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Is Milla Jovovich a Bright Spring? The evidence:

2/15/2011

The question was raised recently on 12 Blueprints' Facebook page whether Milla Jovovich is a Bright Spring. I think she is, but others believe she's a Summer. She's certainly not easy to type.

Here are some pics I've gathered that I believe suggest Bright Spring; I'd love to hear what you readers see in these pics.

Here's the picture I saw in Lucky magazine that made me first suspect Bright Spring for Milla. What I noticed in this pic, which I think is a flattering and harmonious look for her:

warm highlights in the hair;
bright gold jewelry near her face;
pure hues;
high color contrast;
and a pink that looks to be a match for one in the Bright Spring book.

I find this look flattering as well. I think she's pulling off the super-bright, slightly warm yellow, and I think the warm makeup looks natural on her.

(That lip may be a teensy bit off, but it's pretty good.)

I don't love the purple hair-thingy. Nor do I love the black eyeliner. But I do notice here that the black in the dress doesn't seem to be overwhelming her - I think she's balancing it. I also think she's balancing the very intense warmish-red lip. So I think her season is one that can take a lot of color.

To my eye, this makeup looks right. It also looks warm and saturated (a.k.a. Springy).

This close up, it does seem a little heavy, but I suspect that's for the cameras. The colors themselves look spot-on to me.

Here, I almost think she could pull off this outrageous shirt, if she had a stronger lip. Even then the shirt colors might be too cool. But I do notice that the crazily saturated stripes aren't totally owning her. I still find myself looking at her eyes.

Imagine this top, by comparison, on Soft Summer Miley Cyrus, or True Summer Kimberly Williams, or Light Spring Taylor Swift, or Warm Spring Cameron Diaz. Could any of them handle this?

Here, what strikes me is that the hair's too light and she's dominating the shirt and scarf. The matchy-matchiness of eyes + shirt and hair + scarf may fool your gut into thinking something right is happening... but doesn't the skin of her face seem to be calling for much more intensity than it's surrounded with?

There are many, many pics of Milla looking less than her best on the 'net. I won't post them here - you'll see them if you try to find good ones of her. But now, your turn: what do you see in these pics? Something different than what I see? Do you have links to pics that seem to suggest another season? As ever, I'm interested in truth - not in being right. So please, argue away.

26 Comments

Jean LeFebvre link

2/19/2011 03:10:50 pm

I agree that you got it just right on Milla! I have a client who is almost exactly her coloring and she is a Bright Spring for sure. It is surprising how much color they can wear without being overpowered.

Emily Glass

4/8/2011 03:39:35 am

The detailed discussion above has been so helpful to me.

I think I'm a Bright Spring. On most days, at least, the colors feel exactly right to me, and I can even wear several brights at once, look in the mirror and say, 'That looks exactly right.' (Yesterday I felt like I didn't look good in any color. Is there such a thing as a bad color day?) Bright Spring is also the only season with all of the handful of disparate (I thought) colors that I've over the years noticed look excellent on me.

I still have a couple of questions about Bright Spring color swatches, however, and I was hoping you could help me understand:

1. Is there such a thing as a color too bright for a Bright Spring or a Bright Winter? Photographs of the sci/art fans and the color swatches on your Bright Spring page show colors that are very bright, but not what I'd call... unreasonably so. In my own experimentation, I've decided that bright yellows generally look good to excellent on me, chartreuse looks *very* good, but searing neon yellow looks awful. Additionally, yesterday I found a dress that was super-bright coral all over. I didn't like its effect. I suspect that it was over-warm for me. I'm pretty sure I'm warm-neutral, not cool-neutral, on account of the way makeup colors work on me, but if I understand the 12-tone concept correctly, being warm-neutral doesn't just mean being warm and having access to some cool colors. Rather, it means that I'm not as warm as a True Spring and can't handle all the warmth that she can. If there exist bright colors that aren't right for me - or are even properly 'too much' for me, does that mean I'm not a Bright Spring? And if the colors are super-bright but don't belong to my tone (and are too warm - making it unlikely they're Bright Winter), who *can* wear them?

2. Is there a difference between colors that perfect the skin and colors a person can balance? (I would guess the latter category is larger, if the two categories differ for most people). My experiments have been conducted both with makeup and without. Sometimes I've felt that a color was very strong, but that I could easily wear it (without it wearing me, etc.), if only I were wearing stronger makeup, and/or wearing accessories with it to make the total picture cohesive. Above, you say MJ would be more convincing in the striped top with a stronger lip. We can see that the top does not have an unpleasant effect on her skin, so its colors aren't bad for her. But if she would need more makeup to 'balance' it, that suggests that not all 'balance' needs to come from bare makeup-less skin and uncolored hair. (My hair remains stubbornly uncolor-treated, and I do feel that its darkness and naturally multicolored highlights have something to do with the number of colors I can pull off). Anyway, I'm figuring that not all colors a person can balance are going to be skin-perfecting colors, (since a person may be able to balance a color that is not even strictly of her Season), but is there such a thing as a skin-perfecting color that doesn't look 'balanced' until the person is wearing strong makeup?

3. Is there a reason there don't seem to be any proper reds in the Bright Spring fan? (There's something that strikes me as a fairly deep bright coral, but I don't know if I'd call it red). I've never yet found a red that went *BAM* on me, though I can manage a fair number of shades of red. My best red so far - though I can see it's not *quite* right - is a very bright, warm red cardigan that, as some site I've read puts it, is so bright it 'vibrates the eye.' But like the coral dress mentioned above, I think it's just a bit too warm. It's good but not perfect. You'd think that a Bright Season that shares something in common with Winter would be a good Season for reds, but in the fan I see mostly pinks. Are you aware of a theoretical reason why the reds are absent? Or is there probably a Bright Spring red that just doesn't happen to be included in the swatches? (I have heard that the swatches are not exhaustive, and this pleases me, because if I *am* a Bright Spring - even if there occur some days on which I feel I don't deserve it - I would like to find as many Bright Spring yellows and yellow-greens as I can...!) :o)

Thanks for entertaining my questions! This has become my favorite color analysis site, because your explanations are clear and extensive, and your tone is rational and inclusive.

Rachel

4/12/2011 12:59:46 pm

Emily -

Such great questions. I've been waiting to get a big enough chunk of free time to respond to your comment with the thoroughness it deserves. Today, I realize that it's not coming anytime soon, so I'm going to give you my best brief response:

1. Yes, I believe there exist colors that are too bright to flatter almost any human. (I hesitate to say 'any' because, with billions of people walking around on the earth, how can I know for sure?) However, if finding colors overly bright is a common occurrence for you, it could be a sign that you're not a Bright.

2. I think "balancing" and "skin-perfecting" are two somewhat different effects that may overlap. I do believe that a person may be more flattered by a deeper or more intense color *within her palette* if she pairs it with deeper or more intense makeup that's *also* from her palette. As a Soft Autumn, for example, an evening dress in one of my deepest shades might look more balanced if I'm also wearing the most intense lip my season calls for. "Strong" makeup, though, implies to me colors that go beyond a season's range of depth or brightness. The right color should never require makeup outside of one's season to look balanced. And as you observe, it will perfect the skin even without makeup.

3. It's tough to talk about colors with just olor names because your mental image and my mental image may not match. But here's what I can say: reds, like any other colors, can tend cooler or warmer. Bright Spring reds will tend slightly yellowy, because they're warmish. I think I can give you a more complicated answer that involves what happens to the hue as it moves from Spring toward Winter, but I I need a little more time to word it so that it makes sense. :-)

Emily

4/17/2011 06:11:57 pm

"I hesitate to say 'any' because, with billions of people walking around on the earth, how can I know for sure?"

This is exactly why I value your site so highly, and why it will be the primary site I recommend to any friends interested in learning more about PCA - because you seem to believe in the power of Sci/Art's system of categories to make colors more coherent to the people who wear them, but you don't let your expertise tempt you into refining the system according to your own experience to a point that it has so many rules and generalizations it ultimately just excludes people.

And I definitely understand about being busy, but I'll still be looking forward to any post with more about reds for various seasons! :o) I'd like not only to have the best grip possible on appropriate colors for my own season, but also a better idea of how the colors that work for me are situated relative to, say, the colors that are best for my sister who is almost certainly a SS. (Based only on her skin's strong affinity for the colors, that is. Rather afraid I've quite innocently given her some very color-inappropriate gifts over the years! One time, all excitement, I brought home a lipstick I liked, because I thought I had found my perfect 'nude,' and I was under the impression we were similar enough looking that she could probably wear it, too. And she was all, 'Are you kidding me, E? This is clown makeup!' I haven't known exactly how to explain what makes us so similar looking but still so different until now). I do plan to buy fans for both of us before very long, but I'd also just like to discipline my eye to recognize and sort colors better - for all the people I know who might happen to benefit by that knowledge.

As for whether or not I'm a Bright Spring, believe me, it's a much a surprise to me as anyone, whether or not I've had the benefit of a PCA. I first encountered the terms of 12 season color analysis on a site where physical description governs type sorting, and anyone who thinks you must look a certain way to be Bright will automatically have to throw me out! I don't think anyone has ever accused me of having 'jewel-like' eyes. And because my eyes aren't jewel-like - nor am I accustomed to thinking of myself as extraordinarily colorful - I initially threw out the Bright category without a backward glance!

Now, however - several weeks and a much better understanding of the categories later - I really think I *am* a Bright Spring, that I must be one. And I arrive at that conclusion regardless of whether I come at it from a process of elimination, or by attempting to explain the affirmative clues I've acquired over the years as to the colors that look right on me.

Basically, I think I've been really lucky, in that I accidentally noticed and kept track of a set of facts which used to seem so incongruous to me that before hearing of 12-season color analysis, I had defaulted to an assumption that my coloring must be completely random. I couldn't detect any pattern in my best colors, at all. Still, I had personally observed colors alter my complexion, so I knew what some (though by no means all) of my best colors were.

You might accurately say I've been living as a color omnivore, LOL. I will literally try *anything* on, even just for a laugh, which means that in addition to the colors I expected to look good on me and which I more or less took for granted, I've also tried a lot of colors for which I had no expectations at all. From this haphazard way of doing business, I acquired a very short list of surprise miracle colors. They didn't *seem* like they'd do anything special for me, but I got the benefit of actually observing an abrupt change in my complexion, a change so unexpected that I actually sat up and paid attention. (In my head, I called it, 'making my skin go all rosebud,' for lack of a better description). It was in this way that I accidentally found out my best neutrals are navy and grey, and that they look absolutely as good or better on me than many of what I once considered the 'real' (by which I think I meant 'interesting') colors. I also accidentally discovered bright chartreuse just by trying it on for a joke.

Looking good in pink and red-orange and yellow-green is sort of what you'd expect just by looking at me, so I didn't pay as much attention to those colors; it was the unexpected colors that stood out (and served to further confuse me about just what sort of bizarre color-chimera I must be! I mean, what kind of person looks best in mostly warm - and bright; though I hadn't noticed that yet - colors, but not in any of the typical warm neutrals? Like brown, which would seem to be the natural choice for a brown-haired girl?)

I think I was also lucky, in a way, that I had time before hearing of color analysis to have collected several items in each of my 'magic' colors, which gave me the opportunity to learn that not every color given the name 'navy' has the same properties or effect

Emily

4/17/2011 06:16:18 pm

My 'navy' is actually a sort of lapis blue or, alternately, something closer to indigo. I know from experience that I can totally wear darker shades of navy without being washed out, but the closer the color gets to ink navy and the further from a lighter, brighter version, the less benefit I get from it. Dusty or greyed navies don't work for me *at all.*

I also thought at one time that I looked good in mustard, but once I had a bunch of 'mustards' to examine more closely, I realized that I don't get the rosebud effect from anything which leans too orange or tan or brown or hammered gold. My 'mustard' is actually a kind of bright, dark yellow with what I have taken to calling the 'faintly upsetting greenish tinge' (for whatever reason, this taint of green is often a sign that the yellow will be even better than plain bright yellow on me...). So, my 'mustard' is not really that different (maybe deeper, but with approximately the same hue?) from the dress Milla Jovovich is wearing on the magazine cover above.

I don't know that mustard and navy and grey, on their own, scream Bright Spring, but noticing how well those colors *could* work for me, combined with knowledge of when they did and didn't, gave me a lot of clues to work with once I found out I had twelve whole seasons to choose from.

Other clues?

1) When introduced many years ago to the rudimentary four season system, I immediately thought, 'I'm an Autumn, but not a very good one' and since I didn't fit anywhere very well (especially since all the examples of Springs were blondes), I decided color analysis itself didn't work and moved on with my life. On the day I found out there were Three Whole Autumns (!!!) to choose from, I experienced a resurgence of hope. I must be one of the neutral ones! But as I looked into the matter further, my secret shame as an inspiring Autumn persisted: as mentioned above, I DO NOT look good in warm brown. Seems like every two or three years I've had the same thought (as if for the first time, LOL): 'Hey, my hair is chocolate brown. I wonder why I don't wear chocolate brown? I bet it looks good!' And then I try it, and every time it's like, 'Oh. That's why. Bleh.' It doesn't look *that* bad, mind, but it just sits inert on me, and I think it tends to make my complexion look muddy. (Same with pumpkin oranges - sad day! I love me some pumpkin oranges! - and deep warm wines or burgundies). I definitely have a depth threshold - moreso for warm colors than for cool colors, so far as I've noticed. There is a point of darkness past which warm colors, which are, when lighter, usually better for me than cool, just become heavy and rather drab on me. Interestingly, though I can tell that dark, crisp, cool Winter colors aren't *my* colors, they don't have the same heavy effect as the similarly-dark warm colors do. I tend to find Winter darks skin-clearing but not skin-enlivening, whereas Autumn colors, especially the deeper ones, seem to slam a lid of opacity down on my complexion and enforce an opaque, artificial ruddiness. (My SS sister and I both think we can sort of 'pass' for Autumn on account of our russet-y hair, but even though the colors don't usually look out of place on us, as such, they're not truly all that kind to our coloring!)

2) My inability to look my best in *dark* Autumn colors made me think SA might be my true home. But while the deepest SA colors looked much more doable, I felt an instinctual WILL NOT WORK reaction against the subtlest, lightest, most neutral of the SA colors. I didn't know from experience that they'd be bad, because I'd never bothered to try colors that subtle before, but something about them seemed intuitively wrong, wrong, wrong. (Which is a little sad, because my SS sister and I both think the SA palette is one of the loveliest). When I tried to find these gentle colors in stores? The light may not have been full spectrum, but I didn't need daylight to tell that light, neutral SA colors are probably among my very worst colors of all - the only colors I've found so far that force brutally unpleasant tones up into my face! SO sallow! I can see now that slightly too-warm colors give me a yellowish caste, but nothing like what soft shades of tan and winter wheat did to me. Egads, it was hilarious. :o) I could turn the unpleasant color off and on, just by picking up the top and putting it down again! (Which, again, is too bad, because subtlety and softness are lovely things!)

3) At this juncture, I felt truly stranded. I knew I was warm-neutral, because of the magic effects of grey and navy (and some purples and jade greens), added to the fact that too warm makeup looks far *less* ridiculous on me than too cool. (Furthermore, I was able to confirm from later experimentation with an abandoned Burt's Bees Rhubarb in my makeup drawer, that somewhat cool, while it must not be too cool, is better than wholly warm, even though my comfort zone has been some blend of True Spring corals and li

Emily

4/17/2011 06:18:58 pm

Warm-neutral minus SA and DA leaves only Bright Spring and Light Spring...

4) I first only even bothered to look at Bright Spring, because I thought that Light Spring was for blondes and I, therefore, had nowhere else to go. I've gone back since that phase and reexamined Light Spring, but let's just say that if I'm wrong about Bright Spring, I'm an even more improbable Light Spring. My skin is pale - paler, in fact, than the shade of foundation C. Scaman reports picking for most LSu and LSp consults. But I naturally grow black eyebrows and eyelashes, and my hair grows out of my head at approximately a 3 on your blonde/brunette chart, mellowing to a caramel-y 5 at the tips, which have seen a year's worth of Texas sun-fading. The colors of Light Spring's swatches seem quite nice, and I think they would probably look fine on me. Sci/Art even gives Light Spring my cooler neutrals. But:

5) When I first brought the topic of PCA up with my sister, I asked her if she'd ever noticed me looking particularly good in any color at all. Her immediate response was, 'Well, you look really good in black, but you don't look so great in white.' To which I said, 'Burr... whuh?' Because about the only idea I *had* successfully internalized from my first brush with 4 season analysis is that no one but a Winter looks good in black. So although I own black clothes and wear them (black is a necessary evil for plus-sized girls; sometimes it's the only color they bother to make items in), I assumed I did *not* look especially good in them, just because... well, why would I? I just *expected* to be one of the women who wears black for convenience but isn't flattered by it, so I never examined the question any further. Meanwhile, I had never considered that I might not look good in white.

A trip or two through some photographs has completely confirmed my sister's opinion. It's hard for me to find colors that are a blatantly bad choices for me, but white is probably one of them. It seems to make my face look slightly pinched and weary. (Additionally, this experimental data: I tried two dresses a few days ago, both of which were 'white' with black and multi-colored neon print. The first one looked rather cheap, and its print wasn't as... deliberate as I prefer, but I thought it looked good on me. The second had a nicer print, more total quantity of black, and the flowers were done in colors that struck me as more *specifically* Bright Spring, rather than just bright in general. But I wasn't totally happy with it, and I looked at it a long time, trying to figure out why. I finally noticed that the background was stark white, and it just didn't connect to my skin at all. It could have been a dress cut from paper, glued on top of a picture of me. The black and fuschia and orange were a good start, but the white interposed itself between me and the colors, it and disrupted the relationship. Meanwhile, the similar dress that looked better was not, in fact, perfectly white. Compared side by side on their hangers, one dress was much whiter than the other. I didn't buy either dress, but I did feel I had learned something to watch out for!)

As to black, on the other hand, I am stunned finally to notice that I *do* look healthy and alive in it - in fact, the picture of me wearing my polyester hat and gown at my college graduation is about as nice a picture of me as has ever been taken. (A little bright yellow cording and a background of lively Spring grass, probably don't hurt!)

6) I've tried not to let too much of my reasoning hinge on the premise 'I look good in black,' even if photographs seem to confirm that I do. But in a fight between Bright Spring and Light Spring (my safety school, LOL?), black seems like an important consideration. Suppose my new idea that black looks good on me is wrong. Shouldn't it be more *obviously* wrong if I'm a Light? Shouldn't black be anathema to me?

The more I experiment with living as a Bright Spring, the more I think I understand Jimi Winter's comments about BS needing both darkness *and* light. I tried on a dress the other day that I doubt any Light could be confused about: Watercolored, super-saturated roses in warm (but not too warm) coral and purple, surging out of a dark black and grey background. I have noticed I already own a few dresses that are probably Bright Spring Only, on account of their black backgrounds and very loud, very warm, very bright patterns, which means that either I am a BS and they are appropriate for me, or I am not a BS, they are totally inappropriate for me, and I should stop wearing them immediately, because when I go out in them I am getting PWNed by their colors. But I think the rose dress quite possibly embodies Bright Spring - and my probable inclusion in it - better than any previous dress of my acquaintance. When I put it on, it was like the black bits - between the roses, and deep in their centers - reached into my coloring, pulled out all the little dark corne

Emily

4/17/2011 06:22:55 pm

When I put it on, it was like the black bits - between the roses, and deep in their centers - reached into my coloring, pulled out all the little dark corners - the black eyelashes, the shadows in my piled-up hair - and made my lighter parts and pinker parts leap to life and brightness by visible comparison. It may be the most perfect dress I've ever worn. (Maybe?) I feel that through that dress I understand what 'contrast' can mean for Bright Spring. I feel like for the first time I understand how important my darkest darks are to my overall appearance. (And now I just have to figure out how to replicate the dress's effect without having to dress like Goth Garden Party *every* day, LOL). This may be one of very few clues I have by which to rule out Light Spring, but seriously: would this work for a Light Spring? I just can't see how it would.

7) At the point when it first seemed like Bright Spring might by my only remaining - however improbable (to me) - option, I finally bothered to look past the physical description and notice the colors. There they were: all or most of the colors from my disparate list, most of which could not be found together on any other Season's list. I felt a little dizzy at this discovery, honestly. BS seems to be a classification people fight about a lot on the interwebs, LOL. Who counts? Who doesn't count? It almost felt as if some people were saying you must be visually arresting or ethereally beautiful to be a Bright. (Like it's some kind of freaking prestige season!!!) That just makes no sense. No season is any better than any other, and as far as I can tell, coloring does very little to dictate facial features. (And I assure you, I am very normal looking!)

Even the rhetoric used to describe the Bright Seasons is intimidating: woman *versus* colors! Is she wearing the colors or are they wearing her? Just because it was becoming clear to me that, a) BS finally makes intelligible my life experience with color, and that, b) many of the most satisfactory items in my wardrobe are bright and clear, it didn't mean I felt up to an adversarial relationship with color, LOL - having to *prove* myself equal to all the fiercest and most relentless colors anyone in almost any Season might be expected to wear! (When I could have been settling comfortably into cozy Autumn pumpkin and brown - ! I'm not saying it's easy to be Autumn, but if I were one, no one would question it to look at me!)

I started devising experiments to falsify my tentative diagnosis. I went to stores and looked for the brightest - and especially brightest + coolest - colors I could find. I pitted them against the softer, comfier more Autumnal shades (light, muted oranges and olive greens) that I look like I *should* look best in. Over and over again, the brightest items PWNed all the others. Some days I could actually use them to turn my undereye circles on and off! I've repeated this sort of experiment recreationally nearly every weekend, figuring that even if the lighting in a given location were not ideal, any pattern observed across many settings would probably be indicating *something* true. I especially pushed myself to try bright, cool pinks (which had always seemed an intuitively terrible idea to me) and the loudest yellows. The former, despite what I expected, look perfectly natural on me, and the latter may turn out to be my favorite colors of all - profoundly better on me than the milder Spring yellows I already had and liked in my wardrobe. Aside from the one day I wrote my previous comment - when I really did feel that I looked good in no color whatsoever, regardless of its properties - it has consistently been the case that Bright colors have been best - with one or two exceptions probably explained by the colors being overwarm (the too-orange coral dress) or overdeep (a dark turquoise top that wasn't bad but also wasn't great - just did nothing).

8) Jimi Winter's flickr has high-quality pictures of the Bright Spring fan, taken in good light. Now that I can see the colors much more clearly than I could in the one flash-brightened photo I had found when I wrote my previous comment, I can tell that a) there is a red! and it is similar to my good red cardi, but not too warm! and b) the colors are really *not* all that challengingly bright. I know it's all relative to the other Seasons - nor, mind you, am I expressing disappointment! - but these colors all seem very normal to me. If I buy a fan, I think one of the first things I'll do with it is compare it to some of the best loved items in my wardrobe: my apple green shirt, what I call the 'tomato soup cardi,' and even this one rust-colored tee shirt that I've always really liked on me. The outermost dot on the yellow/orange ray of the fan is dark and rich enough possibly to be - I think - the very shade of rust that has been one of my 'statistical outliers,' LOL. (i.e., if I'm a Bright Spring, not an Autumn, why do I still look good - I think - in tha

Emily

4/17/2011 06:24:19 pm

(i.e., if I'm a Bright Spring, not an Autumn, why do I still look good - I think - in that one rust colored tee shirt?')

9) Clinique All Heart is awesome, but not at all what I was expecting. From the pictures online, it looked *sooo* dark and *sooo* bright! Waiting for it to come in the mail to test was torture, since I had already basically figured out that I had no other likely Season to turn to, but I was afraid of what would be expected of me, were I to stay in BS. (Exactly how bright of makeup would I have to wear, anyway???) When the lipstick came, I put it on in the parking lot at the post office, because I just had to *know.* I wasn't wearing any other makeup.

Instant eye-brightening, beyond what I would have thought possible just from applying a lipstick! (I call the effect 'canned lightning,' because my eyes, which are green but dark, not light, suddenly looked like a night sky lit up by a sudden flash of lightning. You could suddenly see every filament of the iris separately!) Also, instant blush - out of nowhere! Whoopee!

All Heart is a cooler shade than I'm used to, but at this point I basically can't deny that slightly cooler is an improvement over truly warm, and that BS-tested shades can be slightly cooled without 'going too cool' on my lips the way other cool pinks have done in the past. (Probably what has caused me to err on the side of warm for years).

I will have to be thoughtful about how *deep* I'm willing for my makeup to be, however. I'm paler than Jimi Winter by at least a shade (she says she always buys the second palest foundation available; I have to buy the palest, and it's not always pale enough). Recommendations for BS lipsticks that match the outer dots of the fan have so far been a little dark for me - very 'evening,' and I'm afraid I live more of a 'daywear' kind of life. :o) For now, I'm going to make All Heart and Burt's Bees Rhubarb my new go-to lipcolors and see how they feel, scribbling in a little Ravish Me Red or Kiss Me Coral for extra warmth if a given outfit calls for it. (Kiss Me Coral is the *exact* shade of coral in the centers of the roses from dress I mentioned above; the two look fantastic together).

I think the *hue* of every recommended lipstick and blush I've tried so far seems exhilaratingly bang-on. But whether it's the quality of my lips - thick bright cream lipsticks seem to pick up all kinds of crusty bits from somewhere or other - or my pallor or my comfort zone, I plan to mix colors, shop for sheers, and/or let the colors I've already bought sit on my lips long enough to dye them and then wipe off the goo. Heh. (When I do this, the color that remains looks so natural you'd think I'd just rolled out of bed and wasn't wearing any makeup at all!)

Well, I've already gone on quite a bit longer than necessary, so I'll leave it at that. This has probably been a quite self-indulgent post, cluttering up your excellent blog, but I too am an Enneagram 4, and it would seem that self-absorption (and the struggle to understand myself!) are occupational hazards. :o)

Rachel

4/20/2011 02:24:53 pm

Emily - I just want to say that I enjoyed your several long posts immensely. Your description of your journey of color self-diagnosis was *really* edifying. I've gone back over it several times in my mind since reading it. Thanks for educating all of us. :-)

Emily Glass

4/20/2011 06:25:21 pm

I am relieved you don't hate me! I had half a mind to add one more post at the end, promising never ever ever to do it again. (I won't!)

But that would have meant one more post. ;o)

Incidentally, I had no idea how long it would, in fact, be. I copy comment posts as a matter of habit, and when I saw it got cut off, I thought, 'Well, I'll just finish it from the copy, so it will make sense.' Only there was more and more and more! Apparently it is hard for me to judge length in a comment box!

Emily

4/22/2011 12:50:25 pm

I have a biq question mark suggestions of a celebrity who could be a Bright Spring. I definitely don't have your discerning eye for photos, but:

Are you familiar with Karen Gillan, the Scottish actress who currently plays the Doctor's companion on Doctor Who? (It's one of my favorite shows. :o)) On the show, they usually dress her in dark colors - black, charcoal, brown, dark teal, dark red - which look okay and don't really overpower her, as far as I can tell.

But in her real life / in photo shoots, she seems to go for brights, and I think she balances them spectacularly. Do a quick Google search on her, and within the first page you'll turn up three separate pictures of KG in super-saturated yellow - one example is even a striped top that's super-saturated yellow plus black. My eyes go to her face every time. She also looks good in hot coral red (from a particular episode), but not so great in a muted green similar to the (good) green you show on Angelina Jolie in another blog post. When she wears a charcoal/grey plaid shirt that appears to be either Winter Grey or blued Summer Grey, she completely PWNs it. (And I think I can see it greying her face a little).

Karen Gillan seems to err on the side of an underwhelming lip and little to no visible blush or eyeshadow, so it's hard for me to speak to her makeup. (Possibly also a sign of how naturally she balances brightly colored clothes, though, no?) The only very bright makeup I was able to find on her was probably, obviously, too blue-pink for either her or a BS. But I could find one pic of her character, Amy Pond, wearing a nice bright (though light and mild as bright goes) coral lip quite similar to the shade shown on Rose McGowan on your BS main page. I completely love the color on KG, and it makes me think she is likely a Spring of some kind.

True Spring is another available option, of course. (Is that bright yellow too warm for BS? In the one picture of the TSp fan I've seen, none of the yellows look that saturated...) Still, I wonder if she'd be able to carry off black so decently - or, for that matter, her character's mostly DA wardrobe - if she were True. Or Light.

I would be excited to find a redheaded BS. Diversity ftw! I feel certain that many women of color are also Bright and am determined to find them, but it's just so hard to recognize Brights in a world where most people don't have my extremely juvenile taste in colors. :o)

Nina

4/26/2018 12:22:08 pm

Emily, thank you so much for all of these posts about Bright Spring! :D

Yolande

6/15/2020 12:15:15 am

I do think hair colour counts for colouring. To just discount it is like looking at a fox with its red coat and saying it has nothing to do with his colouring.

Sorry, not trying to have a go. Just as someone with warmth in my hair I think I've finally realised that I can't discount it. It always seems to add an awkwardness if you try and wear something blue toned.

I agree KG wears bright colours, I'm wondering if she is warm autumn, thereby having the clarity appearance as there is the spring influence.

jade

11/20/2011 04:11:55 pm

Do Bright/clear springs look blah in a solid light color with no other contrast,but don't look bad...its like somethings missing. And do mustard,browns,beiges,blue greys,autumns oranges and greens,greyd navy,and dusty pink look bad on them? Im pretty sure clear spring is my season and my friends and family are even more sure. I just wanted to know if that sounded like clear spring.

Maiana

2/29/2012 11:27:42 pm

I think Milla Jovovich is a True Summer... she looks good in the deeper, clearer Summer shades like the blues in your post. The yellow looks most unflattering although it was heavily photoshopped.

Brandy

5/5/2013 02:53:24 pm

I think there is a weird and interesting cross-over between the seasons BSp and TSu that hasn't been explored enough.

11/28/2015 06:21:42 pm

Yeah! I've thought I was a True Summer for years. Then I bought the draping cards: Bright Spring, which I'd never even considered, is repeatedly coming out the winner. I'm still not sure (old self-perceptions die hard, and I also don't want to jump too hard at a really interesting new idea)...but yeah. BSp + TSu=twins from different galaxies.

2/12/2016 01:32:05 pm

*UPDATE*: I got draped! It was awesome, and I turned out to be a Bright Winter. I think the Brights resonate a bit with TSu because they're all lighter and warmer than TW (which affects them all in the same way: too cold, too dark, creates pallor and shadows). But what I thought was "too much saturation" in TW was actually too little! Who knew. ;p

julie

6/1/2013 09:28:15 am

Wow this is just the site i was looking for. I have the same amount of contrast as a winter but my eyes are exactly the same color as Milla's with some brown flecks, and i have freckles, suggesting a warm season. I have always thought i had to be a winter because autumn colors are terrible on me. I guess I'm a bright spring, though i think someone needs to create a category just for brunettes. Blondes and medium brunettes who are bright spring can wear wear medium pastels while dark brunettes cannot. Even the clear and warm category in color me confident doesnt quite get it right.

christine

2/22/2014 05:42:27 am

this is an example why I always thought your page is a very good one, the other ist the beautiful indian actress you classiefied as anb autumn. You always convince me and make very smart analyses. great!

christine

2/22/2014 05:43:57 am

and Milla has very colorful light and bright eyes, which also might say she isnt a sumemr but a bright spring. I learned from you how neutral this spring is, I wouldnt have notice some of the shades bein still warm...

Nina

4/26/2018 02:31:32 pm

I loved Emily's posts so much that I wanted to give you my own perspective on Bright Spring (and maybe Brights in general), as I just found out/accepted that I'm a BSp (after so much time)! I hope it will help at least someone who is still doubting their type.

Why did it take me so long to accept being a Bright season? Simple - I hate drawing attention to myself. I was afraid of bright colors, steering away from them like crazy, wearing mostly something in the Soft Autumn range - which is probably one of the worst seasons on me (even Soft Summer is much better). I'd occasionally try something bright just for fun, and liked how it looked on me, but I never bought those garments, playing it safe with warmish neutrals - and black, of course. My mom is Deep or Warm Autumn and I was borrowing her clothes when I wanted to look "neutral". The thing is, those clothes make ME look neutral, bland, pale. So, I was never surrounded with enough brights to discover that they suit me. I always thought I simply have irrevocably awful skin tone.

How do I look, color-wise? Not that it matters much, since we all vary so much, but maybe something might be relevant. I am Mediterranean, and I'm generally much lighter than nearly everyone here (but not as pale as pinkish non-Mediterranean Europeans). My hair is golden blonde/brown (here it's called blonde, some of you guys would call it brown) but in the wrong colors (i.e. most of the colors I usually wear) it looks mousy. My eyes are green/grey/blue. My skin is very light, maybe light olive, unable to tan - I turn a bit more yellow, that's all. It is definitely bright, especially compared to black. Being able to match black in intensity even though I look like a light spring/soft-something made me reconsider my season in the first place. Light Spring and softs are quite awful on me, making me very pale, invisible.

I used to dye my hair both lighter blonde and almost black. As light as I am, I could pull off that dark hair very naturally, as long as it wasn't too dark. Light golden blonde made me look way too light and bright, especially in the sun, like an entity made of glowing yellow light - it was so weird and funny.

I want to say this as it's something that always made me hate my skin (here I want to applaud to Emily for mentioning it in one of her posts above):

WOMAN VS COLOR; "Is she wearing the color or is the color wearing her?" "She can pull off so much color" etc. etc. One thing everyone forgets to mention - we Brights (or at least me) really NEED that color. Perhaps softs get "eaten up" by bright colors, but we get washed out by any color that is not bright. I think non-bright seasons have it easier: they can handle less color and look good. We never look good without it. They put on a bit and their skin is satisfied. We need to crank up the color all the way up to 11 if we want to look healthy. Forget that perfect alabaster skin of a stereotypical Snow White Bright Winter. Maybe some of you are lucky to have it. Personally, I always though my skin was awful - blotchy, red, irritated, dark eye circles, both pink and green and yellow and red... Concealer is my best friend. Softer colors simply aren't enough to hide my imperfections. But when I experimented with brighter colors these days, I found out that's exactly what I need! Something brighter than my imperfections.

A note about lipstick: I don't own many bright (or even warm) lipsticks. And none of them look that great on me. I have one very very bright warmish red (Revlon Kiss of Life) which looks way too heavy when I put on a lot of it, but I discovered that it looks cool if I tap a little bit. How do you call it, MLBB? Well, not exactly, but it's much closer than the dusty brownish pinks that I own. Note to self: experiment with more lip colors.

One more very important thing I had to learn: COLORS AREN'T MAGIC. They aren't going to suddenly erase all of your imperfections and turn you into a photoshopped model. Your good colors can't eliminate the need for a concealer, but they will make you need less of it. I expected magic. The only thing I get with my colors is that my hair color looks richly golden, my eyes are very bright and my skin looks healthier - but not photoshopped. My dark eye circles are still there in bright coral blouse, just not as much as when I wear beige.

No, I can't really wear neons, fluos and extremely bright colors. They eat me up, too (thought they're still much better than that damn beige). My colors just have to be very rich and saturated, and cheerful rather than Autumn-y. I LOVE Autumn colors, I keep trying to wear olive green and browns and dark teals and burgundies but it's all meh... Make me kinda muddy.

One funny association that I have when I see myself wrapped up in bright colors is an exotic tropical bird! Isn't that cheerful? :D I would personally never go out dressed in lime green pants and hot pink blouse, but a colorful scarf and red lips make me feel so healthy a

Nina

4/26/2018 02:47:53 pm

(continued) ...and exotic, like Karmen Miranda. I always wanted to be darkly sexy, but I guess I'm better suited to fruit baskets... xD

Once I realized I needed warmed brighter colors, I searched for differences between True and Bright spring. I haven't found anything. Rachel, there's an idea for a post, like you did with some other seasons, those were very helpful!

Here are some of my conclusions:

I can wear black and grey without looking pale. They aren't perfect, but they're not awful at all.

Brown colors are very, very tricky. I always leaned towards them, wanted to wear them, but never found any that looks great on me. I mostly own neutral browns and brown accessories rather than clothes. Most browns make me look yellow and dirty. If my skin has a lucky day, I look golden-ish.

Hot pink is great, as long as it's not too dark. Corals and oranges are good, too. Reds not so much - maybe very warm reds like scarlet and darker warm reds like bright rust red, but I don't own anything red so I don't know right now. I know Winter's red is too deep for me.

I still haven't found a yellow that I like. Perhaps bright warm dark yellow like mango? Light yellows are horrendous. Actually, if you count it among yellows, chartreuse yellow/green is one of my best colors!

I have a shirt which is very Warm Spring-y: true red, yellow, brown and cream. I look very golden in it - at first I though, oh cool, a "golden goddess" revealed xD but then I realized that the shirt is brighter than I am! A case when colors are actually dominating me! I think it's because those bright Warm Spring fiery colors are jumping out from my own type of brightness, which is slightly cooler, more neutral.

Mary Lauer

12/28/2019 10:52:28 am

The colors you are describing for her also align to BW. I was recently confirmed by Sci\Art as a BW and before that I lived as a self-analyzed BSp for decades. The 2 are close. The deal breaker for me was royal blue and intense fuchsia with white. Only BW can wear this combination and Milla does well in it. Second, the warm hair and bronzer effect is a total flop on her as it was for me. There are some Springs who can carry it but Milla does not. Heavy black eyeliner suits nobody except for DW. Milla carries black very vcd well. A slight haircolor adjustment to eliminate warm highlights would do Milla a world of good. Nobody with bright coloring needs hair highlights . Our natural look is arresting enough.

kristiina

2/12/2020 12:41:54 pm

Mary, i completely agree with you on Milla and her being BW. All the added warmth in these pictures looks a bit dirty to me - same way my own skin looks when make-up artists and hairdressers pick up the red in my hair and green in my eyes and decide I must be warm. Even her famously bright eyes lose clarity and colour and look almost red-rimmed with artificially warmed skin and hair. Meanwhile in black skin looks peaceful and the eyes mesmerizing, and the yellow dress could as well be BW.

EDob

2/5/2023 11:59:42 pm

I disagree. You do make a compelling argument, and I appreciate all the photos. However, you didn’t show any of the many photos where she looks stunning in creams, silvers, light, blues, and purples. When she wears the spring colors it’s with a heavy amount of make up. When you see her in summer colors, there’s just a bare minimum of make up. Like me, we are about the same age, she wore copper colored hair and copper eyeshadow in her 20s. It looked gorgeous, but that was with dyed hair and lots of make up. In many of her best and most famous photos, she’s wearing a soft white and a medium blue or purple, and her complexion looks very delicate and light. She can also pull off silver jewelry.(The reality is is that she’s probably very neutral in skin tone and that’s why we’re having this argument. What a great feature and a model and someone who can span seasons.)

Truth is Beauty

Is Milla Jovovich a Bright Spring? The evidence:

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