Understanding A Color 1
September 1, 2010 by Christine Scaman
Clients often bring an item of clothing or makeup to ask if the color is right for them. It helps me to have a way of answering the question that I use each time.
Personal Colour Analysis is about looking better on less wasted money. 80% of this venture involves correctly talking yourself OUT of wrong color items.
Process
These are the questions I ask myself. There’s no particular order, though I usually start with “Is it clear?”, since that can be the hardest call.
..Is it clear? Is it clear = blossoms/candy/fruit punch/popsicle OR is it muted = grayed, dulled, not-vivid, not-bright?
.. Is it light? If yes, is it pastel and heathery Summer, OR icy and frosty Winter?
..Is it warm? If yes, is it orange-brown-Autumn leaves OR yellow-tropical-Spring?
Example 1
We’re looking at the brown hoodie. I always step back see a color, allowing it to be surrounded with other things. Color is understood by comparison to other colors. A proper Personal Color Analysis is based entirely on comparing one color’s effects to another. We’ve all played the games of seeing ghost colors when our brain adds in complementary color around an object, of seeing items of the same size appear bigger and smaller next to other colors…all optical illusions. That is exactly what colors are doing next to your face and body, making your features appear yellow, oilier, bigger, smaller, etc. Your Personal Colour Palette is determined by which colours make you look most perfect.
Back to the hoodie.
Clear or dusty? >> dusty.
Light? >> no, more medium, I think.
Warm?>>no, not obviously orange or yellow.
So, the item is dusty, not clear. Therefore, Summer or Autumn or one of their blends are more likely.
It’s medium in darkness, not overly helpful.
It is neither orangey or yellowed. In fact, it’s almost pinkish. Therefore, Autumn and Spring are not likely. Is a weak Autumn blend possible? Sure, but then it won’t belong to one of the 3 Autumn Seasons.
Seems likes we’ve narrowed it down to Summer.
Trying to categorize it to its exact Season in the 12 possibilities isn’t really useful. This present exercise is more valuable as a way of EXcluding items from your shopping cart. Nobody whose main Season is Winter, Spring, or Autumn would buy this. The fine tuning is left to matching it to the Colours swatch Book.
Dominant Characteristics
There are color analysts who use this Color Me Beautiful technique very successfully to analyze human coloring. In my hands, that method seems to shake out a few snakes in the weeds. For analyzing clothes and makeup though, I like it. I could see how someone might call that hoodie dark and set off on the wrong track, but if you stick to the characteristic you’re absolutely most sure of, here being heathery-grayed-muted, it’s a good way of classifying an item.
So Sometimes, I’ll start with “What is most obvious?” on the 3 Colour Scales? The light/dark, warm/cool, hi/lo sat? To me, the most obvious thing about Example 1 is that it is dusty (low saturation). You could say cool too. There is a tendency to call all browns warm at the outset, like we tend to call all greys cool.
Example 2
So often, it’s the browns that mix us up. OK, mix me up. Another tendency is to give browns to Autumn. Autumns do look unequalled in their browns, but they’re usually wearing another Season’s shade of brown (before their PCA, of course).
This very cute shoe is at ShoeMall. The photo is linked
It’s clearly light. Heathery- grayed or clear and intense? Not sure, grayed I guess, like a pastel beige, but it’s hard to decided how gray a grayish color is. Maybe somewhere in between the two. (See Icy Colours and Pastels to understand the distinction between grayed and clear color.)
Warm or cool? I’d go with cool because I can’t see sunshine yellow or dull rust in it.
So it’s cool-side and light. Therefore, we’ve EXcluded True Autumns (orange-warmed and medium-dark), Springs (yellow-warmed and light), or Winters (icy lights, never pastel, and cool). Disqualified too are their strong blends (meaning, the 3 variations of each of those True Seasons). If you’re one of those 3, you probably wouldn’t buy this.
There is still room for error because all 3 of those True Seasons have some lighter colors in their palette. Maybe this is a color that any of the 12 Tones (Seasons) could wear, though not in shoes if the hair is a really different color. Could this be an example of a color that anyone could wear, that would be pulled together by the rest of the outfit?
If I’m really not getting a fix on a color’s position in the 12 Tones, I’ll switch to how it makes me feel. This beige feels cool, light, fresh, clean – Summer. The triangles and funky design say Spring. So I’ve probably EXcluded Autumns and Winters based on that.
Lesson : Check the Colours Book. Some colours are tougher to classify and unexpected in that Season. Some are also quite close between all the Seasons and very versatile workhorse colours.
Example 3
This great sequined doublet cardi is at J.Crew. I adore J.Crew’s way with color. They have many more colors on offer than the 4-color palette of so many other stores. When they create a color, they commit to it and get it right.
At first glance, I can see how you might say Autumn, because it’s golden-like. You might even see that shiny doublet piece peeking out and think “…and that dazzle is incongruent with Autumn’s feeling”.
Autumn is the nectar. Spring is the juice. This top might seem cider. Doesn’t help.
But Autumn doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel heavy or dulled enough. Nor does it convey mellow, cozy, or strong, all Autumn sensations. It might be orangey, but somehow the color feels too clean, maybe even a little sharp. It’s not greyed, certainly, in fact it seems quite saturated. The color is more strong than weak. It would be hard to saturate it more (remember that saturation is quite different from darkness), to make it more intense.
If we were looking at a landscape, would this color be in the foreground or melting away in the background? It would be near because it’s still vivid. It’s worth noting here that this element of saturation can give color a third dimension, a position of depth in space. Our brains understand that far away color is greyed, less brilliant, lower in saturation.
[A question for the color experts among us : Could the same be said of cool and dark colors? Both recede. A mountain range’s colors are cooler near the horizon. A forest is darker in the distance. Are all 3 parameters, hue, value, and chroma equally able to be the 3rd dimension of depth?]
Since the clarity of it might be confusing, though I see it as very clear (not at all cloudy) (apple juice, not peanut butter-a comparison I’m using to compare degrees of clarity, not the precise color itself), could we work it out based on its warmth? So, yes, it is a warm color. Is it warmed by Autum’s dull rust or Spring’s daffodil-buttercup yellow? I don’t get dull rust here. It’s more some kind of yellow-ness, right?
Does its lightness or darkness help us? Well, it’s more light to medium. Since it’s warm, we don’t talk about icy or pastel. Not really helpful.
My feelings tell me it’s clear (high saturation) and yellow. I look in the Colours Books. I find it among Bright Spring’s colors, with a gentler version in True Spring. The whole outfit is outstanding for Bright Spring, with the small but important element of black, yet overall light effect. Suddenly, the sequins make sense.
The Lesson is : Never shop without your Book.
.. you won’t remember color accurately, though you think you will; after 6-9 months, you’ll be better at it
.. for Including items in your cart, there are in-between levels of light/dark, warm/cool, and hi/lo saturation. For the 8 Neutral Seasons, you won’t get the degree of in-between-ness correct. The color analyzed swatches can be unpredictable. The color variations in the 12 Seasons are quite unique, to a level that the fashion industry has not nearly caught up with.
Your Suggestions
I enjoy this type of exercise because color is surprising and we all learn. If any of you have been confused or intrigued by a color, LMK. We’ll do another one of these articles.
Comments
15 Responses to “Understanding A Color 1”
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I think someone asked this once before on the Facebook page, but does any of the Spring blends have an olive green — a bright olive green. I realize what I call olive might not be what someone else does, so maybe a warm, saturated gold-green then? Kind of like this?
http://www.myperfectcolor.com/Match-of-Muralo-A931-Chartreuse-p/mpc0063574.htm
I have a sweater close to that color, a little more saturated that I think looks good on me, and I always assumed it belong to one of the autumns, but truly autumn colors look heavy on me. It also has a bit of a sheen, and generally, I look good in fabrics that shine, so that might be what I’m reacting to. On me, this color actually looks better, and I tend to pair it with black:
http://www.myperfectcolor.com/Match-of-Sico-4005-54-Daring-Green-p/mpc0069456.htm
On my monitor, both those colors seem pretty saturated and definitely warm. Bright spring? Warm spring?
Christine, I love this article; so incredibly helpful to a more refined understanding of color. I think I had an epiphany of some kind, the first time you mentioned “peanut butter vs. apple juice.” What a wonderfully useful analogy. I do admittedly find this idea a bit easier to apply with clothing than elsewhere, where I still get muddled trying to find the totally muted colors suitable for soft tones. For example, I find glosses often veer more toward “apple juice than peanut butter,” due to the intrinsic glow factor. In terms of achieving color balance, how important are such subtle degrees of approximation? Is a bit of apple juice okay, as long as the shade is correct? Or does it disrupt the overall schematic integrity?
Very interesting. thank you very much!
Example with the cardigan was especially interesting to me.
I wonder why the grey hoodie isn’t dark enough to be called dark?..
The hoody looks dark until you cover up the contrasting white shells, then it looks medium. The shoes are a great colour, they match my hair.
Adriane, what you want to avoid, as a Soft Autumn, is sharpness. The Bright Spring who would wear that cardigan wants to move towards the clean, crisp feeling of apple juice. Delving into color theory to position a color is very hard, and for me too. Thinking about how it feels to look at it is easier for me. Honey is probably between the 2, and would probably work very well for both. Subtlety is all very good, and fun to contemplate, but IRL, fashion and cosmetics do not entertain much of it. Also, no item is worn in isolation. The rest of the outfit can held skew it in the right direction.
I get it about the hoodie, Jes. So if we say the dark comparison is to deep black, in fact picture that right beside the item, then the hoodie has a ways to go, right? Medium-dark, sure, I’d buy that.
Color is entirely understood by comparison. The Season palettes are only dark or muted or light WHEN COMPARED to another, but all the variables live on a scale.
Really cool (huh is that a pun? lol!) article. It made me think of when I took a photography class years ago (prior to digital cameras) We used to use colored filtered lenses to change the affect of lighting, ie pink tone, grey, spia, etc. We could literally change the color of a Pink Rose and make it Brite Coral. By adding two filters grey and a golden,we could change a brite sunny day to look like late evening. These filters were very sheer (just a hint of color) yet their affect was quite amazing. I’m not sure if this will help anyone understand color any better than you have described, but I have had fun remembering.
Of course the hoody is not VERY dark, everything is relative.
Hi Christine,
A terrific article! I was shopping yesterday after reading your article and I found that the questions are helpful even when trying to match colors to the book. Matching to the book colors is hard for me – I see the similarities more than the differences. And I wonder “How close is close enough?”. Yesterday I had some close matches – but when i asked the questions I decided NOT to buy several things. For example a brown that was exact on the light/dark and soft/clear scales was cooler than my book. Then there was a green that matched in terms of soft and warm but was too dark. I’m thrilled to not have “almost right” and “why doesn’t this work” clothes cluttering up my closet.
I love the idea of more articles like this one – what about one looking at various shades of denim?
Thanks,
Denise
Another article idea. Several people who comment about these articles (including me) have been analyzed as more than 1 season. Certainly the complications of color theory and human coloring make this totally understandable. Some guidelines for choosing among more than 1 sci/art analyzed season would be very helpful.
Thanks!
Denise
Well, it helps me, Betty. That filter you describe is what I think of as the person’s ‘undertone’. The filter that is overlaid on the entire palette of colours (from the article Skin Undertones, awhile back). And it is powerful.
Matching the Book takes time, Denise. I make the odd mistake too, usually because of store lighting or being in a hurry. Close enough is still way better than you used to look though. It helps me to think about the entire palette at once. So, if I’m looking at a lipstick, I’ll think about what the whole palette seen together should convey, like Bright Winter’s faintest yellowness and purest clearness, and look for that. Denim is a great idea, I was actually thinking of doing a video about it. And about choosing between Seasons (though I kind of feel that I spend my life doing that already
)
Verbally, yes, Kathy, bright olive green, but I’ll have to look for a swatch for you. The 2 linked to are too dulled, too muted. The yellow-green of Spring is more like new leaf than anything olivey.
Christine, Thanks for your reply. Looking for the overall feeling of the palette makes sense to me. In a previous post I had said that I was bright winter who had been mistyped as soft autumn. I’m impressed that you remembered bright winter!
Lately I’ve been reassessing these two palettes with clothes and makeup. I think it may be the other way around – that I’m a soft autumn mistyped as a bright winter. Soft autumn colors make my skin look softer, younger, peachier. My eyes look soft and mysterious and their colors are beautiful. Bright winter colors make my eyes really sparkle and my hair look darker. They make my face look even toned in that they drain it of color – so I get a pinkish-white skin and dark hair look. But they emphasize the lines and dark circles. I look a little harsh. Black, white, and bright blue are definitely to strong for me. But I love the sparkling eye effect! I get compliments that I look great when I wear soft autumn; I get compliments on the colors when I wear bright winter – hmmm. . . .
It’s fascinating to see sparkly eyes but older looking skin vs. young looking skin and softer eyes. The woman who analyzed me as a soft autumn was deciding between soft autumn and dark autumn (which also did the sparkly eyes and darker hair and lighter skin effect). She sent pictures to Kathryn Kalitz who said I was definitely a soft autumn because of how the drapes looked next to my skin – the peach tones were exactly right.
I’m wondering – might there be such a thing as a season and a harmony season (as in the old Color Me A Season theories)? Is there a way to use bright winter colors as accents to the soft autumn palette without hurting the young, soft, pretty skin effect of soft autumn? Or maybe I just need to emotionally accept what is and is not part of my look. . .
Sorry for the long post and hard questions, but I’d love to hear your opinion! Thanks
Denise, have you tried Bright Winter makeup worn with Soft Autumn clothes? Or a Bright Winter top with a Soft Autumn scarf? In other words, a large area of colour for the skin, and a little patch for the eyes… If I were you, I’d stick with the Soft Autumn. It might be the drama of the Bright Winter that is so appealing. If you look like Snow White, your skin should glow. That’s my opinion, anyway.
Christine, I was always led to believe that it’s cooler/softer/lighter as things recede, at least when heading towards the horizon
Thanks Ellen,
I appreciate your opinion about sticking to soft autumn – the snow white look with bright winter colors does NOT include glowing or younger looking skin on me. On my last shopping trip I found two tops with soft autumn colors that included a little charcoal/soft black from bright winter, darker than the greys in soft autumn. They looked terrific. I also have a scarf that combines both palettes that I like a lot. I think I’ll experiment with your ideas as well. Thanks for sending them along!
Just an update. It seemed to me that blending two palettes was missing the point. So, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. I thought back to my soft autumn analysis in which we thought the skin effects with my hair covered were better in dark autumn, but my analyst felt that the grey in my hair (dark brown-black) would soften the look so that soft autumn would be better. I’ve been experimenting with dark autumn colors and I feel that I’ve “come home.” I think they also look better with my hair as the grey is a bright silvery tone. In these colors my skin looks peachy/pinky healthy and younger with no yellow or fading to white.
Thanks to everyone for bearing with me during my confusion!