A couple of nights ago, I took my shirt off and  threw on a  headband so I could wash my face before bed.

This particular headband is from Free People, and I adore it because it's an abstract pattern in my Soft Autumn colors. I wish I could find a picture of it online.  It's a little like this, but with warmer hues:

Anyway, when I saw myself in the mirror, I was struck by how perfect the headband looked  with my  stretchy periwinkle bralette. The combination was gorgeous. 

I actually spent about ten seconds trying to imagine an excuse to wear the headband and the bralette together somewhere. Just the bralette, mind you. No shirt. A music festival, maybe? 

I discarded that idea pretty quickly, LOL.

But the feeling of happiness that I got from looking in the mirror and thinking, "That really looks beautiful!" stayed with me. 

​One of the reasons that I love knowing my perfect colors is that I get those moments often. I look in the mirror and see perfect color harmony, and my day is a little brighter. 

Visual beauty brings us joy. Being able to look in the mirror and identify beauty there brings us joy.  We all deserve to have more of that feeling. ​

Last week, I explained that Romantic, Natural, Ingenue, and Gamine characteristics come from physical traits that actually distinguish women from men and adults from children. 

​I didn't address Ethereal and Dramatic, though. That's because those beauty archetypes don't arise  wholly from what's true about actual human women and men. 

I believe that the archetypes of Ethereal and Dramatic arise instead from our fantasies of supernatural or inhuman women and men. 

More specifically, I propose the following:

• We humans like to imagine magical, superhuman, and supernatural forces.

• We like to give these imagined forces physical forms. 

• We generally  ascribe feminine physical qualities to those beings we imagine as helpful.

• We generally ascribe masculine physical qualities to those beings we imagine as dangerous. 

​

​
​The overall physical impression of these beings is rather feminine, but some traits that characterize average human women, such as a relatively round face and relatively small nose, are missing.

These are feminine faces, but it's an imagined femininity, not a mortal, "estrogenized" femininity. 

From this imagining, I believe, emerges the archetype of Ethereal beauty. ​

​See the similarities between the faces above and the Ethereal faces below. Faces are elongated and oval-shaped, gently sculpted but without harsh angles. Eyes are penetrating, wise, and peaceful, more almond-shaped than round, and often heavy-lidded. Noses are long and narrow. Lips are a bit fleshy and feminine, but not voluptuous. Eyebrows are narrow, long, and gently arched. Foreheads are high.  The hairline is rounded. 

As for Dramatics:

I believe our idea of the Dramatic archetype derives from the way that we ascribe masculine physical traits to superhuman or imaginary creatures we view as dangerous.

The obvious example of this is a devil, but other examples include vampires, dragons, witches, sorcerers, and deities of war and chaos. Even when these characters are female, we tend to give them masculinized features.

The masculine physical qualities we project onto dangerous characters include an angular, sharply sculpted face: narrow, angled eyes that are closely set; a heavy or protruding brow; prominent cheekbones; a sharp nose; and extreme coloring.

 
The overall impression of all of these creatures is masculine, but some features, such as prominent cheekbones and somewhat narrow chins, are not characteristic of average human men. These are masculine faces, but it's an abstracted masculinity, not a human, "testosteronized" masculinity. 

And it's from this archetype of "inhuman + intimidating," I believe, that we derive our idea of Dramatic beauty.

See the similarities between the faces above and the striking beauty of strongly Dramatic people: Faces are elongated and sharply sculpted. Cheekbones are prominent. Noses are long, prominent,  and flared.  Brow ridges project out over the eyes. Eyebrows are prominent and sharp, or rather horizontal.  Eyes are piercing, narrow, and often close-set. Mouths are rather horizontal. The hairline is horizontal or sharply peaked. 

​Compared to Ethereal, the face overall is more sharply chiseled and more square or rectangular, with few circle or oval shapes.

Dramatics are incredibly striking, and more likely to be called "beautiful" or "stunning" than "cute" or "adorable." But, of course,  that  doesn't imply that they're evil, any more than pure Ethereals are good.  They simply resemble, in their geometry, the intimidating creatures of the human imagination. The heart of the Dramatic is power, and power can be frightening. 

It's probably obvious to you at this point that Ethereals and Dramatics actually have some overlap. I think this is because there are certain features -- facial elongation in particular -- that read as "otherworldly," whether they're masculine or feminine. 

A key distinguisher between Ethereal and Dramatic may be your answer to the question, "Does this beauty feel pacific and still, or active and intimidating?"

​Some amazing people, such as Tilda Swinton, possess a good bit of both:
​

Is she approaching or receding? Will she hurt you or help you? It's hard to say. That's the combination of Ethereal and Dramatic. It's no coincidence that Swinton has been cast as a madonna, a deadly angel, a witch, a vampire, and an immortal sorcerer.

So, to synthesize  this week and last week: 

Our ideas of Romantic, Natural, Gamine and Ingenue beauty derive from real, human physical characteristics that signal biological sex and age.

Our ideas of Ethereal and Dramatic beauty derive from gendered fantasies of inhuman or unearthly  beauty: Ethereal represents an archetype of supernatural beauty that's feminized and benevolent, while Dramatic represents an archetype of supernatural beauty that's masculine and dangerous. 

                                               *  *  *  
A final comment that I really hope doesn't need to be made, but that I will make anyway, just in case:

By noticing that angels and aliens are generally rendered as  feminine, while devils and dragons are generally rendered as masculine, I am in no way saying I think it's right that femaleness is identified with virtue and purity, while maleness is identified with malevolence.  

Description is not prescription. 

Personally, it drives me nuts when people trot out that tired old idea of women as the gatekeepers of morality.   

Plenty of women are evil. Plenty of men are good. Almost all of us are a mix of both.  

If I could wave my magic wand, we'd live in a world where "feminine" =/= gentle and passive, and "masculine" =/= aggressive and predatory.

Alas, that's not our world, and these archetypes do exist. 

For the purposes of helping all of us look amazing, I see it as my job to accurately describe the archetypes.

For better or worse, "Dramatic" features read as masculine and intimidating, and look the most beautiful with sharp, straight, intimidating clothes.

For better or worse,  "Ethereal" features read as feminine and peaceful, and look the most beautiful with  long, sinuous, delicate lines. 

If you're not sure of your Style Identity, try the Style Identity Calculator, or consider investing in a virtual style analysis. 

How's that for a click-baity title, ha ha? 

​(Seriously though, I might be the only person alive who prefers long and dry over short and grabby. I am wholly a nerd.)

At any rate,  here's what I mean:  In my  Style Identity system, when I say that a physical characteristic reads as womanly, or manly, or mature, or childlike, that's generally because that (average) physical difference exists in real life. 

We are all unconsciously aware of the visual signifiers of masculinity and femininity, of maturity and youth. We make instantaneous judgments about other people's age and masculinity/femininity based on visual cues we're not even aware that we are processing.
​
Here are some examples of what I mean. 

• The distance between the upper lip and the nose lengthens as we age. Additionally, this distance is greater in men than in women. So a short distance here, especially accompanied with quite visible top teeth, tends to create a youthful and feminine  -- in other words, an Ingenue-- impression. 

• Lip fullness peaks in adolescence, and women's lips are on average fuller than men's.  Plumper or puffier lips tend to read Romantic, because  Romantic embodies the fully mature, "pubertal" (I love that word!) feminine essence. Thinner lips, by contrast,  tend to read as Natural. 

​

• Men's foreheads, on average, appear shorter than women's (because they are less vertical, and because men on average have lower hairlines than women).  So short foreheads tend to read as  Natural. 
  
  
• Chin clefts are more common in men than in women. The presence of a chin cleft can increase the overall Natural or Gamine impression of a face.

 

• A dark ring around the iris -- a "limbal ring" -- is more common in children than adults. (Limbal rings fade with age.) So the presence of a limbal ring tends to contribute to a Gamine or Ingenue impression.  

• Men tend to have wider noses than women, so a wide nose tends to read as Natural or Gamine, while a narrow nose tends to read as Romantic or Ingenue. 

NB: A viewer makes these judgments in the context of the subject's perceived ethnicity.  So, while it is the case that African noses are on average somewhat wider than European noses, it's not the case that women of African descent appear more visually masculine than women of European descent. The viewer in this example unconsciously takes perceived ethnicity into consideration when processing the visual appearance of a nose. 

​                                    *  *  *  *  *

You may notice that I didn't mention Ethereal, Dramatic, or Classic in this article.

Classics are easy: Imagine that you averaged all male features and all female features. Beauty in a female Classic represents a face that's slightly to the feminine side of that perfect average, and beauty in a male Classic represents a point that's slight to the male side. In Classic men and women both, nothing's noticeably big, or small, or sharp, or round, or high, or low, or full, or thin, or wide, or narrow.  See more about that beauty  here.

As for Ethereals and Dramatics, their beauty derives from archetypes that aren't based in human physical reality. That's a long post, though, so I'll save it for next week.  :-)

Wow, brown is important for True Spring, right?  

​It makes sense if you think about the fact that we rely on our darker neutrals for eyeliner, eyeshadow and mascara. Which dark neutrals does each season get?  A lot of seasons get brown *and* charcoal, or brown *and* black, or charcoal *and* black. But True Spring, being purely warm, doesn’t have black, or even charcoal. Its darkest neutrals are basically versions of brown:

True Spring colors, and makeup, are warm, warm, warm. (Brown is just dark orange, and orange is arguably the warmest color.)
​​
If you compare this word cloud to Light Spring’s, you’ll notice that the True Spring cloud features “red” much more prominently. That reflects True Spring’s turn to more vivid primaries, from Light Spring's comparatively pastel-y hues.

Compared to Bright Spring’s word cloud, “pink” is de-emphasized here. True Spring doesn’t have any real pinks to speak of; they’re all quite orangey and coraly:

​If you think you’re a True Spring but you don’t yet own the makeup list, try googling cosmetics with words from the True Spring word cloud in the name. (For example, lipstick apricot, or blush coral, or eyeliner cocoa.)

And if you’re not sure what your season is, try the at-home draping cards. They're the most affordable option for accurate color draping.