Discover your color palette and your style type.

Home Draping Cards Are Here!

3/22/2022

So many of you have requested color cards you can use to drape yourself at home and figure out your color season. I offered home draping cards years ago, and I'm finally able to offer them again!

Edit: You can see a video of me using the cards on myself here:

Each card is 4 inches by 6 inches and has four colors from a single season: a red or pink, a yellow, a green, and a blue. I've spent many hours making sure these colors are precise for each season.

You can order as many or as few seasons as you like.

For example, if you simply want to confirm that you're a Bright Spring, you can order just the Bright Spring card.

If you know you're a Summer, but you don't know which type, you can order all three Summer cards.

If you know for sure that you can wear black, you can order the three Winter cards, Dark Autumn, and Bright Spring. (These are the fve seasons with a true black in their palette.)

Figure out your color season at home.

To test a card, remove all of your makeup and cover your hair. look at a mirror reflection or a photo of yourself with the card held under your chin. Your correct season will make your skin look healthy and alive.

Seasons that are wrong for you can have a variety of negative effects on your skin, depending on what your correct season is.

Too-cool seasons can make your skin appear greyed or ashen.
Too-warm seasons can make your skin look yellowish, orangeish, muddy, or dirty.
Seasons that are too cool, too dark, or too saturated can make your skin look uniformly pale.
Seasons that are much too soft or much too saturated can make your features appear less defined.
Seasons that are too soft or too light can give you blotchiness or redness in your skin.
Seasons that are too light, too dark, or too soft can create the appearance of shadows on your face or an overall dullness.
In any wrong season, your skin can appear more shadowed, more lined, and more discolored.

Click here to download more specific home draping instructions.

Please note: Right now, the drop-ship printer I'm using for color cards seems to be taking as long as three weeks to ship the cards. I'm using this printer because I think their cards are top-quality. But if three weeks is too long for you to wait, please don't order the cards.

True Spring draping card

$4.99

A True Spring red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6"

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True Summer draping card

$4.99

A True Summer red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality 4" x 6" postcard.

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True Autumn draping card

$4.99

A True Autumn red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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True Winter draping card

$4.99

A True Winter red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6"

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Light Spring draping card

$4.99

A Light Spring red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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Light Summer draping card

$4.99

A Light Summer red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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Dark Autumn draping card

$4.90

A Dark Autumn red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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Dark Winter draping card

$4.99

A Dark Winter red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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Bright Spring draping card

$4.99

A Bright Spring red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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Bright Winter draping card

$4.99

A Bright Winter red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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Soft Autumn draping card

$4.99

A Soft Autumn red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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Soft Summer draping card

$4.99

A Soft Summer red, yellow, green, and blue on a thick, high-quality postcard. 4" x 6".

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10 Comments

Melina

4/19/2022 04:29:30 am

These seem more accurate than the old draping cards (which I have), in several ways :) How many of the colours have been changed, I wonder?

5/17/2022 01:00:36 am

Hi Rachel! I saw you posted about Alicia Keys being a Light Spring, which very few “professional” color analysts are able to correctly identify. I also saw you posted about Michelle Williams (singer) as a True Winter, who is equally as rare to see correctly analyzed. Racism, being a key factor of course. Other analysts are able to find white women for EVERY single season and sub-season. But not any POC beyond the deeper seasons or the “brights” at most if they’re “open minded”.

Since you tend to be more accurate in your assessments of POC, I wanted to tell you that Sofia Wylie and Sonia Rolland are brown eyed True Spring WOC. I am also one, and I have yet to find ANY site recognize a True Spring POC. Which is very disappointing and honestly isolating to True Springs that look like me. And the whitewashed descriptions surrounding True Springs make it extremely difficult (and downright awkward) for True Spring POC to determine their own color season. Especially when you’re first being introduced to the color analysis concept. The photos of True Spring POC were (and are) literally nonexistent. So I had to rely on the colors themselves & the season descriptions. But the True Spring characteristic descriptions were so Eurocentric it actually lead me away from my own season in the beginning. Even though I rightly recognized my best & most natural colors in the True Spring palette. I say all this to say… if you agree that they’re True Spring & you’re open to it, I hope you’ll consider putting these WOC on your True Spring page!

6/9/2022 12:05:54 am

V.
Thanks for sharing your insights. I know I'm not Rachel, but I appreciated your words. I know it took effort. I'm not considered a POC, but I grew up around more black and hispanic faces than white faces. So I was looking for a more complete representation of seasonal color analysis in order to "Get" the system. And Rachel has provided that. I'm actually a light spring too, like Alicia Keys :)

As a side note, I've lived for a while in Asia where everyone was Han Chinese. Also, I lived for a while in a Nordic country where everyone was Viking-blonde. And everyone looked alike to me...both places! For about a month. Then all of a sudden, details of features on faces started to stand out. The nuances I didn't realize were there, weren't subtle anymore! They were glaringly obvious, and the asian features had incredible variation. But my ability to notice the changes was short lived once I was back in the USA for a few years. There's a whole South Korean color typing system that is ONLY for Asians, on Youtube. And it's confusing to me now, when I watch it. I don't notice all the differences the stylist points out.

When I lived in Northern Europe for a while, I saw a picture of a bunch of Scandinavian girls posing with their Dominican/Scandi mixed friend. And I was startled to find that these blonde haired blue eyed girls (The "Ideal") didn't look beautiful to me anymore. The one who stood out was the "exotic" and mesmerizing Latina-mixed girl. Which was REALLY strange, because I'd always admired blue eyed blondes growing up (not seeing many very often). And my hometown was full of people from the Dominican Republic. And I took for granted that I just thought blonde girls were prettier, but it turns out I don't "Think" that at all! I just was captivated by the rare and glittery. And that changed with the environment I was in. I suspect this phenomenon happens with everyone everywhere.

Side Note: When I watched "Red Tails" (Movie by George Lucas, great one), the same thing happened in a way. After 2-3 hours of watching ALL black men of every variety (an all black cast) be awesome pilot heroes in the action movie, I started picking up on a greater degree of nuance in their faces. They were all handsome, but I started to see how individually distinct their good looks really were! I didn't realize I hadn't done that before. But I had rarely (Ok, never) seen a movie with such a large and completely all black men cast. I wasn't used to seeing it on screen. And my detection of their faces changed after only 3 hours...it was amazing. And I will always be grateful to George Lucas for making that movie.

I'm not sure why I went on here, but feel free to go back and forth if it gives you ideas. I think I wanted to encourage you, and I thought a long statement that you made warranted a long thought-out response. I'm not blabbing to make myself look good. And I know there's a 50% chance you'll be offended, LOL

Elisa

6/21/2022 04:50:23 am

V & SJ, I actually find your posts very racist, as a white female... Racist against white people, obviously. (For some weird reason, that is usually not taken into account, which shows how biased peple can be.) I know it's very trendy to bring "racism" into *everything* nowadays, but please take just a moment to consider what you're actually saying!!

6/21/2022 07:00:57 pm

Rachel likely will not feel the need to take down my comment. Because my comment is not racist & Rachel has spoken on the exact same topic- MANY YEARS ago. It’s not a trend. It’s a real, longstanding issue that needs to be fixed for the sake of everyone, of every race.

https://www.truth-is-beauty.com/is-color-analysis-just-for-white-people.html

I can’t speak for SJ or her post. But as for my original comment- just because I am simply *talking* about race doesn’t I am being racist or creating a racist divide. I’m trying to bring awareness to an issue stemming from racism -that obviously exists- in hopes that this painful problem can be eradicated.

Lastly- if color analysis professionals DON’T reflect any racist beliefs in their work. Then where’s the proof? Where have you seen them present a BIPOC Light Spring or True Spring beside Rachel’s website? I can count the number of professionals who have done this on one hand- and I’ve done a lot of research in color analysis. Compare that to the overwhelming number of white women you see when you search for Light Spring & True Spring resources. It’s as close to objectively racist as you can get- the proof is in our faces. Seriously, just Google “light spring color analysis”. You’ll scroll for hours before finding a BIPOC. Yet I know of many, many examples of BIPOC Light Spring, Light Summer, and True Spring individuals. Just as many as I do white. So where is our representation, Elisa? Moreover, why is the representation for BIPOC so disproportionate compared to our reality?

6/21/2022 04:58:42 am

And I do wish Rachel would remove such racist comments from this site, and not encourage that kind of commenting!

6/21/2022 11:08:23 am

Oh Elisa, you don't need to tell the teacher. We're all strangers here expressing our thoughts and thinking through ideas about color and complexion.

I don't fault white people - so please, I know it's easy to read an individual person's comment through the prism of everything ELSE you're bombarded with on the internet - just ask me a question instead.

I really don't think it matters why you think my comment is racist. I'd really rather hear a specific question from you about what I meant, or what you think I meant.

White skin is beautiful. Duh. It has its own unique pallor, like African descent skin does. Of course some people are trained to seen distinctions in the colors of an egg, and others in shades of a raven's wing.

Elise

12/1/2022 03:39:56 am

Hi Rachel. I know you don't post much anymore, but I'm wondering if you could talk about skin tone vs season. I know you have made it clear that a person can have almost any shade of skin and color of hair/eyes and be any season because it's all about how your skin reacts to colors. Is this true for skin tone too, i.e. yellow tones/pink tones, warm/cool/neutral/olive? In other words, can I be an Autumn with cool-toned skin?

I've been following your blog for years and in that time I've been on the neverending quest to find my season. I started out thinking I was a Summer because brights were so bad on me--then I thought Soft Autumn because I just like chambray blue, then True Autumn or True Spring after enjoying a nice bold peach top, and now I think I am fairly confident in a Dark Autumn. (I had never worn purple in my life but was shocked to find that your Natalie Portman dark warm purple was the first color I have ever seen truly light me up. This allowed me to become open to teal and chocolate brown.) What a whirlwind! (At this rate, I might believe I'm a Winter a year from now!) Part of it is, it has taken me a long time to really refine my "eye" to understand what you mean in your wonderful descriptions of color and translate that to my world, my face, my skin, my clothes. To flip back and forth between sweaters and decide "is that really a gray cast on my skin, or is it placebo effect / confirmation bias?" To attempt to see past the acne, willing a color to magically make the red spots less noticeable, and doubting whether any of them do.

But I also think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we all experience color slightly differently. I was at Sephora recently, starting from scratch in foundation matching. Their special camera tool pointed me to the Haus Labs foundation in what was labeled a "cool undertone" but was an olive-yellow-- and when I checked the other shades, the "neutral" was more beige and the "warm" was a pinky orange. I was confused because this is totally backwards to me! It reminded me of a post written (I think) by an artist discussing the color wheel, talking about how people can have very different defining ideas of warm and cool. Is the warmest color yellow (making the coldest color some sort of violet)? Or orange, making the coldest color blue? If so, are red and yellow equally cool-toned since they are equidistant from orange on the color wheel? When I asked my husband, he immediately said the warmest color was red, but he's partially colorblind. :) I personally would say a golden yellowy orange is the warmest color. But it seems not even Lady Gaga's huge line of makeup can agree with the conventional wisdom. This doesn't even consider the confusion about what "olive" means--some people say it's green, some say it's always warm, some people say it's gray/muted no matter the hue... There is a lot of conflicting information out there, and I don't think the average makeup wearer (or makeup seller) knows as much as you or your readers do about color. But not everyone shares our framework/understanding.

Having to find a new foundation has me really questioning a lot of what I thought I knew about color labels and what my skin's undertone even is. I had thought I was a slightly warm (slightly yellowed orange) yet grayed (olive) neutral because so many foundations look either too orange or too pink on me--just too pigmented in general. The light olives, less saturated and more tan/beige, tend to work better. I thought you would have some good insight on this whole world of makeup and color labeling and skin tone reaction! Thanks!!

12/14/2022 05:23:10 am

Hi Elise--I'm not Rachel (sorry :( ), but your comment makes me think you might be interested in the Elea Blake blog and makeup color system. They specialize in helping each customer find the undertones suited to her unique, individual skintone, starting with personalized foundation. There's a video on this page (https://www.eleablake.com/collection-strength-eyedrape.html) where you can watch a Dark Autumn with cool-looking, red-undertoned skin and a True Summer or Winter (I forget which) with yellowish skin find their most suitable oranges/flesh-tones--so by the looks of it, you can indeed be an Autumn with "cool-toned" skin (or at least as cool as orange ever goes ;) ).

1/9/2023 06:00:26 am

Do you possibly post these cards outside US & Canada (specifically, to Europe)? :)

(I'm sorry if this was already mentioned somewhere and I just didn't see it, but as far as I can tell it isn't.)

Truth is Beauty

Home Draping Cards Are Here!

True Spring draping card

True Summer draping card

True Autumn draping card

True Winter draping card

Light Spring draping card

Light Summer draping card

Dark Autumn draping card

Dark Winter draping card

Bright Spring draping card

Bright Winter draping card

Soft Autumn draping card

Soft Summer draping card

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