The Mystery of Brown

November 28, 2009 by  

This article is the second of 3 connected posts. The first one was What Are Clear and Soft Colours?

There, we talked about muted colours belonging to Autumn and Summer. They’re lower  intensity, duller, dusty, either grayish or browned. Summer has some lighter, softer grey browns, often with a blue or mauve tone. Autumn’s colours are darker and more golden-brown.

Spring and Autumn Browns

But Spring has true brown colours too, just like Autumn. When you shop for clothes or makeup, how do you pick Spring’s camel coat from Autumn’s?

Left, Spring. On the right, Autumn.

Left, Spring. On the right, Autumn.

These colours are not rendered precisely. If you own a Colours Book for True Spring or True Autumn, you may notice that. It doesn’t matter. This illustrates the point well enough.

A color like camel can be very soft, or low saturation, or it can be very bright, or high saturation.  It depends on how much gray is in the mix.  Look at the 2 camel browns in the middle row. The Autumn one appears more golden, more dark, and more dull and murky.

The Spring brown FEELS closer to you because of it lightness. It almost feels more transparent, though transparency is not one of the ways in which we define colour.

Undertones

The difference between the spring colors and the autumn colors is this:

The springs have a yellow undertone, while the autumns have a gold undertone.

All of the spring colors have yellow added to them, and all of the autumn colors have gold added to them. So, the difference is between yellow and gold.  Gold is a deeper, grayer, and darker shade of yellow.

Spring colors feel light and bright. Autumn colors feel deeper, richer, darker, lower in saturation.

Autumn browns are of lower saturation than Spring because there is more grey in the mix. If they were musical notes, Autumn would resonate far more deeply. The register feels lower. Autumn’s colours are more golden, but a golden color has more gray in it than a yellow based color.  Gold is a darker version of yellow AND it is of lower saturation, hence its place among the Autumn colours.

The color brown is actually orange that has been darkened.  A dark orange is a brown.

Shopping with knowledge

When we get to 12 tones, vs 4 Season Color Analysis, the differences are slight, but do make a huge difference in the final result, and they are harmonious with each other. The key to having your entire wardrobe work as one, within itself and with you, is for every item to follow YOUR inborn synchrony. It’s important to match the colours as closely as possible to evoke the right feeling. For those of you who have been draped, you saw that your runner-up Season was not even remotely close to your best.

Below is an example of how to apply this information. It is easier with clothing than cosmetic colours. This is a Laura Mercier eyeshadow at Sephora. One of my many reasons for disliking eyeshadow palettes is that they make no sense together. And don’t get me started on lip palettes, which I have even less good feelings about.

Besides a Bright Spring, who would use everything here? That group might be 15% of the population.

Anyhow, looking only at the brown eyeshadow quad, do you notice that it is not gold or orange? The colours feel bright, lit with a pale yellow light. The musical note would be high and clear. These may be browns but they are not “earthy”, which gives a much heavier feeling.

That’s the easiest rule of thumb : Spring browns have no orange in them. Is it fail-safe? No. There are other Seasons with non-orange browns. This just helps you exclude a few of the wrong ones.

Laura Mercier eyeshadow quad at Sephora.

The no-fail guide

But you know, with your Colours Book, you don’t really have to worry. You might think that the camels and honeys and light browns are quite similar between Seasons. When you actually look at the swatches in the Books, they’re obviously different. Your concern is not another Season’s colours.  Always match YOUR  personal colour palette as closely as possible and you will succeed. This is a visual judgment, not a verbal one. Colour is always best understood when compared to another colour.

Don’t try to shop from memory. Your success rate will drop to 50%. You won’t remember as well as you think you will. Always, always shop with your Book so you can meet my goal :) – which is to never, ever have you buy the wrong thing again.

And that should be done in natural daylight.  Take the article up to a window to check the color, or be sure to ask the sales clerk if it can be exchanged if the color is off in natural light.  Stores usually use the cheapest lighting possible, which is the worst for viewing true color.

I scribble the product on a piece of white paper because the swatches are painted on white cotton canvas. The sales assistant is standing there watching and possibly feeling quite irritated, but at least it’s not unsanitary. Is this a woman thing? Would a man recognize an easy and successful sale?

Filed under: Autumn Colours, For All Seasons, More Topics For The 12 Seasons, Spring Colours
Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!





Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree

Bad Behavior has blocked 284 access attempts in the last 7 days.