Or: "The only way to find out what colors look good on you is to find out what colors look good on you." I've been thinking about the different approaches to personal color analysis. I don't mean the different methods, exactly, but rather the different chains of logic. One way of thinking about it goes like this: You have [X] physical characteristics; therefore your season is [Y], and [Z] colors will flatter you best. IRL, this might sound something like "You have dark hair and eyes. Your skin appears neutral-cool. Therefore, your season is Deep Winter, and deep, neutral-cool, moderately bright colors will flatter you best." Or it could sound like "You have a bluish-grey cracked-glass pattern in your eye, with a yellow flare around the pupil; therefore your season is Light Summer..." etc., etc. Or "You have an overall soft, muted appearance, and your skin appears more cool than warm, therefore you are a Soft Summer...." etc., etc. This method of analysis is the one you encounter most frequently on the web. It assumes that observable physical characteristics can predict what colors look good on someone. The other main method you encounter goes like this: Testing different colors on your skin has shown that [Z] colors flatter you; therefore, your season is [Y] (and you may have [X] physical characteristics, which tend to occur in this season). IRL, this might sound something like "Deep, neutral-cool, moderately bright colors flatter you best. Therefore, your season is Deep Winter. (Oh, and incidentally, you may have dark hair and eyes, with skin that looks neutral-cool, because that's what many Deep Winters look like.)" Kathryn Kalisz, the late founder of Sci\Art and author of Understanding Your Color, seems to have been the first person to broadly disseminate this second approach. I subscribe to this second way of thinking about personal color analysis. Here are the three main reasons I believe it's more accurate: Reason 1. It's only logical that different human beings, who come in an infinite variety of coloring combinations, might seem to resemble each other closely but actually respond differently to color because of subtle individual differences in skin undertone that an observer can't perceive. In other words, two people with hair, eyes and skin that seem to be the same might still be flattered by different colors, because of small differences in their coloring that the viewer can't tell just by looking at them. Reason 2. Identifying a season through experimentation -- by actually testing different colors on a person -- is more scientific than identifying a season based on what a person's coloring supposedly should predict. In other words, it's all well and good to say that you should be flattered by a certain set of colors, but that's theoretical. Let's make it empirical by actually testing the colors. Reason 3. With my own eyes, I've seen many, many real-life examples of people whose observable characteristics couldn't have predicted their seasons. For example, some of my colleagues include
I also know a red-haired, brown-eyed Cool Summer; a pale, teal-eyed Deep Autumn; a Light Spring with dark hazel eyes; a brunette Light Spring; a Light Summer with a reddish beard; and a Soft Summer with dark brown hair and dark reddish-brown skin. As Christine Scaman of 12 Blueprints has written many times: Any season can have any hair color and any eye color. Are there patterns, tendencies, general truths in personal coloring? Sure. For example, Bright Winters tend to have striking, "jewel-like" eyes, dark hair, and an overall "clear" look. But if you're wondering whether you are a Bright Winter, it doesn't help you to know that 40 or 60 or 80 percent of people with your same physical traits are Bright Winters. The question still remains: are you? Draping is the only way to know for sure. Good online analysis, that only considers the effect of colors on your skin, is the next-best option. Its accuracy varies from analyst to analyst. Here are some other methods for narrowing your season down to a few contenders. All of them consider the effect of colors on your skin - nothing else. P.S. Kalisz's excellent book is still available by special order from Suzanna Greif. E-mail her at [email protected]. IMHO, this book is essential reading for anyone wanting a good understanding of the science of personal color. P.P.S. Analysts trained by Kalisz's company, Sci\Art, use the 2nd method I describe in this post; you can see a directory of Sci\Art-trained analysts at Christine Scaman's website. (Sci\Art is now called Spectrafiles, btw.)
48 Comments
3/29/2011 03:37:14 pm
Love the post! I'm 100% with you on everything! I might just link it up where people need exactly this kind of advive, haha!
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3/29/2011 03:38:14 pm
I'll try to remember next time that there's no html in this comment form. I know I forgot before already, so... bear with me :-)
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Rachel
3/29/2011 04:23:13 pm
Fixed it! :-)
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3/29/2011 11:45:38 pm
Hi! Great post. I'd love to be in touch with you directly about doing an analysis. Could you email me please?
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3/30/2011 12:57:33 am
Yay! The comment window is bigger!
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Rachel
3/30/2011 08:14:03 am
Another fan -
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Divalicious
3/30/2011 10:58:52 pm
It reminds me of another "color analysis" blog I've encountered few weeks ago filled with several testimony from people who feel that their physical appearance doesn't necessarily predict their actual seasons.
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Divalicious
3/31/2011 06:58:49 am
But then again, with this topic, seems like it contradicts the theory you propose in your site: "...To look your most beautiful, you don't need to color your hair. You don't need to wear expensive makeup or expensive clothes. Truly. You only need to identify the natural coloring of your body, and REPEAT that coloring in your makeup and clothes..."
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Rachel
3/31/2011 08:19:54 am
Divalicious, re: your second comment:
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Rachel
3/31/2011 08:31:57 am
And re: undertones vs. overtones in skin:
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Just learning
3/31/2011 09:49:00 am
I've always been very confused by this myself because I have very, very rosy overtones so people often think I must be a warm season (I've been typed as *every one* of the four seasons), but everything else suggests I must be cool--both how colors look on me, and ash-blond hair and gray-green eyes. So I can tell you that the other day I happened to be wearing a white towel after I showered and looked in the mirror and noticed how bluish the skin just below my collarbone (just above the towel) was, compared to the towel, or maybe it's more accurate to say the towel looked slightly yellow-peachy-ish next to my skin even though it was white. It was the first time I'd understood what "blue undertones" meant.
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Divalicious
3/31/2011 01:52:38 pm
Aaaahhhh.... okay okay....
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Kalulu
4/1/2011 05:51:59 pm
Agree with you completely. This is the best method for determining best colors.
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Elisabeth
4/2/2011 04:28:30 am
When we see eye, skin and hair colors, we see the colors from a distance. We see the sum of the parts; we have millions of different colors in our body, and our eyes are also capable of distinguishing between approx. 10 million. However, when the shades are presented clustered together, we perceive far less. It's like looking at a painting from the pointillism period: when you look at it from a distance, we aren't able to see all the different colored dots we see when we have the paintings right before our noses.
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Rachel
4/2/2011 07:03:20 am
Divalicious -
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Divalicious
4/3/2011 12:27:52 am
Another question. This is rather off topic, actually. I just want to know if all seasons are capable of being natural? And what I mean of being natural is without an ounce of makeup and any other cosmetically-enhancing products.
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Erin
10/7/2013 08:59:20 am
Diva, I'm a dark eyed/haired, pale skinned bright spring leaning warm and I'm an introvert. I actually think that my laid-back, soft spoken personality makes the bright colors I wear seem a lot less obnoxious. They don't read as loud or dramatic on me- if anything, they read as interesting and fun.
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Hanna
4/3/2011 04:54:11 am
This is something I've been thinking about for a couple of weeks and I find myself disagreeing more and more with the oft repeated statement that the only way to know for sure is with draping. I think the only way to know for sure is to *live* in the colours. I also think that someone with sufficiently trained eyes will be able to pick out colours in the skin more accurately rather than just seeing the composite overall skintone. Drapes are good tools, but they are only tools and there might be others.
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mimi
7/15/2018 11:27:18 am
totally feel this way too
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Elisabeth
4/3/2011 06:05:12 am
Divalicious:
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Hanna
4/3/2011 07:12:18 am
Elisabeth, four reasons that I can think of right now.
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Elisabeth
4/3/2011 08:41:16 am
Hanna,
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Elisabeth
4/3/2011 09:31:08 am
...seems like my post was too long! Anyways, this is about what the rest said:
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Rachel
4/3/2011 12:15:17 pm
It's clear that talking about color analysis gets at some deep and personal material in women's psyches. We are truly talking about both our bodies and our selves when we talk about our color.
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Zandra
4/3/2011 11:50:07 pm
When interacting with others, we don't get to be authentic and honest with most of them. I mean, how many best friends do we have? We all have levels to the information we give out, certain things just won't be told after five minutes. But as humans we are "leaking systems", we leak information with our bodys and body language. Personally I think that this is part of what excercise, personal style and make up is about: controlling information. On top of that there are notions of what's "good" and what's "bad" that changes a lot, and of course we want to look "good" rather than "bad". Because, lets face it, it would be provoking if what others perceived would be that we DON'T CARE. Most people don't want that kind of attention or to handle the conflict that follows.
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Rachel
4/4/2011 01:46:31 am
We do indeed communicate information about ourselves with our physical presentation. And if we choose not to try to look a particular way, that also communicates something about our selves. Reminds me of a line from the Rush song "Freewill": "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!" (Yes, I heart Rush.)
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Divalicious
4/4/2011 03:52:28 pm
Audrey Hepburn was a clear winter? Didn't know that. Would've expected her to be more of a deep winter instead.
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Divalicious
4/4/2011 11:08:46 pm
Btw Rachel, yes I understand that season does not equate personality. I don't mean to imply that a certain season must be followed by certain personality. It's like saying that all winters must be elegant & poised; or that all summers are feminine & sweet; all autumns are calm & humble; all springs are fun & bubbly. Like yourself, I also think it's ridiculous that we expect people of a certain season must follow the same rules as their colorings when it comes to their personality. Not all springs are bubbly, not all winters are lady-like etc.
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Cora
4/6/2011 11:18:13 am
I loved this post and all its comments, but especially Hanna's, because I started caring about finding my best colors (and body shape, etc.) to free myself and instead I'm being sucked into obsessing more and more about my looks. Trying to find my season has brought out a lot of issues dating back from middle and high school. It's like if I thought looking my best now could make up for a lot of past grief. As if it was something urgent to solve before I can keep on with my life. I just wanted to get this off my chest.
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Rachel
4/6/2011 01:06:51 pm
Cora -
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Meredith
4/12/2011 11:46:39 am
Question: I'm trying was going to try the lipstick draping method, but Revlon's Strawberry Suede has been discontinued. Is there another obviously Bright Spring drugstore lipstick for me to test with?
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Rachel
4/12/2011 12:34:31 pm
Meredith - thank you for letting me know! I'm replacing it with another that Bright Springs report works well: Revlon Super Lustrous Ravish Me Red.
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Brooke
4/20/2011 03:00:57 pm
I don't understand how someone can say that the only way to tell what their season is is to be draped but then you put celebities on here and tell us what their season is and that they are a Light Spring, Warm Spring, Warm Autumn, etc. Unless you personally draped them, you are assuming by LOOKING at them and making assumptions based on for example the fact that they have red hair and ivory skin. This obviously leads one to consider them a warm season (autum or spring) but you are LOOKING at them and making that assessment, you are not draping them.
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Rachel
4/20/2011 03:19:23 pm
Brooke - You raise a good point.
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Cora
4/24/2011 06:44:54 am
Rachel:
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Divalicious
4/24/2011 02:45:59 pm
Question: Is the color pure white exclusively for the winter season only? Are there any non-winter seasons that can also wear pure white well? What about clear/bright spring and deep autumn? I know that they can wear black, so perhaps they can wear pure white too?
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Shirley
4/26/2011 06:57:16 am
Rachel,
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Rachel
4/26/2011 02:29:14 pm
Diva - I'm hesitant to automatically say anything about anyone based on just one color, because human coloring is almost infinitely various. However, if I see that someone is particularly flattered by stark, bright, white, I'd certainly suspect Winter strongly -- and be suspicious of Spring and Autumn. Summers can also wear white well, but their white is much gentler. It would be difficult to know which white you're looking at unless you had them side by side. Check out the 2nd pic on this page at Christine Scaman's website:
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Shirley
4/26/2011 06:20:31 pm
Rachel, thanks so much. I hoped it would be a discussion about Autumn flecks. I do understand that skin reaction to the drapes is what matters.
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Tora
5/4/2011 08:26:25 pm
Speaking as a definite Light Summer, brown-pink lipsticks make the surrounding skin on me look bluish. I wouldn't risk wearing it just to make my blue eyes look bluer. But then I got my PCA done so my skin could look its best, not to play up my eye color.
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I'm late coming to this thread, but I do want to comment how enjoyable and enlightening it is. Thank you for this site, too--it's delightful.
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Miriam
10/28/2011 06:53:42 am
This is a wonderful post - in this this case truth IS beauty haha.
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5/3/2013 11:51:35 am
I agree so much, it's never enough debunking myths!
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Kat
4/29/2017 03:08:29 pm
This really is the best way to take the test. Going by beauticians, my hair is either neutral brown, brown, or golden brown. I definitely have red undertones in my hair, with warm-ish brown eyes and yet my skin is neutral leaning cool. When I test colors, I look best in bright cool colors and certain warm brights. I'm not sure what I am, though I feel like I'm either a cool winter or a bright winter. But if I went by my hair and eye color, I would've figured likely an autumn. Though I like autumn colors, they don't like me (and neither do summer colors).
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JJ
7/28/2017 10:31:03 am
Excellent post. I fully agree.
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Excellent post! I fully agree.
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Carina
6/17/2018 10:24:13 am
My case:
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Cathy
8/8/2021 03:07:38 pm
Excellent post AND comments! In reply to Divalicious' comment from 10 yrs ago: "Or perhaps, my own "logical" explanation is that: even if we all SEE the same color, but our MIND/BRAINS interprets it differently." Totally agree -- since I'm writing several years after the Internet's famous white/gold vs blue/black dress controversy. LOL! I saw it white/gold -- except when I angled my laptop screen a certain way and suddenly saw the blue/black.
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