Finding Your Color Season - Part 1

We all know we look better in some colors than in others, it’s probably likely that those colors are more common in your wardrobes, and end up being your go-to pieces when nothing quite seems to look right. If you’re just starting to build a wardrobe, learning to pay more attention to colors, or even simply just trying to look radiant, spending time to discover “your” colors is quite rewarding. Wearing colors that don’t compliment your personal coloring can make you look washed out, sallow, and just unremarkable in general. No one wants that! 

By far the best resource I’ve discovered on the subject was a book entitled “Color Me Beautiful” by Carole Jackson. I found it on amazon, and at first was a little skeptical about the more “retro” look of the book itself, copyrighted in 1980 (and boy does it look it!). Eager for knowledge, I plunged into the time machine and bought myself a copy anyways. The title says it all and the advice inside is timeless. (yea, yea don’t judge a book by its cover… I get it). It is presented in an easy to read, and practical to apply form...  plenty of charts and tables to organize the important information. It also has great advice on style and fashion beyond simply color. Go buy yourself a copy! You’ll be happy you did J

Alright, time to taste the rainbow… or at least look at its colors (exercising the other senses is optional).

Look at all the possibilities! In the case of finding the perfect set of personal colors, color groups were traditionally broken into four seasons. You guessed it… Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. This four color seasons system, as described in the book “Color Me Beautiful” is incomplete in that it does not take all aspects of coloring into consideration. Despite being a simplification, it is where we will start. More contemporary practices proceed to break down the seasons even further adding more sub-groupings, creating 12 in total. Some even go further to use a 16 group system.

Before we adventure off to find our colors, let’s do a quick lesson in color theory so we can all speak intelligently about it later. Nothing says life of the party like a solid knowledge of color theory!

Color Theory 101

This seasonal color analysis practice is based around the idea of the Munsell Color System, illustrated above (check out the wiki link if you’d really like to geek out for a moment.). If you prefer the explanation in plain English… the system was developed to scientifically classify and compare colors using three characteristics:

Hue: Which color in the spectrum is it?

Value: Intensity, How light or dark is the color?

Chroma: Saturation, How clear (vibrant) or muted is the color?

Taking combinations of the extremes of these three characteristics gives us 6 distinct possible defining characteristics for a person. I made the handy graphic below to illustrate these qualities on the Munsell Color System:

1.Warm (Golden undertones)
2. Cool (Blue undertones)

3. Deep (Dark)

4. Light (Delicate)

5. Soft (Muted)

6. Clear (Vibrant)

You all still with me? Good! Now, in order to determine our personal color season we need to first observe our natural colorings by taking a look at our skin tone, hair color, and eye color. Let’s take a look in the mirror with some good natural light, no makeup, and discover our personal coloring by answering the questions below.

Skin Tone:

Does your skin have blueish (or blue-pink) undertones? Or more golden (or even orange) undertones? If you’re having a hard time figuring it out, try looking at the insides of your wrists, hold something true white behind to mask any other colors from view.  This works best on untanned spots on your body… so go ahead, take a moment to explore your skin tone. This is a good indicator if you have warm or cool coloring. Warm = Autumn or Spring, Cool = Summer or Winter. 

Hair Color:

What is your natural hair color? If you wear a wig or color your hair in a color other than your natural color, this color should not be considered since it does not occur naturally on your body. Often times artificial hair colors will only look “natural” if they fit into the same color grouping as your original coloring. Is your hair light (blonde, gray, white) or dark (black, dark brown)? What color are your natural highlights? In general, is the tone of the color warmer (golden, red-ish, yellow-ish) or cool (blue-ish, no highlights, ashy tones)? 

Eye Color:

This one should be the most simple to determine… What color are your eyes naturally?

Jot down the answers to these questions…. I’ll use myself as an example:

Skin tone: Pale, almost alien-like blueish glow (charming I know)

Hair Color: Dark Brown, an ashy, grayish tone, no gold/red highlights

Eye Color: Blue to Gray-blue

With your descriptions in hand, we can now determine our color season. I've spent many hours compiling information from several sources in an effort to make a simple flowchart to help us out. Keep in mind, this isn't a perfect method... but it will get most people to the correct season. Click the image below to enlarge and find your season!

 Congratulations! You now have your color season based on the four season system. I'm a Winter, (brrr... not my favorite season weather-wise). With your season, you are ready to move along into the 12 season system in our next post to determine your defining coloring characteristic: Warm, Cool, Deep, Light, Soft, or Clear. 

It's wonderful to be back blogging, 

a big thank you for all the support 

as I move forward with transitioning!

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Cheers, Kayci