+ photo review for customers
I read the comments on Renee, and most seem to think she
is 1) deep, 2) not clear, 3) probably warm, although there
were some that thought she might be on the cooler side.
One blog reader even changed her hair color & sent me
the photo. . .thanks Klara! This color is probably closer
to her natural hair color, so good job.
I personally think she is a ‘deep’. I think the
above photo demonstrates that she can
handle black very well. Here she is draped in
representative colors of both ‘deep’ palettes:
And I liked Klara’s hair color change photo so well,
I used it and tried both greens again:
Left is deep autumn, right is deep winter. . .
And here is Renee with more deep autumn (left side)
deep winter colors (right half):
This is the final word (she has been color confused for some
time). . .let Renee know which you like best: deep autumn or deep winter. . .
Renee provided another photo which may help with
the analysis:
The folks who responded to Thina’s analysis did very
well. Now let’s take a look at Renee. This time we
will go through the whole process. I am not going to
put up any colors on her yet. . .you take a guess where
she is based on her photos:
Note: think dominant characteristic. . .what is
it? Light? Deep? Clear? Soft? Warm?
Cool? Also, you need to ignore her hair color to
help determine dominant characteristic.
Go ahead and leave your guesses.
As you may (or not) have noticed if you’ve looked at
some of the color types posted here, most people fall
on the warmer side of the scale. In my experience,
cooler types are less common, which means the
pigment that generates warmth (yellow undertones)
in the skin, hair, and eye must be dominant.
Here we have Thina, who is an example of one
such cool type; I have placed her in both cool
winter and cool summer colors. Which do you
like best? Go ahead and post your opinion. . .I’d
like to see what you think.
Klara is a warm spring, with peachy skintone & warm blue eye
color. The warm spring colors are better for her than warm
autumn (which is what she thought she was) because of the
clarity of her coloring. If we put you in warm autumn colors,
they would tend to look ‘heavy’ on her.
I got an email yesterday that asks:
I don’t understand how pale caucasians and african and asian people can both
be in the same group as their skin tones differ dramatically?
The person also referenced an article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattering_colors
Firstly, I don’t agree with everything that’s stated in the
above article. The 4-season theory doesn’t account
accurately the 3 components of color: hue, depth, and intensity.
It covers only 2 thoroughly, depth and hue. Intensity is
not clearly defined.
Also, I don’t believe people have blue undertones. Cool people
simply have a lack of yellow undertones, or the pigment that
creates them. So they have more of an ‘absence’ of warmth
than anything else.
But back to the question: how can people with different
skin, eye, and hair colors wear the same colors? The answer
is that everyone, regardless of coloring, falls somewhere on the
warm –> cool, soft –> clear, deep –> light ranges. Those ranges
are relative to the culture, to be sure. But a ‘light’ caucasian
and a ‘light’ african may well find themselves flattered
by the same colors. The reason would be that they are both characterized
by ‘light’ features, and therefore the colors that flatter them both reflect
that dominant characteristic of depth = ‘light’.
So my answer is that everyone falls out somewhere in the color equation on
three points (depth, hue, and intensity). The colors that look best on them mirror
their coloring on those three points. It is hard sometimes when we compare
cultures with respect to color analysis. . .and we shouldn’t. It’s very helpful
to search out each individual’s dominant characteristic (light, deep, soft, clear,
warm, cool) and map back to the colors once we figure out where they fall on
those color ranges.
Katie is a DEEP. But which one: deep winter or deep autumn?
I think the deep autumn, but as always Katie should have a look
at those colors to see if they work best for her.
Before we look at Darren, let me say that those who order swatch books
can get an analysis BY EMAIL ONLY. You don’t have to go up on
the blog if you don’t wish to. There is a field on the order form that
asks how you’d like the results delivered. . .
Darren, you say folks tell you that they believe you’re a winter.
What I’ve done is altered the original photo you sent (at top) and inserted
some colors from various palettes:
The original photo at the top reminds me very much of the summer palette
colors. Deep winter colors are to the right, soft autumn below, and finally
deep autumn are at the bottom. Which do you like?
My favorites are the autumn palettes. One of the differences between the
soft and deep is the level of contrast that they provide. I like you in the
lower-contrast combination of soft autumn. Plus you look softer to me
rather than deep overall.
You said you’ve been wondering about this since the ’80s. . .hope this
gives you a fresh new direction!