a Season that is exemplary in the various beiges of nuts and their shells.
Soft Autumn: Here To Say?
True Autumn: Immortal Charm
Dark Autumn : Everlasting Crush, Still Gorgeous
A Soft Autumn will probably find Here To Say too orange. I’m usually looking for a color like the pink in a flowerpot, and this is not it, but they do have a warm side, especially when the hair has an apricot highlight, and they do look great in nude/flesh lips, a la J.Lo. This is a line where the Autumn colours are less plentiful, while the pinks are over-represented.
Still Gorgeous could be lovely on Dark Autumn, and very natural on women of deeper complexion.
Black Diva, well, y’know. Oh, I forgot that one.
Lockets for the 12 Seasons
December 12, 2010 by Christine Scaman · 15 Comments
Lockets come in so many styles for one type of jewelry. They are at once classic, Victorian, and vintage. Styles vary from very time-honored simplicity to jewel-encrusted modern. They emanate a sense of ancestry that feels grounding, well-bred, and perfectly belonging to this time of year of tradition and family.
At Heartsmith, I found a wealth of styles and a poverty in my ability to choose just one style for each Season, which I failed to do in many cases, as you’ll see. The name of each design and the photo are linked back to the product page.
A sincere thanks to Heartsmith for allowing me to reproduce the photographs.
Let’s look at some very beautiful jewelry.
—
SPRING
Heart shapes are in keeping with Spring. They are young, romantic, pointed, and delicate. The adjectives romantic and delicate are often given to Summer, but they are appropriate here too. Spring’s romance is more magical than Summer’s Bosoms&Roses style (as a young friend of mine once described her True Summer Mom’s reading taste). Spring is delicate as youth and fairy wings.
True Spring
Mrs. Potter 3/4 Gold Locket&Diamond.
Because True Spring is the sun.
—
Spring is airy, floaty, skyward-directed like growing new plants reaching for the sun’s light. Many members of all 3 Spring groups have small features and a petite aspect to their features. A small, floating heart is so pretty, for any Spring or its blends.
The Alia Floating Heart Pendant.
—
Light Spring
Juliet Gold Heart Locket has a brushed center to integrate the Summer element, but the flower petals could be the wings of butterflies. For the Light Spring who resembles a Summer, this style is also available in a white gold.
—
Bright Spring
For me, this Season is crisp but delicate, like frozen lace. They are the frost on the window, the ice that coats evergreens and bare branches after an ice storm, the pattern in the thin ice over a puddle when you step on it. In the Season that blends Spring’s sparkle and Winter’s polish, metal must shine.
The Destiny Lace Set Diamond Locket.
—
Audrey is stunning too, larger and less yellow in the metal.
If the Wishing Star pendant comes back into stock, put your name on a list.
—
SUMMER
True Summer
True Winter is minimal in its ornamention. Pieces are important but they don’t move. I see True Summer as more detailed and decorated. The circle is Summer’s essential shape. The metal is brushed.
Elizabeth Sterling Silver Victorian Locket expresses the gentle strength of this group. Summer is highly capable without needing to control everything around it (like another Season we know).
—
I loved this one too. I like it when I have to think about it a bit. This design felt a bit unexpected, and others may have a different interpretation of the look of a True Summer. Pushing the limits of your own taste is an expression of your creativity, of thought becoming matter.
True Summer is often a reflective, pensive personality.I loved the darkness, because True Summer is so often stuck in lightness, and they are not that light. The weight felt good, because True Summer is not light by weight any more than it is by colour. The swirling ivy lines are perfect. The peaceful message of the dove is highly Summerish, as is the grace and flow of wings in flight.
—
Light Summer
Alternating polish and matte silver integrates the Summer muted and Spring shiny elements. The size is small and there’s a minimum of fuss to allow the essential heart shape to take center stage.
Laurie Chasing Hearts bracelet
—
Soft Summer
In this Season that is essentially Summer, with a dusting of Autumn, the refined sophistication of Summer becomes more solid, thanks to Autumn’s strength. I love the weight of the chain, the pearl, and the stronger closure. The small blue stone in the heart is perfect. I find this piece gorgeous.
—
AUTUMN
True Autumn
The Brandy Bracelet is fantastic. It is muted in colour and shine, antiqued, of mid-darkness, with good weight.
—
Soft Autumn
Autumn’s lights and darks give a sense of depth. We see this in plaid, for instance, where there are advancing and receding elements. Autumn’s strength is expressed here, as we look for more sustenance in this Season (as we do in the foods we eat as the cold approaches). This is muted in colour and metal, not too hot or cold, feminine but substantial.
—
We’ve been talking about which Season is which element in our Facebook group. The symbolism of the Seasons, and how these are depicted in their human examples, fascinate me. Sometimes, an association gets stuck in my head and I can’t dislodge it. For me, Soft Autumn is the tree. Are they the wood element? Yes, probably, I could make that extension.
This piece is perfect for a Neutral Season, with the gold and silver. Both are muted, as looks best on Soft Seasons. If you wear metal (or makeup, or clothes) that are shinier than you, you just got duller by comparison. The gold is earthy, not light and shiny. Love this piece.
—
Dark Autumn
Beautiful, in silver with gold accents. You can see how absolutely lovely this item is in the video on the product page. (With citrine, topaz, or diamond options).
—
WINTER
True Winter
True Winter is controlled and controlling. They are not all over the place. Floppiness is hopeless. They do not move their bodies in a floppy way. Like the royal family, they are contained and ceremonial when they look their best. Pieces are symmetrical and balanced, an exact equilibrium.
—
Bright Winter
Yes, the metal is yellow, but Bright Winter is a Neutral Season. They have yellow in the skin, and it is this light, shiny gold. It is well balanced by the darker lower half. The jaw-dropping opulence, especially in a piece of this size, is balanced better by the Bright Winter than any other.
—
Safety is nowhere on Bright Winter. It disappears completely. If you are brighter than your jewelry (or makeup, or clothes), they are duller by comparison. This is the ultimate go-big-or-stay-home Season. Glamorous hairstyles, dramatic necklines, they just look better.
—
Dark Winter
Lenore Garnet and Pearl Pendant
The contrast of blood and snow is always Winter. The medieval weighted hardware of Autumn. The imperial luxury of Winter. The deep red undertone of Dark winter skin. The darkness in the metal. The overall feeling of cold and hard. Not too shiny, as Autumn mutes textures as well as colours. An amazing piece of jewelry.
-
Let your natural colouring guide you to your most flattering clothing, makeup, and hair colour choices.12 Seasons of practical, affordable information on the styles, cosmetics, hair colour, and jewelry that each palette wears most beautifully and the comparisons you need to wear your Season perfectly!
Get daily makeup and colour updates. Join the 12 Blueprints Fan Club on Facebook! A Click on the box will take you there.
