Online
* Christine Scaman writes brilliantly about color. Spend hours perusing her site, 12 Blueprints.
* Irenee Riter’s site, The Science of Personal Dress, is like a college course in color and image analysis. Awesome. Take the time and read the entire thing.
* Lora Alexander’s site, Pretty Your World, is incredibly fun and informative. While you’re at it, check out her wonderful blog.
Books
Kathryn Kalisz's text is essential reading if you want to deeply understand the theory behind 12 season color analysis. A future classic.
Return to Your Natural Colors
Christine Scaman's is currently the most complete book available on the 12-season color system. Christine's a Sci\Art-trained analyst and very, very smart. The book is both thorough and poetic, and even comes with sample palettes.
Christine Scaman's is currently the most complete book available on the 12-season color system. Christine's a Sci\Art-trained analyst and very, very smart. The book is both thorough and poetic, and even comes with sample palettes.
Use this awesome tool to train your eye to see subtle changes in value and chroma within each hue. The accompanying text is thorough. Highly recommended.
Lora Alexander's book on 12-season color analysis is extensively illustrated and easy to read.
Color analysis isn't just for White women, though you wouldn't know it from most resources. In this book, Donna Fujii goes well beyond 12 seasons and proposes an extensive system of color categorization that includes separate palettes for Asian, Black, Latina and White women, complete with many large full-color photographs. This is an especially good resource for Asian women because Fujii analyzes the subtle variances in Asian women's coloring so closely. If you're a woman of color and you believe in the validity of the 12-tone system but have difficulty locating yourself in it, get this book. When you find your Fujii season, it's not hard to identify the 12-tone analogue.
Not for the easily discouraged or easily bored. If you're detailed-oriented, obsessive, perfectionistic, thorough - if you're like me, basically - you will heart this book. Carla Mathis lets you categorize every part of your body and tells you how to dress it accordingly. You can use the punch-out color cards to create your own custom palette.
An oldie but a goodie. Spillane & Sherlock's book includes small color swatches for each of the 12 seasons that are pretty accurate. (Problems with precise color printing make this very difficult to find in books.)
The styles are dated, and there's some Christian evangelizing that many people will find alienating. But I like this book because it has 12 seasons and includes sample colors that are pretty darn good.
Joanne Richmond's 2008 book only addresses four seasons, but it comes with color swatches and some pretty pictures. It may be worth buying if you're a True season (that's a Warm or Cool in Color Me Beautiful parlance).
The styles are dated, and like the title above it only allows for four seasons, but this book does come with some great full-color pictures of (mostly White) women from each of the True seasons, along with sample colors.
One of the few books on personal color analysis written specifically for women of color! Unfortunately this is another book that only includes four seasons, but I highly recommend it because it's validating for people of color and educating for Whites. Great for seeing full-color photos of Black, Latina and Asian women who are Springs and Summers.
It's a testament to the vividness of his description that this completely illustration-free book is still a fun read. Zyla uses a 24-season system that seems to derive from Suzanne Caygill's. He includes current celebrity examples, which are fun.
The system Leatrice Eiseman's using seems to come from a different tradition than the 12-season system, and I'm not convinced of it. But this book comes with great mini color cards that are keyed to Pantone colors, and if you can identify one of Eiseman's seasons that corresponds to your own, those cards would be awfully useful for you.
Just what it says. Limited to only four seasons, but great for full-color photos of True season men.
I currently think the eye-pattern-predicts-season idea is bogus. But I could be wrong. If you're a believer, this book is for you. Great detailed drawings of eyes that supposedly correspond to each season.
A word about the advertising you see on this site: I'm a working mom with small children, so the potential for a small bit of extra income is valuable to me. I hope your joy in visiting this site is not diminished.