I totally agree! I would only add the word “muted.” Muted or dirty beige is the most soul sucking color. My login name is morethanbeige because I used to gravitate to off-white and ivory and light brown and had trouble wearing color. I lumped all off-white colors into beige. Now I know that beige is different than ivory. I love ivory, but if I wear beige I look deathly ill!

I also have a strong opinion about this — it is beige. Now you might think that, since I am a redhead, beige would look good on me but it just makes me feel so insipid and insignificant as a human being that I become insecure…a wallflower…and cranky. So I love to wear rich camel tones, especially when they have texture or patterns, and accessories in the amber or tortoise-shell range, but please don’t buy me anything beige, because if you do, that will probably be the last time you see it. (I enjoy it on others, don’t get me wrong.) Mauve and pale yellow are next in line for me.

Magenta. Uuugh. Hideous.

In general, I like bold jewel tones. I’m OK with most shades of mauve, even. And I quite like pink. But the unholy offspring of purple and hot pink is definitely my least favourite, on me and on anyone else.

I am not sure of the correct color but I call it “dirty mustard” The absolute worst color in the world for me…I don’t think I could ever get this color to work…and don’t want to!!

Followed closely by certain shades of brown and beige.

Ugh! I’m right there with Taylor on the mustard! The other color that comes to mind is a yellow green — about the color of the “Get stylish email updates” box to the right. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fabulous on the website here. But if I wear it with my pale skin it makes me look sick. I guess yellow tones in general tend to look bad on me, whether yellow-green, orange, or mustard. But then every decade or so I find one yellow piece that looks fabulous, usually a very pure yellow, like canary. Right now I have two skirts that have yellow in them, but in relatively small amounts. I once had a fabulous yellow sun dress. I would love another in a similar shade.

I just bought (and quickly returned) a sweater from Target. It was a soft, light camel color, like very milky coffee. On me, it turned into superblah. I think because it was so very close to the color of my skin. Not sure. But I liked the color on its own.

I have a powerful dislike for CPU beige (you know, the color of Windows CPU boxes from the ’90s, or cheap interior housepaint chosen to be “inoffensive”) That’s got to be the worst color ever.

Magenta, on the other hand, is my “power color”, elisabeth, I get endless compliments when I wear the magenta dress I was wearing today.

I’d have to go with beige as well… I can’t do camel either.
Oh, and pumpkin orange is pretty hideous on me as well.

Most shades of brown. I’m a pretty tan person, so I hate wearing certain shades of brown ’cause then it just feels like brown on brown.

I’ll consent to wearing brown-ish pants, and dark brown tops – but if it comes within 5 shades of my own skin tone, I’m not having it.

magenta for me…it is awful on me. Yuk.

I meant no offense to those who like magenta, Cynthia! I have no doubt it looks fantastic on you. I just have a inexplicable but serious aversion to that particular colour! I just don’t like it. I don’t know why. It’s funny how sometimes you can have such a visceral response (positive or negative) for a colour. I wonder why that is.

I’m so with you on beige, Angie, and I really don’t understand why manufacturers keep producing beige trench coats (one of my pet peeves, if I see one more beige trench I am going to cry-(

Two other colours that look horrible on me – I do like them in general and on other people – are bright yellow and orange. I’m also quite sad that tomato red is not flattering on me at all…

I’m with Taylor on the dirty mustard. Let’s call it “jaundice-inducing dirty mustard.” I might have described it as “goldenrod” but although I am allergic to actual goldenrod, even the name “goldenrod” is too appealing for this murky combination of brown and yellow that I’m imagining. It gives my face a hideous yellow pallor that makes me look like I am suffering from jaundice. Blech!

I HATE that color!

I agree with Taylor about mustard. It’s not just ugly on people, it’s ugly sitting all on its own. It’s what “old gold” would look like after a 3 day bender and it flatters no one.

I also have a complete aversion to orange, which looks terrible on me. Pretty much every shade just seems unfortunate to me. Neon, pumpkin, orange blossom, I don’t care what shed, I dislike them all. They do look lovely on some people, but I can’t get over my dislike for it as a colour.

I have three worst colors, is that OK?
Mustard yellow. Magenta. Teal.
And most people look horrible in black, I just can’t understand the popularity of black.

Laura, Taylor — it’s funny, but mustard almost always looks great on me. On its own, just as a colour with no reference to skin tone, it’s definitely not my favourite, but because I know it works for me, I occasionally wear it. Same holds true for those shades of brown that make a lot of people look sallow. General rule for me: if a colour looks bad on others, it will look good on me. And vice versa, unfortunately.

I have a strong aversion to mustard yellow on me, but I can appreciate it on other people.

I also really dislike that pale institutional hospital green color. Yuck.

Powder/baby blue. For some reason, this shade washes me out much more completely than beige or even black does. Baby pink is kind of the same way, so maybe it’s just that pastels in general don’t work with my complexion.

I…..like all the colors >.> but i have a pretty neutral skin tone so that could be why

Camel — worst colour on me. I can just manage apricot or soft pale lemon, but any other orange or yellow looks hideous. Beige, cream, mustard do nothing for me either. OTOH I look great in magenta!

Totally with Angie on this one regarding “soul-sucking” beige. A close runner up would be that yellowy-greeny brown I think of as “cow-flop” brown.

Soul-sucking beige! Love it. (The moniker, not the color.) We do holiday shirts every year for my group at Christmas and last year’s shirts were BEIGE. Terrible! To make it worse some of the men wear them with khakis so they’re all running around looking like zookeepers.

For me, my worst color is olive green. I think I own tops in every other color imaginable – but not olive green!

lol. I was going to say “bone” which I think is another variation of soul-sucking beige which I agree doesn’t really look good on anyone, even those with dark skin. It doesn’t look bad on dark skin, but it doesn’t look good either. I’m also going to side with Amrita and say that cow-flop brown (best name for it ever) is equally disgusting on everyone.

I’m sad that so many people are hating on mustard yellow though – I love mustard yellow. I have mustard yellow cords and sweaters and think it looks great.

Most shades of orange.
Most pastels.
Probably should add yellow to this list, but I kinda love it even though it makes me look jaundiced too!

Pale yellow. It sucks the life out of me.

It was fun to come back home and hear about your visceral reactions to colours

Taylor and Laura, your mustard descriptions are hilarious. I believe that you look and feel jaundiced when wearing it. I do know people who wear it well though – like our Jean (greenglove).

Inge, I am crying with you.

Elizabeth, your aversion to magenta had me in stitches. No worries! Even though I don’t often wear the colour, it does work for me and I do like it. I bet Cynthia rocks it! I have friends who wear magenta so well it will take your breath away.

Soooooo, yellow citrus-y green is my favourite colour (along with tomato red), and I wear it well. Hah! Thank goodness this question is subjective

Ditto, Angie, to soul-sucking beige.

BLAH! It looks horrible on me. So does ANYTHING with a yellow base to it – those colors are absolutely hideous with my Scots-Irish complexion and dark ash blond hair!

I LOVE magenta. Purple, however, is my absolute favorite color ‘vitamin.’

For me is that very light yellow. I trully look sick in it.

Orange or bright yellow anywhere near my face = Tara has jaundice.
Any colour in the spectrum of “khaki”-”baby poo green” = is Tara dead/very ill?
Soul sucking beige/camel/dirty flesh colour = Tara blends nicely into the wall.
Brown = Tara looks boring and feels like a tree trunk.

Beige, any shade of yellow (erk) and orange. Seriously scary colors on me.

I like cow-pie brown, but isn’t that just another name for chocolate brown? Or maybe it depends on the cows’ diets?!

White. Does all kinds of weird stuff to my skin color. To wear a white blouse I have to wear something in a color near the face – jewelry, scarf, sweater or jacket.

I am that forum member, and I am sticking to my guns about soul sucking beige. It’s a very specific shade, roughly halfway between the color of oatmeal and my cat’s vomit.

After that, my least favorite colors come from the dingy blue family. Dusty, steely, stuck-in-the-attic-for-a-century blues. They make me depressed.

I also can’t seem to get behind olive or khaki, although redheads do them exceptional justice.

I LOVE orange, mustard, magenta, and lemony-lime greens. I am so excited to get my giant magenta rug I can’t stand it.

I would have to agree 100% with grayish beige. Runners up are all other beiges, any nude-for-me near the face, lime yellow, mustard and the yellower greens.

Love and feel at least decent in pretty much every other color.

Anything with yellow in it looks dreadful on me, but I love it on many others. I don’t have a lot of pure color aversions; that is, I know that certain colors aren’t flattering on me, but I like seeing them on others. Maybe the exception is really light pastels… (And, magenta is one of my favorite colors, partly because it works so well with my fair skin and dark hair.)

I don’t dislike orange, but I sure can’t wear it. It makes me look like I’ve been dead a few days and only recently reanimated (BRRRAAAAAAAIIINSSS). Mustard, or most all yellows actually, don’t do me any favors either.

Beige, for sure. And on a redhead like me, there are certain shades of lavender/light purple that make me look like I stepped out of a Harry Potter movie (In a bad way. Darker purples do the same, in a good way). I love them on my friends, but they’re just no good for me.

KristineK, I am so with you on powder/baby blue. Blech. It just doesn’t seem like an adult color.

Haha. I don’t have a strong aversion to any color. Funny, too funny.

My worst color is hospital scrubs green. I absolutely HATE that color.

A year ago I would say black but now I realized that I can wear it. It may not be my best color and brown suits me better but I don’t think black is as bad on me as I thought before. At least it provides some drama!
On the other hand beige is awful on me – I like Maya’s description! I can look good in tan and camel but oatmeal or grayish beige completely drain me.
Other problematic colors for me are medium and light blues but at least they are more fun than beige!

I don’t like large expanses of solid pastels on me. The worst? PEACH. Yechhhh. Corals look terrible too, from peachy to pinky/reddish. Just awful. You will not be seeing me in this season’s “honeysuckle.”

However, many shades of orange, yellows, golds and browns work on me, it turns out (as a blonde I should have realized this ages ago). I’m too pale to look good in almost any form of beige, camel, ivory, or white without major mitigation from some other color.

What a fun game Angie! Ok, besides soul sucking beige, how about soul sucking olive green and orange…..Does nothing for us gals with dark hair and fair skin. Blach!

Also totally in agreement with dirty mustard. I like it on my sandwiches not on a sweater….yuck!

Another vote for beige and dirty mustard. Ick!

I’m with Yardshark on the peach. There’s this particular shade that I’ve come to think of as Ashen Apricot. Awful.

I have never, ever, liked crayon orange. I do not like the muddy baby poop green either.
I wish I could wear cheery yellow but no.

My seventh grade gym shorts were made of polyester that was called royal blue. I have a suspicion that this color can only be replicated in double knit fabics, which just adds to the hideousness to my eye.

Bright orange makes my skin appear the color of soul-sucking beige, so I vote that.

Back in the days of my misspent youth, I worked retail for a certain Polo shirt company. There was a color that was between purple and brown (think dull, dried out raisins mixed with prune juice) that appeared season after season and always made a major statement at clearance sale time. My ex-navy co-worker and I referred to it as “Dog’s Dinner.” Any time I see anything in that color range, I want to run screaming!

I’ll also vote for Soul-Sucking Beige and Baby Poo green.

Ooooh, that leaves lots more yellow mustard for me! That’s one of my favorites.

The worst color is that sour yellow/citron/yellow-green color. It’s the only yellow i don’t love and wear a lot of. No good for my warm complexion!

I could not sit this discussion out! I look pretty awflul in that beige, especially one with pinkish green overtones. I do look good in yellow (canary, marigold, ivory yellow, and oranges and corrals though, and I wear them often. After reading the posts, I wonder — is that why people look at me more intently when I wear yellow, orange and corral (which I do often?)

I am so happy you said that, Angie! For me the soul-sucking color is the color of the “classic” trench coat. And everyone says we all should have a classic trench coat. Every time I try one, I feel like death in it! I even bought one at the Nordstrom Rack, thinking it was just bad lighting in the store. Fortunately, it wasn’t expensive, because otherwise I would feel bad that it hangs in my coat closet unworn.

Thank goodness, Taylor and Laura come through with the perfect description of the color I hate most on me-jaundice inducing dirty mustard. I look sick sick sick with that color anywhere near my face. I don’t hate the color necessarily, just keep it away from me, please!

See, I am one of the gals that looks good in the orange, the dirty mustard, even the calf-scours color, and definitely in brown. Orange is my absolute favorite color and magenta is the only shade of “pink” I like. I look fine in most pinks (not some of the lighter or really blueish ones, like bubblegum or cotton candy) but I don’t care for them personally. Also, purple is supposed to be a good color on me but I HATE it. The lighter shades aren’t good on me. All pastels really, except things like ivory, light yellow, and peach. I love olive and camel.

I really don’t look good in the grey beige that Angie describes and most shades of grey. I do have a few grey pieces when it was “the neutral” but I find they just don’t look good on me. Charcoal is the best.

Some hideous shade that falls between violet and pale gray. I like to refer to it as this shade as “3-day old corpse.”

I only got to read through the first couple dozen responses before I had to run out, but it was enough that I figure I must be a freak of nature because I love mustard, yellow, orange, etc. and in the right shade I love them on me! I don’t like and can’t wear any shades that resemble baby colors though.

I love strong colours, sour colours, clear colours, rich colours. Hmm, I guess I am either easy to please or have no discernment. . .

The absolute worst color in the world on me is camel. I actually like camel, but it is just appalling on me. Worse than beige.

Pale lavender – that colour really says old lady and looks really bad on me. I agree too on the dirty mustard. I like camel and beige because I wear those colors quite well.

Any thing with a yellow/ brown cast to it. Beige, mustard, orange, I could frighten small children in any of those!!

I dislike all “in-between” colors : greyish colors, darkish colors, muted, pastels … and also all things yellow. Only like strong, vibrant shades : deep unfaded black, white-white, cobalt blue, bright red, kelly green, fuschia, tangerine. I make an exception for ink-blue and “dark wash denim”-blue.

I like classic-trench beige, though … on classic trenches

I LIKE beige! And taupe, and khaki! And I think they work for me – either that or the ylf girls have been too polite to tell me OR I have been blind to your hints. I know it’s not for everyone….my personal worst would be Complexion Draining Salmon.

On me, it would be a golden yellow murked up with a hint of brown. Scary stuff.

Close runners up would be dusty pale colors. (This includes soul-sucking beige.) I have a bad habit of buying these colors because I think they “go” with my fair skin and hair. But when I see myself in the mirror, the sad truth is revealed.

Orange looks pretty wretched on me, though I like it in principle. Pastels probably look bad on me, but I hate them too much to even bother verifying. Any of these are far worse than beige. I do enjoy many of those mustardy and weird green colors that are widely disliked.

Before I knew better about what suited me and what didn’t, I wore a lot of black. I’ve recently realised that it just makes me look awful. Perhaps that’s down to my complexion changing as I get older. Or perhaps it has never suited me but I just didn’t know it. Either way, on the rare occasion I wear black now, it’s never close to my face.

Sage green is the world’s worst color on me.

Beige totally washes me out and makes me look sick! If I wear it, I have to pair it with a strong color near my face.

There is a paint range available which specialises in Barbie colours, ‘Barbie Pink’ is a colour which makes me shudder to the core!

I’m with you on beige.

Definitely 100% beige. I’m very fair skinned and I look like the walking dead in beige. In that same category I would say anything pastel-y like pale yellow, pale pink, pale peach…all dreadful.

Oooh, for me it would be peach. I just hate it. Actually all of the pastels are pretty awful on me. There is nothing flattering about them at all!

I dont like red at all…or polo shirts and I needed to wear a red polo shirt at work for 19 years! eek! Hot pink is another gruesome shade to me….

Alright, I’m going to ask about some of the allegedly ‘hot’ colors for this season, which to me, are ‘gagaiceous’ (my made up word, similar to ‘makes me nauseous to think of wearing on my body’). One has been called ‘lemon zest’ (sounds good, but isn’t on the fabric), a sort of chartreuse yellow. It looks like yellow washed over with gray-green slime.
The others are seen in the current palette for Gap’s Gap Body and Gap Fit apparel, and I have noticed it elsewhere. I read that lavender was ‘it’ for spring, but I have seen these greyish mauves-and what is it with the labeling purple pumice stone, lilac stone, super mauve, then greenthumb oil yellow, key lime pie. Their greys are also confusing to me: several shades muddied with purples/blues/browns, etc. I won’t even go into the red/oral/orange values. Am I missing something, other than pretty young models can wear anything?

Amen to the beige. I honestly don’t know one single person this looks good on. Not a one! I also love how you refer to it a ‘soul sucking” — perfect!

In general: neon anything. Bad. Bad. And bad.

On me: beige, or anything pale (pale yellow, pale pink, pale blue…you get the idea). I may as well be naked, because I pretty much disappear when fabrics in those colours sit against my unrelentingly alabaster skin.

Icy pale pink makes me disappear and very strong neon-tinged violet blue ages me about 40 years.

Mauve-ish type colours make me look like a corpse. I actually love the khakis, mustard yellows, browns, etc and they suit my colouring. Pastels can look lovely on some people but I can’t stand them anywhere near myself … I had my colours ‘done’ a couple of years ago and it was a real eye-opener for me – now I know what to avoid, what to wear in small amounts, etc.

Very interesting. I actually don’t have a color that I think is universally awful – I think even beige can look quite good on some women (alas, not me).
For me personally, I’ve found (in addition to beige) wine red especially bad, somehow it saps all the color out of my face. I don’t hate the color generally, though. And I find shades in every color family that don’t work. E.g., while I wear many blues very well, there are some bright blues that just don’t work and make me look pale and stuff. So it’s really more about the shade, intensity, hue etc. that’s off, not the color in general.

This has been a really fun post for the comments! I feel like we could start our own line of paints at Home Depot. Come by and check out the eye-catching new shades of…

Soul-sucking Beige
Jaundice-Inducing Mustard
Gagaiceous Green

I think very pale pinks and very pale peaches look terrible on me, because they are so close to my skin tone. While I like those colors a great deal, someone might call a dress I was wearing in those colors Putrescent Peach or Pukey Pink–but hey, they would fit nicely in our new line of paints.

I like beige on the right skin tone, in fact I think all colors are subjective to skin tones. For myself anything warm is pretty bad on me. All warm colors I vote nay too.

Dead off white, chartreuse and TEAL. There is no skin tone that looks good in teal.

Any and all beige is horrible. Turns the cutest hottie into grandma. Blegh.

I agree with soul-sucking beige. Its the only thing I absolutely hands-down avoid when I shop. I go from fresh and rosy to a sickly-fluish when I put it on. Yuck!!

I can not stand the color yellow, in any shade. Some can pull it off, but on me, it looks absolutely ridiculous. Like you, beige is also another color that I can’t pull off. Deep browns, yes, but Beige, absolutely not.

I do not know how I missed this thread. I love all colors- it depends on what they are next to. Any color can look beautiful in relation to something else. Colors are just not independently effective. Beige, stone- I love them and have worn them if paired with other neutrals for that mushroomy monochrome look that makes them come alive. Mustard is fantastic with black, teal, eggplant, magenta, navy…..

Beige is great with a espresso brown, cool olive, copper.

I could go on.
The color that does not suit me is sweatshirt grey- only the grey with no character. I do not think it looks good on anyone. rich warm or bluish greys- love!

I’d say lime green, at least in large doses near my face. My skin has a slightly yellowish undertone so lime green just makes me look jaundiced. I like the color though and it works on other people, just not me.

Coconut, really, teal? I think nearly all skin tones look good in teal! Maybe it depends on the shade of teal.

Hot pink – it wears me.
Do you think these bad/good colors have to do with our skin/eyes/hair and what looks good on us? I have very muted low-contrast coloring ( kind of like Queen Elizabeth). Muted colors look best on me.

Blue is the worst colour in the world because it is noobish and it is overrated

LETS GO RED!!!!!!!!!

For me, it is mustard yellow. It sucks the life out of my face. Truly horrible on me. I also cannot wear olive green, although I like the color on others who can.