The Spectrafiles Colour Book
September 6, 2009 by Christine Scaman
The colours that look most flattering and natural ON you are the colours already IN you. The Colour Book is a catalog of those precise colours.
Knowing how to achieve a beautiful and powerful exterior is completely within your control. It begins with a Personal Colour Analysis. Learning your unique personal colour palette is the foundation for every colour decision. Guessing at your best colours means you could be wrong most of the time. Why choose that when the colours that look so amazingly right cost exactly as much? PCA is easy and empowering. Once you know what to buy, you will feel comfortable in your clothes because your image will express who YOU really are.
Colour Book for Women.
Colour Book for Men.
The book of colour swatches you receive is unique. It is unrivaled in the industry because it is made using archival inks. These are guaranteed to be lightfast for 100 years. The book is flexible and washable.
Very importantly, the colours are applied to cotton canvas, rather than being made from fabric. This ensures that the colour appears constant in any lighting and can be reliably used to colour match any type of fabric or cosmetic.
Your Book is entirely exclusive to your Season. It contains 60 different colours for each of the 12 Seasons. The book fits easily into a purse or pocket, within a durable, protective plastic envelope.
The Men’s books expand the masculine colours even more. The Men’s books are also distinctive because they provide the five 3-colour combinations that create the best look for men of that colouring or Season. These shade trios can be used to guide choices in ties, in suit/shirt/tie outfits, or in stripes or flecks in suits and sport coats.
The colour analysis swatches can be used to easily match clothing, cosmetic, accessory, and shoe colour. Shopping will be so easy when you know what to ignore. That will come quickly. You will be amazed at the self-discovery doors that will open as you venture into colours you never would have tried.
Because it’s not just the colours, but how you combine them, you will receive by e-mail a document that outlines the particular edge and radiance of your Season and how to achieve it. You will find information about choosing makeup and hair colour that accord best with your seasonal color analysis, and pitfalls to be avoided. There is a section on jewelry choices and, just for fun, about the personality traits often found among individuals in your Season.
The Spectrafiles Colour Books differ from the original Sci\ART swatches. I get a lot of emails from women concerned that the SF colours are not correct for their Season. Here is my reply:
You could have many colours, indeed thousands that fall within the hue, value, and saturation for your Season. For some women, they prefer to only have 60 choices where each one is absolutely within the Season. This is certainly essential to own and without a doubt, the non-negotiable starting point. Seeking this level of perfection in stores may make shopping more challenging or they may find it easier, depending on the woman herself. For myself and others, I prefer to have more than 60 colours because it widens my sense of my own colour space and shows me my ranges for each colour. I own Books from Sci\ART, Spectrafiles, and Indigo Tones, that I use routinely when I shop. All different perceptions of the same thing, all taught me something different about my colouring, all allow me to be less rigid about my shopping.If you’ve just had your colours done recently, don’t make decisions too quickly. You’re just at the beginning of learning to use this device. The colour collections available from www.truecolour.com.au are extremely similar to the original Sci\ART Books and a fine place to start. Right now, a solid structure may feel safer but a time will come when you’ll absorb subtlety and appreciate flexibility with more confidence. May come a time when you want to stretch the outer limits of your Season – maybe even a bit beyond once you have the certainty of the place in the spectrum that works best for you – and can choose wrong colours with more ease.You can own many Books for many reasons. If a Dark Winter doesn’t want a lot of lip colour but finds gloss goopy, she might try some of Soft Summer’s deeper colours and look very good and feel more comfortable. True Autumn and True Spring can be confusing – so own both. The boundary between Light Spring and Soft Autumn is also difficult to figure in stores, so take the two Books shopping and stop wondering every time you look at pants. On the warm side of your Season? Then own the warm neighbour Season’s Book and yours. You will be amazed at the sophistication with which you’ll learn to use all the tools and publications available, and eventually understand your own colouring.
Colour analyzed cosmetics for the 12 Seasons are available from Darin Wright at www.eleablake.com
Colour analyzed home paint chip galleries are available from Mary Steele Lawler at www.luminousme.com
You will find answers to the most commonly asked questions about your PCA appointment at www.12blueprints.com/pca-faqs/
Related posts:
- Matching The Swatch Book : Blue
- Matching The Swatch Book : Light Grey
- Matching The Swatch Book : Coral
- Colour Equations Dark Winter
- RTY Natural Colours Book Back in Stock
Comments
15 Responses to “The Spectrafiles Colour Book”
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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.
Cant find you on facebook! Is the site discontinued?
I’m here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/daireshaw
Not sure what’s not working. When I click on the Facebook box beside the article on this site, it takes me to the 12 Blueprints page on Fb. You could search it on Fb itself, as 12 Blueprints, which should open up for everyone because it’s a Page, not a Profile.
If you want, you can search Christine Scaman and send me a Friend Request, then you can find it through my Links.
I’ll test it on other computers.
Let me know if it continues to not work.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ’0 which is not a hashcash value.
I tried searching for the FB page and couldn’t find it either. Also, when I copy the target URL and paste it into the browser, it redirects to the FB homepage.
By the way, there are two people with your name, and neither of them have pictures or any public info. ^.^
Huge sigh. Computers can just be so tiring. I think I’m the only person who finds Fb complicated. When I search it or try to link to the 12B Page through this site, or any of the 3 computers in my house, it seems fine. The computers at work are all fine too. When I search my name, I get 3 choices, and I’m one of them with a picture. What can be happening, I wonder?
My excellent site maintenance expert, Rick Beckman, might understand. I’ll ask him to help us out.
Maybe if I send you a friend request? Email me privately at christine@12blueprints.com and tell me your fb name.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ’0 which is not a hashcash value.
I think Fb is working better now. Changed some settings. You shoul be able to join the 12B Fan Club, or access the page, without being a friend of mine – though I’d be happy to add you, so sen d me a Friend Request!
Dear Christine,
Thank you so much for providing all of this information! Your website is wonderful!
I am trying to get a feel for the different seasons, and I was wondering what palette is represented by the color fan you have on the 12 blueprints homepage on the left hand side of the page? (these all look like colors that I wear often).
Thanks for your help!
Danielle
Hi, Danielle,
That is Light Spring’s palette. The color reproduction isn’t exact – meaning that when you see the swatches, they’re not exactly like the photo, but it’s close.
Dear Christine,
I’m sure I’ve seen the info somewhere on this site, but I just can’t find it now!
Where can i buy a sci/art book of swatches? You don’t sell them, do you?
(I do not have a color swatchbook yet, and i’m sure it would make things easier for me!)
You can probably buy one from Lynda at http://www.thatsyourcolor. com
Dear Christine
Just wanted to know, if you can help me with an email or webadress
to Sci Art/Spectrafiles.
Do you know, if they have started to educate colorconsultants again ?
Thanks for your help
Best regards from Anette
Denmark
Annette,
The email for Suzanna Greif is suzanna@spectrafiles.com
There will probably be some teaching happening by September if all goes well.
Hi!
My name is Vanessa and I live in Brasil and i just became a image consulting. I discovered you site and i loved. Lets see if you can help me.
I would like to know where i can discover the numbers or names of the colors of each pallete for each season.
Here in Brasil, the material avaiable to buy is a little expensive and I would like to create my own material. Do you think you can help me with this information ?
Thank you so much for your attention!
Hope hear from you soon.
Regards, Vanessa
Hi, Vanessa,
I do not know of a source that has this information openly available. I do not know the colour formulas myself. I think it’s usually proprietary information. Having said that, if you know the Seasons and know the colours you want the printer to make, you should be able to find them in the many books the Pantone company makes.
Hi, Christine!
I am curious why you have this post highlighted on your front page, saying this is “the best shopping partner you could have,” if you recommend the 12 Tones fan when people ask what single fan they should start with? Is there a specific reason this one is still highlighted here? Or is it just a “leftover”? (I promise I’m not being snarky; just wondering if I’m overlooking an essential bit of information somewhere.)
Hi, Rachel,
Not to worry, all Q are fair. If you have them, so do others. If an industry isn’t transparent enough to answer every Q with truth, they don’t stand very tall in my eyes. This is a good Q.
The comment about ‘best shopping partner’ isn’t really a leftover. It’s intended more to mean that the colours of your Season are your best shopping partner in general, not so much one Book over the other. Remember shopping before you knew which colours suit you best? When the entire mall was your choosing ground? Think of all the women and men who shop that way. It’s near hopeless to make good, right, most flattering selections, and to do this every time you put down money. Once you could narrow it down to 10% of what’s in the mall, and in that 10%, everything is among your very best, shopping is so much more successful.
The SF Book is different looking from the TCA Book, true enough. There’s no Q in my mind that Kalisz made changes to her colour formulas. She intended to have the Books look different from her originals. If I have my timing right, what I know of the story, which admittedly is not the whole thing, is that the ‘originals’ were from colour formulas developed around 2005. Despite a few minor changes, the colours stayed about the same. I have a Book where she actually adjusted each swatch dot by hand. The Books I ordered when I began in 2009 were very similar but not identical even then, no longer hand adjusted. Seemed to be no big deal, nobody said very much about it that I heard, but I was very new and could have missed it.
The most recent changes in the formulas were made just prior to her passing. I think the new formulas were beginning to be distributed at that time, though I never saw them. I also never heard any questions people had about the changes back then (I wasn’t really in the loop yet), whether they expressed them to her, or any explanations she personally gave. I think she was trying to achieve True Seasons that looked even more true to their TMIT, and Neutrals that blended better with the other Neutral and demonstrated the minor Season’s contribution better, so more Autumn in Dark Winter. Season colours aren’t absolute, right? I know DWs with about 40% Autumn and some with 5% Autumn who look just like TW.
Other things happened, like printers that needed replacing. Well, that changes everything again. Did Kalisz personally review each swatch with the equipment being used today and the new formulas? I do not know the answer to that, but if the colours she desired her new Books to have were already in production before her death and before the printer replacements, then it would just have been a matter of calibrating the new printer to produce identical palettes.
I see both sides of this. The new formulas look more muted in the Neutral Seasons for sure, to the point that they seem to belong to another Season. Maybe that was her intention, to demonstrate these ‘flows’ better. Why would she muted the 3 Springs, especially the Bright that should never be muted? Well, I don’t know what her answer would be. TCA and SF may disagree with me, but the TCA Books that I’ve seen (only 2 or 3 in person) look pretty darn similar to those original formulas (with some differences in design and backing fabric), where each Season really stood alone – and this is why I say it may be better suited to beginners who need their colour dimensions spelled out plainly.
Then you practice for a few months, you have much more sophistication in your colour decisions, you realize real stores are very far from colour-coded, and you wonder if there might be other levels of guidance out there for all the many times you had to compromise and weren’t sure how. You are now at the stage where you can pick out wrong colours by eye most times. You’re ready for the 264 crayon box. Here lies the great value of the SF Book. Speaking only for me, I had to review each colour and really decide if it would work on me, maybe just because it wasn’t what I started with. But I also got many more choices, and a more refined understanding of my colouring and wardrobe combinations and my Season’s relationship with the other eleven. In a different way, the Indigo Tones Book provided this same new level of colour perception and comprehension.
Women would like an answer carved in stone. It will not be found about most things in life. The better your understanding about a subject, the more your answers become ‘it depends’. It’s best just have a talk with their Sci\ART analyst who can help them decide which is right for them.