Does your closet like mine? You open it up and it's full of clothes in your favorite colors or there are a lot of neutrals? Do you ever get the urge to spice things up with some new colors, but not sure what color you would look good in? If so, read on...
There's a great new trending topic going around that may actually be useful.
Have you heard of "seasonal color analysis"?
Gabrielle Arruda wrote an article, "Which season are you? Seasonal Color Analysis and why it matters". In it she says, "Seasonal color analysis is a system that takes our skin tone, natural eye tone, and hair color and formulates the best color palette for us based on those factors. It takes into account our undertones (hue) and the value (light versus dark) of our skin, hair, and eyes and uses that to find the types of colors we look best in."
Finding your seasonal color can help you refine what colors look best on you and help you discover what new shades you should incorporate into your wardrobe.
It also provides lucidity on why a certain shade might not work for you.
Seasonal color analysis is a helpful place to start when finding your own unique color palette.
Finding you season is broken up into 3 main components.
Hue: that can be cool or warm
Value: light or dark
Chroma: muted/clear/soft to bright
These are evaluated from your eyes, hair, and skin tone. One of these will fall into one of the seasons, winter, spring, summer, or fall. This group is named after seasons because there is already a color associated with them. The concept of seasonal color in relation to your own hair, skin, and eyes was popularized by Carole Jackson’s book “Color Me Beautiful” in the 1980s.
What are the basics of finding your seasonal color?
Step 1: In order to fine your exact undertone, you can try one of the following tests. These tests work well for most people, but they can be confusing. If you get something funky the first time, be sure to try them both. Here they are:
The jewelry test, in natural sunlight use gold and silver jewelry against your skin and see which one looks best.
The vein color test, look at the underside of your wrist and find your veins. If they are mostly blue or purple, you are a cool tone. If your veins are mostly green, you are warm toned.
Once you find what your underlying tone is you can now establish your color season by accessing your hair and eye color. The cool seasons are Winter and Summer. The warm seasons are Spring and Fall. Winter seasons have cool undertones, dark hair, vibrant eyes, and have high contrast between their skin, eyes, and hair. Summer seasons have cool undertones but have lighter hair and eye colors. While they have some contrast between their skin tone and their hair/eyes it is much more moderate than the winter seasons. Autumn seasons have warm undertones, with dark hair and dark eyes. They do not have high or even moderate contrast between their skin, eyes, and hair, but rather creates a soft blend between all three features. Spring seasons have warm undertones but lighter hair and eyes. They can still have dark features (skin, hair, or eyes), but there isn’t a lot of contrast between the three features, and it feels like a blend instead of stark contrast.
If you still find that you don't seem to fit into any of these categories, they have broken it down into 12 more analysis options.
If you need to go further, the article mentioned at the beginning is a good resource.
Good luck and have fun!