Not all of the colors in your correct seasonal palette will be your absolute favorites.

Depending on your depth of coloring, your level of contrast, and the specific colors of  your body, some will be more useful to you than others, and in different ways.

A dark-skinned Winter, for example, might use black as an accent, while a fair-skinned Winter might wear it in large blocks.

But no color in your palette will be awful on you.  The colors in your palette are all harmonious with each other, and if it's your proper palette, they'll all be harmonious with you too.

So for those of you still searching for your season, I give you colors that are seasonal deal-breakers.

If the given color absolutely doesn't work for you, the deal's off. Move this season to the end of the list.

You can't use this list to identify your single best season. But you can use it to rule seasons out.


If you can't rock hot pink, rule out Bright Spring.

Bright Spring has a handful of pinks in this general vicinity.  You may not associate pink with Spring. But moving Spring reds toward Winter means making them both darker and brighter. Reds that are both deep and very bright are purple-reds. So in Bright Spring, we find hot pinks.

If you think you're a Spring but hot pink is no good for you, True Spring may be your home.

If you're not fabulous in lime green, rule out Bright Winter.

Taking True Winter's greens lighter and brighter, all the way into Bright Winter, moves them toward yellow. One of the results is a sort of fluorescent lime. On Bright Winters, this color is amazing. It contrasts beautifully with both very dark and very light skin.

If this color's not right for you, but you think you're a Winter, try Dark Winter next.

A handful of the seasons have some sort of mint. True Summer's is not a pure, saturated mint that's close to aqua. Instead it's a delicate and slightly hazy mint. It's lovely with a delicate fuchsia lip.

If this feels all wrong to you, perhaps vivid mint is beter? You might be a Winter.

Dark Winter yellows are tricky. They're not clear and pure like True Winter's. They're not blindingly bright. They're just slightly warmed, a little rich - but not Autumn rich. Penelope Cruz is lovely here in what looks like one of Dark Winter's elusive yellows.

If you need your yellows purer, try one of the other Winters. And if you need a more delicate yellow, try one of the Summers.

This Dark Autumn color always surprises me. Call it orchid or begonia perhaps. It's not a color I would label Dark Autumn if I saw it in a pile of a hundred other colors. Yet it's gorgeous with the intense dark olives and vivid teals of the season.

Dark Autumn Natalie Portman's been photographed in three or four dresses in something like this color. They're all great on her. If it's not great on you, perhaps try True Autumn or Bright Spring.

Was it Christine Scaman who said Light Spring colors are popsicle colors? It's true. But every season has neutrals, of course. This unusual Light Spring color is like your usual khaki, but with a suggestion of green and gold. On a Light Spring, it may pick up tones in the eye or hair.

If this color's a no-go on you, perhaps look at Light Summer instead.

Light Summer doesn't get very warm, but in the pinks it does go as far as a pinky coral. It's a bit pinker than what you see here, but still warmish. On a Light Summer it picks up healthy color in the face.

If you think you're a Summer but can't wear this light, delicate, warm tone, look at True Summer.

True Spring's colors are Crayola colors. You can see them in this picture of Nicole Kidman: blue dress, yellow hair, red-orange lips.  In these simple primaries, True Spring is gorgeous.

If you struggle to articulate the names of your best colors, they're not True Spring's. You might consider Summer or Autumn. 

True Autumn has a few beautiful burgundies that go beautifully with the rich greens and oranges of the season. You can see all those colors here, in Noa Tishby's face.
Those burgundies make good lippies too.

If this burgundy overwhelms you, try something from Soft Autumn.

This is not a warm golden brown or a milk chocolate brown. If you're a Summer, none of those browns will work for you. Browns are generally bad for Summers, as a rule. But if you're a Soft Summer, you will be lovely in cocoa brown. It's a brown that looks both slightly greyed and slightly purpled. It may pick up tones in your hair.

If this color just isn't right for you, try True Summer next.

This blue feels both rich and muted, and quite medium - neiher purpley nor greenish. I's similar to the color you get if you Google "French blue."

Though it's a subtle color, on Soft Autumn skin it's just as powerful as it needs to be. Notice how rich it looks on Natascha McElhone.

If you need a blue that's much richer than this, you might try a Winter or a Spring.

   *             *              *
For any of these seasons, Google the season's name in quotes to see images of the palette. Images that say "Sci/Art" are usually quite accurate. Or order sheets of color from all 12 seasons to try the seasons out in person.

As always, I hope this helps you find your correct season.  :-)


This post first ran in April of 2013. 

If you're not sure what your style type is, check out the Style Identity Calculator, or consider a Virtual Analysis.

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Ingenue

   hair neat curls medium -frizz -wild

Other Ingenue keywords to try:  sweet  girlish  ringlets

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​Classic

    hair mature medium  

Also, this one works well:

    hair tv anchor

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​Dramatic

   hair sleek

Other Dramatic terms to try: "slicked back" futuristic  -men 


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Game of Thrones!

I'm a huge fan of the George R.R. Martin book series and I can't stay away from the TV show either.

So, Emilia Clarke. You've been wondering too, right?

I love Daenerys. But that white-blonde Targaryen hair is so not her. Her coloring's not delicate like that. It makes her seem ghostly.

So probably no Light Spring or Light Summer here.

The natural brown's so much better, isn't it? Just look at this. So real. So beautiful.

The black blazer isn't quite the thing, though. Much darker than she is. Ixnay on any palette that contains black. (That's all three Winters, Dark Autumn and Bright Spring.) 

Just to belabor the point: NOT a Winter.

My very first thought about her was Soft Summer. My first thought is often wrong, but in this case I think it may have been correct. 

These Summery colors are not at all bad, but don't they need to be just a little deeper and warmer? Emilia's skin is a tad richer than these hues.

This is fantastic. Is that one of Soft Summer's teals? It looks like it could be.

True and beautiful. These look like Soft Summer colors to me.

Soft Summers, what do you think? Is Daenerys Targaryen one of you?



Try figuring out your own true colors at home.



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• If you have long hair, a bun or a slicked-back low ponytail is a very quick Dramatic hairstyle. Show off those striking features!  If you have very short hair, slick it back with gel. (This actually looks great for long hair too.)

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This was one of the few makeup word clouds that came out more or less exactly as I would have predicted.  Maybe that's because the True Autumn palette is such an intuitive palette; it's very easy to explain. I mean, it's right there in the name. 

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Soft Summer on the left, Light Summer on the right.

Soft Summer on the left, True Summer on the right. 

I can't say enough about this beautiful handmade jewelry.  I'm writing about it because I had the opportunity this summer to see it in person. 

I had no idea what went into making jewelry by hand. It's frankly awe-inspiring to hold one of these in your hand and think about the fact that the person sitting across from you made it. The silversmith who makes this jewelry, Linda Groom, is so talented.  This is the kind of jewelry  you own forever; it's flawlessly crafted, it's heavy -- it's real, you know? 

One of the things I really respect about Linda's jewelry is that she has a consistent aesthetic you can feel across all of her pieces. Blunt edges, earthy materials, organic shapes, and hammered finishes  embody the Natural style type.  If you're a Natural blend, there's a piece in Linda's collection that will resonate with you.
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I love this bracelet for a Natural with Ethereal and Classic elements, a "Preppy Bohemian."  The glow of the silver, the slender,  gently curving lines, and the overall color scheme add Ethereal; the regularity and balance make it fitting for a Classic as well. 

This gorgeous bracelet is good for a Natural with a strong Romantic influence -- a "Babe Next Door."  Romantic comes in through the rounder shapes and the deep purple color. 

I love this bracelet.  It's abstract, but dainty and playful too. It's great for a Natural with Ethereal and either Gamine or Ingenue essences. 

These are gorgeous earrings for a Natural with some Ethereal and Ingenue influences -- a"Flower Child." 

This is a beautiful bracelet for a Natural with Romantic and Classic -- "Today's Southern Belle."   The cuff's overall symmetry adds the Classic element.

These earrings would be lovely for a Natural Gamine with some additional feminine influence (Romantic, Ethereal, or Ingenue).  

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I love these for a Natural with Romantic and Ethereal  -- a  "Glamorous Gypsy." Romantics are great with big, round shapes; the cutout here adds a mystical quality. 

  

Linda makes knives too; can you believe it? So incredibly cool.

I wonder what types you think her other pieces would suit? Check them out here, and let me know in the comments. 


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Swatching on your own skin is not accurate! 

Please don't rely on skin swatching as a method for matching a color to your palette.

​I explained in another post why this method is unreliable; I'll quote myself here:

 - - - - 

When you apply a red or pink to your skin, the result that the viewer sees is a color that combines that red or pink with your skin color. 

That's the effect you're going for.

The effect is a less saturated version of the pure swatch red or pink because it's blended with your skin color, and it  looks perfect on your skin. 

If you "swatch" makeup on  your skin, you're not learning what color it really is; you're learning what color it looks like mixed with  your skin color.

That's not the information you need in order to know whether a pink or red matches your actual palette colors. You need to match those reds and pinks.
 - - - - -

I hope this makes sense.  

Basically, on your skin, your reds and pinks should not match your color swatches. Honestly, if they do, that might be a problem; it means the product is sitting on top of your skin instead of blending with it. 

​Look at this example, from LollyJane, of the same lip color applied to nine different sets of lips.  

So, yes, buy your seasonal color palette, and swatch makeup (on white paper!) by comparing it to that palette.  

But if you don't want to spend the time doing that yourself, just buy my list!

Each list contains over 400 products -- some as many as 800 -- that have already been swatched to that season's palette.  So you don't have to do it. 

I have been keeping these lists for years.  It started just as a hobby, because I am a data nut. Eventually, I realized that people might want to pay for someone else to do this work, and voila! the makeup lists were born. 

Quick answers to F.A.Q.S: 

- All products on the lists are matched to Sci/Art - accurate swatchbooks. That includes both original Sci/Art swatchbooks, and those swatchbooks from companies who adopted original Sci/Art palettes in their own swatchbooks.  Other swatchbooks aren't color-accurate, and I don't use them to match cosmetics.

- The lists include both drugstore brands and high-end brands.

- The lists are generally updated twice a year. 

​- The lists include discontinued products that are still available online.

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​The discount code is BEAUTIFUL. It's good for 20% off all 12 seasonal makeup lists, and it will work until Wednesday, August 29th. 

Enjoy, my friends!

Each of the 12 seasonal color palettes, taken as a whole, is unique. 

But if you compare color-by-color,  some individual colors in neighbor palettes can look so similar to each other as to be almost indistinguishable.

Light Spring and Light Summer, for example, have several pinks, yellows, blues and purples that look an awful lot alike.

1. Light Summer has a greyed wine neutral that looks something like this:

Nothing in Light Spring even remotely resembles this. If you're flattered by this color, rule out Light Spring.

2. Light Summer also has blueish greys, such as this one:

On a Light Summer, this color may harmonize with subtle tones in the eyes or hair. On a Light Spring, this color may create an unhealthy pallor in the face or emphasize undereye circles.

Light Spring's greys are more yellowed. (For a quick side-by-side comparison of warm and cool greys, check out this  great Wikipedia image.)

3. Many of Light Summer and Light Spring's pinks and reds may seem to overlap. So we look at the extremes. Light Summer's raspberries get this blued:

Light Spring won't go that cool.

4. If we go to the extreme of warmth within Light Spring's pinks and peaches, we'll find light oranges:

A color like this may pick up delicate tones in a Light Spring's cheeks, but seem to turn a Light Summer's skin uniformly orangey or muddy.

5. Light Spring has a cheerful greenish gold that's not the least bit Summery. It looks like this:

This is a color many Light Springs have in their hair or eyes.  There's nothing close to it in the Light Summer palette.

6. Light Summer's greens are neutral to blue-green. Some Light Summer blue-greens can be hard to tell apart from Light Spring aquas. But only Light Spring green goes the other temperature direction, into yellow-green:

Clear yellow-green is an especially fussy color. Not many people are fantastic in it. If you are, and you know you're Light Something, now you know you're Light Spring.

I hope comparing these six colors  helps you Lights find yourselves. Let me know how it works.  :-)


If you're having trouble diagnosing yourself, consider investing in color cards to drape yourself at home.







Originally published February 2013. 

If you're like me, you're not satisfied to simply know what's true; you want to understand why it's true.

So maybe you've heard it before: it's the effect of color on your skin that ultimately matters. Your eyes and hair are along for the ride.

Colors that seem to "go with" your hair aren't doing you any good if that hair is framing dirty-looking or shadowed skin. Colors that seem to make your eyes pop aren't helping if those eyes are popping out of a washed-out face. 
 
But why is skin appearance  the most important?
 
Because when we look at other people, we use skin appearance  - not hair or eye appearance - as our primary way of evaluating health.  

And health = beauty.

The human animal seeks to maintain life and avoid death. To the human animal, health reads as beautiful because health is life.

When you look at other people, you instantly and unconsciously evaluate their health, and you do it in large  part using the appearance of their skin. If the skin looks right, the rest seems right too.

Healthy looking skin = life = beauty.

And when we judge the health of another's skin, the most salient feature to that judgment is its color.

Think about all the ways we use the language of color to describe the appearance of ill health in the skin. 

We speak of 

the yellow of jaundiced skin; 
the green of nauseated skin; 
the blue of frozen or oxygen-deprived skin; 
the purple of bruised skin; 
the red of burned or abraded skin; 
the white of bloodless skin; 
the grey of dead skin. ​

 

The fact that there are so many ways that skin can look wrongly colored shows that skin color is crucial to  our estimations of others' health -- and, therefore, of their beauty.

But color is not objective.

Color is context. 

For example, is "salmon" pink or orange?

Here, I'd call it pink.

Here, it looks closer to orange.

The color of your skin is subjective too.

Depending on what colors you place next to your own face, you can easily make the natural healthy color of your skin look too cool, too warm, too dark, too light, or too vivid  -   or disappear altogether.

This looks unlovely because it looks unhealthy.

When you know your the natural palette of your body, and put the colors of that palette next to your skin, your skin 's healthy color emerges. You look beautiful because you look healthy.




First published February 2013.

The short answer is yes.

The more complicated answer is that not every single color in your palette will look good in every application.

For example, my Soft Autumn tan isn't great on me as a shirt, because that's the same color as my skin and it makes me look naked.  (Generally, wearing tops or bottoms in the same color as your skin tone is a non-starter for daytime, because of the "nude" effect.  Go a few shades lighter or darker.)

But my SA tan  is great for me in makeup, and as an accent color.

My lightest pink isn't my best lippie, because it's lighter than my lips, but it's pretty as lingerie.

Consider, also, your style identity: certain hues make certain impressions, and you 'll want to make an impression that's consistent with your personal style. 

For example, because I'm an Ethereal Natural, the majority of my wardrobe consists of Soft Autumn browns, blues, greens, gentle metallics, and dawn/dusk hues.  I rarely wear my Soft Autumn pinks in large blocks because the impression they create is more girly than I am. (Though I love my pinks as lipsticks and blushes.) I almost never wear a large block of my Soft Autumn red, because the impression it makes is more aggressive than I am. (Though, again, I would wear it in makeup.) 

A Soft Autumn with a lot of Ingenue would want to focus on those pinks. And a Soft Autumn with a lot of Dramatic would look great in big blocks of Soft Autumn red. 

Check out your style type's Shopping Guide for more information about which colors from your seasonal palette to focus on. 

And if you're not sure about your seasonal palette, consider trying the Home Draping Cards; a lot of women have found them helpful.  

If you know your season, are there particular colors that you've found you can only wear in certain applications? 

Or if you know your style type, are there particular colors that you've found best fit with your overall vibe? 

Please share in the comments!







Originally published July 2017.

(Originally published August 2016.)

This is a revolutionary new way of thinking about style.

All of the advice you've received, all of your life, has been about how to dress your body.  "If you're petite, avoid long pants. If you're curvy, emphasize your waist. "

As far as I can tell, every other style system advises you to dress primarily for your body.

But your body isn't what people are mainly looking at.

​They spend the vast majority of their time looking at your face.

And dressing for your body at the expense of your face means  you end up looking all wrong. 

Let me offer you several examples to demonstrate this phenomenon.

Here's Ellie Kemper:
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You might know her from "The Office" or "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt." She's adorbs, right? 

If you're guessing that she has a lot of Gamine and  a lot of Ingenue  (and maybe some Classic?), I'd agree with you. Those stripes are cute on her. (The palette is a separate issue, but never mind.) 

Another pic of her looking fantastic:

And here: adorable, face-framing curls, small geometric print, simple, round neckline, high waist -- again, lots of Gamine and Ingenue, very good: 

Just a few more images of her looking awesome with lots of Gamine and Ingenue (and some Classic):

But let's imagine that Ellie Kemper's going to get style advice that considers her body as a significant factor.

​I don't know if you noticed, but Kemper actually has a super-curvy, very Romantic body.:

Most style systems will assign Ellie Kemper a style type that dresses her for her curvy body.

But that would be all wrong.

See how uncomfortable, how not-herself, this Gamine Ingenue (or Classic-Gamine-Ingenue)  looks in Romantic styles: 

Thank goodness Kemper (or her stylist) usually understand that she needs to dress for her face, not her body.

Here, Kemper's waist is obscured and her bust is unemphasized. And it's sooo much better!

(Jenna Fischer, also from "The Office," is another example of a woman with a Romantic body but a very youthful face. Like Kemper, Fischer looks all wrong in overtly sexy clothes.

​By contrast, Mindy Kaling of "The Office" has quite a bit of Gamine, like Kemper and Fischer do -- but she also has enough sexy Romantic in her face to totally pull off figure-emphasizing clothes. )


"If you got it, flaunt it" is not a thing. Let it go. 

Only emphasize your curvy body if it also harmonizes with your face. 

​Dress for your face. 

Other celebrity examples of dressing primarily for one's face, not one's body:
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• Jane Krakowski of "30 Rock" and "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"
  
  

A rather Natural body (little waist, thicker neck, small bust).
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A rather Ingenue face (tiny chin, high forehead, big eyes.) 

Is she better in Ingenue or Natural?
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Ingenue bows, ruffles, puff sleeves, cap sleeves, high waist, feminine hair, midi length skirt: so good.

Natural t-shirts, layers, separates, shaggy hair, undefined neckline, geometric shapes -- not great.

Jane Krakowski is lovelier when she dresses her face, not her body.


I'm not saying to totally disregard your body. There are individual tweaks your body may call for that are consistent with a style your face doesn't manifest.

For example, Jane Krakowski is flattered by open necklines; they elongate her rather short neck.

That's consistent with Natural, not with Ingenue. 
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​But her open necklines are best when they're adorned with ruffles or bows. True Natural necklines are wrong for her. 

extremely ​tall, mostly Dramatic body. 

Christie is so tall -- 6'3" -- and relatively narrow,  most style systems would require her to dress as a Dramatic, or a Dramatic/Natural blend. 

​But that's really wrong for her.

Mostly Dramatic, and so not great:

Much more feminine, and so much better for her:

Even more celebrity examples: 

• Despite her height, Taylor Swift is fantastic in Gamine , Ingenue and Classic
  
  
• Despite his height, Leonardo DiCaprio can pull off dapper Gamine looks because of his Gamine baby face
  
  
• Brigitte Nielsen's gorgeous Dramatic face makes her best in similarly Dramatic clothes, despite her very curvy body


• The same goes for Jamie Lee Curtis: her Dramatic face makes sexy Romantic looks seem wrong for her , even though her curves are pronounced

To sum up: 

1. Identify your style identity based primarily on your face. 

2. Make a few tweaks in the direction of a different style identity if you know your body calls for it. 

Dress for your face!



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