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Are You Lost in Soft Natural?

8/21/2017

"Soft Natural" seems to be almost a catch-all category for women with some Natural and some feminine influence. That's because it's a style type that collapses features of several types into just one. This creates confusion for a lot of women.

"Soft Natural" is essentially Natural with Romantic. Romantic is sexy, womanly femininity. Now, that kind of feminine beauty isn't the only kind. But some systems believe it is.

In a system that only has one feminine essence, all manifestations of feminine beauty end up getting assigned to Romantic. So women whose feminine beauty is of the Ingenue or Ethereal variety end up getting categorized as Soft Natural, and the recs don't all work.

For example, Soft Naturals supposedly get light, floaty fabrics. Those don't work well on women with a lot of Romantic, but they're great on women with a lot of Ethereal. If you're an unsatisfied Soft Natural who looks great in light-as-air fabrics and the most mystical aspect of Soft Natural, you might be Ethereal Natural instead.

Soft Naturals also supposedly get puff sleeves. Puff sleeves are girly, even princessy -- in other words, they're Ingenue. If you're an unsatisfied Soft Natural who's great in puff sleeves and other girly aspects of Soft Natural, you might actually be a Natural Ingenue.

Still lost? Consider a virtual analysis.

20 Comments

Rosetta

8/22/2017 07:39:05 am

I never really got into Kibbe, it just didn't seem to make much sense to me, so I never really got lost in Soft Natural or any other category, thank goodness ;)

And no wonder Kibbe didn't make sense to me, as half of my essences are missing in his system (and many others) - Ingenue and Ethereal!

Stacy

8/22/2017 09:49:06 pm

Yeah, I agree. Ethereal and Ingenue missing? Those are so different than romantic.

Beth

8/24/2017 10:13:48 am

I had the Kibbe book once in my possession. I read and re-read it and thought it was the answer to all my style issues. But, I kept checking each of his physical descriptions against my own body and none ever added up "correctly." Either, the book was askew or I was askew. Sometimes, I would choose one of his styles, because, at times, my friends or coworkers would say I reminded them of some celebrity or there was some celebrity I wanted to look (be) like. All Wrong! So, I got rid of the book. Now, I found it's selling for "bogus bucks" on Amazon and other sites; but, all the information in the book is available FREE on Pinterest. However, the moral of the story lies in a few books published in the past few years; where they say things like; "Think like Einstein, Shakespeare, or whoever." Well, honestly, I just want to "think like me" and I guess that means to be totally congruent; I just want to "dress like me" too. Does anyone else have the same ideas? I am thankful for this website that can give us little helpful clues. Thank you.

Jenn

8/24/2017 09:38:04 pm

Yeah there is so much confusion out there and it's hard to be yourself when they try to tell you who to be and it doesn't match who you are. I am grateful for a site that combines all the types and explains them in such detail that I see myself finally.

Rachel

8/26/2017 09:48:51 pm

8 years ago, I couldn't find myself in Kibbe either. The closest fit was Flamboyant Natural -- Natural with Dramatic. It wasn't quite right, though. Turns out I'm Ethereal Natural. There is some overlap between Ethereal and Dramatic, so FN was definitely my best fit in Kibbe -- but it was too masculine to flatter me.

8/26/2017 02:14:28 pm

Man, I sure got lost in Kibbe land before finding this site. But I have to say, AFTER doing your version of style analysis, Rachel, I've been able to get some use out of Kibbe. A lot of style stuff on the internet (okay, Pinterest) is Kibbe. I've found that I can 'reverse engineer' some useful info out of Kibbe boards, if I go in knowing what you pointed out here.

So since I find ethereal-natural-classic works best for me, I often poke around on Kibbe Soft Classic and Soft Natural and even Flamboyant Natural boards (since he often conflates dramatic and ethereal). I use your What to Wear and What Not to Wear guides to weed out the stuff that doesn't work. But that way, I find I can use the Kibbe confusion to my advantage and get some inspiration.

But again, I needed the clarification of your feminine style types *first*, and then I was ready to tackle Kibbe for my own use.

8/26/2017 09:45:34 pm

I actually do the same thing! :-) If I'm looking for good examples of Gamine Ingenue, for example, I can often find them on boards other stylephiles have labeled "Soft Gamine."

8/27/2017 07:43:20 am

That's really interesting, W! I have indeed noticed I can find *something* to relate in some of Kibbe's Romantic & Soft Classic stuff on Pinterest (that often come up when googling style stuff), though obviously there's always some element(s) missing... So while I'll stick to these categories perfected by Rachel, I might still find some use in Kibbe after all ;)

Karina

10/20/2017 03:40:06 pm

I think I found another way to find out if you are ethereal, instead of romantic or ingenue. If someone looks alluring with wet tousled hair (freshly out of the shower), that person is an ethereal. However, if someone looks "drowned", they belong to the other two essences

Melissa

5/22/2022 08:26:58 am

I think it's actually the opposite. If you look drowned with wet hair it would be because your hair is very fine. And very fine angel hair is one of the key traits for Ethereal.

Melina

11/15/2022 09:21:29 am

I disagree (with Melissa) - any essence can actually have fine hair! Fine hair isn't mentioned as E anywhere on this site either that I've seen, not to mention as being a "key trait" (while s-waves are).

I myself have fine hair, but now I've started to doubt whether I actually have much E, like I had thought... I'd love to be E, but it may well be that I'm simply RI (and thus basically any combo with those two seems to fit)!

11/15/2022 09:24:02 am

And I certainly do look drowned with wet hair, as Karina said ;)

10/30/2017 02:13:55 pm

The Kibbe system has no place for me, unfortunately. I tried to take it, and I mostly got Natural and Classic answers (with a smidge of Ingenue and Dramatic answers), which they don't have a category for. Turns out that I am primarily E, and I have no idea where the Natural came from. I'm all over the place.

Elena

7/13/2018 05:44:35 am

And I completely found myself in Kibbe's Soft Natural. I tried and I tried to categorize myself as some of Rachel's essences and combinations, but none of them was IT. Then I went back to Kibbe and realized that I was overcomplicating things. In Rachel's system, I could pass as Romantic Natural (but not quite so, a bit too Romantic), or Gamine+Ethereal+Natural/Dramatic (a bit too childish). Everything else was way off.

Soft Natural is what I truly am, and I like its simplicity, I like that it's sensual without being too sexy as Romantics are, or cute (Ingenue), or strangely delicate (Ethereal). Everything fits from jewelry to lines and fabrics.

Anyway, I do think Rachel's system is awesome and I have personally found many people who fit perfectly into some of her boards. It's just that I don't.

Lyra link

8/20/2018 12:40:52 am

|I am so glad I found this site and got your style ID calculator - prior to that I was floundering between classic, which was just a tad too boring on me, soft natural and soft classic which didn't quite work - and soft gamine which almost worked but again something was off. But the style ID calculator tool came out 30-30-30 ingenue-classic-romantic, with the ingenue and classic being a little stronger.

Candice

2/25/2019 01:48:45 pm

Thanks for this post I've been trawling the web looking for answers. My House of Colour consultant put me as a 'Natural Romantic' which felt right but didn't really align to any of the Kibbe system. You are the first page I've found which confirms that soft natural is indeed Natural romantic. But in my consultation she said I need to bring in elements of romantic (glamour, detail, luxury, sexiness) into my Natural - things like velvet, silk, lace, tight fitting, accessories etc and I don't see that described often for the soft naturals. Sift natural seems to be all loose and flowing, which is not really what I tend to wear as my rtomantic side likes the sexiness of figure hugging...I'd love your thoughts

Marianne

10/23/2020 02:30:05 pm

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

So these body types really form a square, Dramatic, Natural, Gamine and Romantic at the corners, Classic in the center and intermediate position between these.

Natural has Flamboyant Natural towards Dramatic, Soft Natural towards Romantic and a third one, let's call it "Classic Natural" towards Classic.

To take back your vocabulary, Etheral Natural is halfway between Natural and Classic, Natural Ingenue is halfway between Natural and Romantic.

3/6/2021 11:41:16 am

I can relate here as I thought I might be a Soft Natural for a long time but it never really fit. I was first introduced to Kibbe a long time ago by someone on a style forum and when I first took the test without knowing anything about the ID's I got Theatrical Romantic (essentially all D's) which was really all wrong for me because I already knew that I needed some drape, elongation and flow. A well-meaning person suggested Soft Natural as an alternative and, while I tried to make it work, my original instinct that the recs were too bulky and angular for me eventually won out, and I walked away from style systems.
Coming back to all this stuff has been interesting and revisiting Kibbe with fresh eyes (and some help from family members) and reading extensively online about some of the newer typing concepts, I actually land pretty accurately in Soft Classic, but despite it being a much more native (to me) fit, something else there is rather "missing", also. After returning to this site as well and studying some of the newer style systems (ie. Blossom), I realize that for me it's the Ethereal identity that is sorely missing in Kibbe, as well as the possibility of other combinations of elements, like we have here. While I have respect for the Kibbe system as one of the major forerunners along with McJimsey and Kitchener, it is missing core elements - like Ethereal and Ingenue, and the very real probability among billions of people that nature really does "cross the streams" often enough - which is why I think many people go around and around with Kibbe and never truly find themselves there. Like anything else, we need to read Kibbe with all our critical thinking skills and realize that any system or philosophy (if you will) can be improved upon by updated perspectives. Thank you, Rachel, for offering us a system with diverse possibilities that are easy to understand and apply.

Adrienne

5/31/2021 08:23:29 am

Hi Rachel,

I don't understand how your system is different from John Kitchener's. PSC also has seven essences.

Anna link

10/24/2023 11:35:56 pm

I am something in btw soft natural and soft classic...believe u or not I very struggled to find the right stylist to help me with my wardrobe. Once I found, I still can't find the right clothes, brands for me. Where do you mostly get your clothes from?

Truth is Beauty

Are You Lost in Soft Natural?

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