Suz, great idea, and you're very welcome. YES. How you feel in an outfit - that's personality coming through - plays a huge role. And I just remembered that when I wore black specs, I wore black & white just as easily. I guess they created the high contrast in my complexion that complemented the high contrast outfits.

Debs, don't worry. It can be confusing, and there are many assumptions in the theories that make it easy to buck the system - like I guess I do. Because important variables like brows, eyewear and makeup alter the value of your facial contrast.

Staysfit. I echo Suz. I love #12. I also like #1, #2 and #9. Do those faves fit into these theories?

Staysfit - I clicked on her website when you first posted the link earlier today, and I think I just came out now. I got all tied up in body shapes and x's and h's and low and high contrast and hair and skin to the point where I had no idea what time it was or what I initially sat down at the computer to do.

I came out no further ahead with this high /low contrast concept - finding it all a little complicated . But, I think I should go back and read it more thoroughly. I came out with 2 neutrals (eyes and hair) and a colour ( my skin). I would NOT have considered my hair a neutral, but according to her colour swatches it is. I do know that I'm not a fan of high contrast on me - i.e. black pants and a white top, or navy and ivory - without some interest going on on the outfit to add depth to the light colour. For example I have a quilted and zip trim white sweatshirt top that I like with black bottoms. If it were a plain white top, I'd look like crap, and feel like crap - but the quilting, zippers and a hit of coloured lipstick are enough to offset the starkness of the white. Does that make any sense? I'm not throwing in a scarf or coloured earrings here, but I am adding in depth with texture and trim. Hmm - now that I've worked that out aloud - where to from here?

Lisa, your hair the way it is now - is a Colour. Not neutral.

It IS most definitely coloured, but the colour itself (bleached blonde - ash) seems to fall under her neutral selections. It is not golden blonde at all.

Suz, your point about personality is so true. It can definitely help someone carry color, contrast and pattern. While I am someone who is confident and I am not shy, I would not call myself vivacious. I would be more of a warm and gentle type. I have always been attracted to color, and I often wear multiple colors in the form of rings, bangles, earrings, make-up, my shoes/boots, scarves, etc. However, I am not big on pattern. Looking at the 12 outfits I pulled, I have very little pattern, but I do have texture. I like texture, and am very much a texture person.

I laughed when you said that this would make a great challenge. Yes it would. I am feeling challenged right now with how to even create some medium value contrast low color contrast ensembles. It would seem that maybe I have done it with 4, 9, 10, 12, maybe 8 (test look to see if I like the skirt with the sweater so I look like I have bed head), and 3 has an assortment of colors because of the boots, although the contrast level is low among all the neutrals. It (3) may still count. 7&11 are low contrast and value. I'm not sure what 1 is, I thought it could be medium contrast and value, and I think I am pulling it off well. It's a weekend look anyway. 5. Is a completely neutral outfit, with low contrast and no color, 2 is the highest contrast I could find, and 6 may also be a medium to high contrast.

I look forward to trying this after the holidays. It will definitely be fun and a challenge.

Lisap, I was confused by this also. I am ash blond, and that was considered a neutral, but I like you color my hair. In fact, I have changed my hair color 14 times in the past 2 years I think that makes my hair very colored!!

Actually, you're right, Lisa. Platinum blonde hair - which is what yours is right now judging by your avatar - is a Neutral, and I thought it was Colour.

Staysfit, I think we posted at the same time. Look at the top of this page for my comment.

Angie, thanks for the encouragement. I am a generally a visual learner so if I can't see it sometimes I struggle and with some of the photos on Imogens's blog it wasn't clear to me. Perhaps I need to give it some more attention.

Lisa, I feel validated. If you were also a little confused then I am in good company:)

So Angie, if you are still around:) my hair is a colour or neutral? It's platimum blonde but foiled so my natural colour which is a dark blonde still shows throught???

According to this I'm:
3 neutrals – low colour contrast – best in monochromatic outfits or all neutrals

And:
2 elements separated by half the grey scale – medium contrast – best in
light and medium, or medium and dark, but if you want to do light and
dark you MUST put a medium colour on too

That makes sense-- I struggled a lot this Fall trying to make higher contrast looks work and not loving them. Now I'm mostly wearing neutrals either in head to toe dark or mid tones, or mixing dark and mid-tones.

Angie, we did post at the same time. So, yes, I thought that I had followed Imogen's advice for color and value contrast with 1, 9, 10 and 12, but I'm definitely not with pic 2. I posted pic 2 as being high contrast although, I may not have many high contrast pics. What would you call the contrast between charcoal and ivory? It's certainly not as high as black and white. The pants are also plaid so there is some variation to the grey, and I don't know how that effects how the eye see's the contrast?

Suz, the red shirt in pic 12 is not as bright in person as in the photo. It is a berry red though, a color between a deep rich dark pink and red. I really love the color and if I can find anything else this color I would snap it up!

Deb - my understanding of this hair business is that her term "colour" doesn't necessarily refer to how it got that way and more to do with the shade itself. I went right off of the colour chart and description. It seems like a gold blonde - which yours may be now?? is colour and not neutral. Mine is decidedly neutral because of the ashiness of it.

Thanks Lisa. Mine has no gold or yellow. It is white, but there is a touch of warmth in my natural colour...confusing

Deborah, for the purpose of this exercise, I would go with whatever tone is most dominant, which in your case is the white/platinum color and ignore the touch of warmth.

Each question has two parts. One is about color and the other is about looking at the feature on a grey scale. So you first determine if your hair has color, and then you look at it on the grey scale. Then you do the same for your skin and your eyes.

If you have a cell phone with editing features on the camera, which I do, you can take a photo and convert it to grey scale and then use that. I found this easiest. Otherwise, you can just guess based on her examples of what different colors may look like in grey scale.

I don't know if this helps, or if I confused you more?

The colour/ neutral thing is tricky for a blonde, I think. Probably for any reddish brunette, too.

I wasn't sure what to call myself. My hair most definitely has some gold and taupe in it, but also ash and almost a charcoal. The overall impression is a sort of dirty blonde. I think it is more neutral than it is coloured. Even though it is coloured, if you know what I mean.

I did think that rather than getting too caught up in the detail I could ask myself what tends to look better on me -- an outfit with two colours and one neutral, or an outfit with two neutrals and a colour? I honestly have no idea! But I think I naturally gravitate towards two neutrals with one colour. Much as I do love colour, I seem rarely to wear several colours together except in a pattern, and even there I prefer one colour and one neutral as a rule. (Usually blue and white).

Ultimately, my hair will be grey. Then it will most definitely be a neutral.

Staysfit, that helps thank you. I think I am more 'organic' in my approach

Same here

Wow, interesting but complicated.

I'd say my dark brown hair is neutral (dark), my skin is colored (a bit golden, and medium), and my brown eyes are neutral (medium dark). So I could do neutrals with one color, and I would probably do best with Light/medium contrast or medium/dark contrast.

But in the summer, when my auburn highlights come, and when my skin is darker, I'd be lower contrast and might include more color. Phew!

Deb, my scientific side is shining through here!

Suz, iif I am understanding your thinking, making a determination based on whether you look good in one or two colors, one or two neutrals, etc. may be misleading. Consider my first photo, where I am clearly wearing two colors, however, they are medium contrast in terms of value, so I think that makes them work. Perhaps I am more value dominant than I realized, because I am medium value but low color. Perhaps because I think neither value nor color are dominant in my features, I can emphasize either one depending on the circumstance.

This brings up another point, no one has really mentioned Imogen's recommendation that you consider which trait is dominant, color contrast or value contrast. I think these are two concepts and can be confusing.

The point of how one feels in a particular level of color/value contrast was brought up by several people who either agreed or disagreed with the result they obtained. If the results don't reflect your personality and make you feel good than feel free to discard them. Perhaps you can reflect upon why they are a poor fit?

Yes, that's right, Staysfit -- I was forgetting that element. (That you need to consider value as well as colour). I guess I was just assuming for the sake of my example that the value contrast chosen would be a flattering one.

I think that those of us with hair that is "debatably" colour or neutral may run into problems there, too. Some people are quite obviously "colour" dominant -- say a bright red head with green eyes. But I had trouble deciding what was dominant in myself. I am fairly low contrast, (light hair, fair skin, medium blue eyes) but fairly low colour, too -- with (arguably) neutral hair (or at most, a rather faded colour, LOL), neutral skin, and coloured eyes that actually read as a neutral (grey) in some lights.

So where does that leave me? Wearing grey all the time, maybe? Which, hey --- happens to look great on me, LOL!!

Staysfit, very good point. You are perhaps more naturally inclined to analyse than I am:)

Hmm, I believe my hair is neutral and my skin and eyes a color, but I am only medium contrast on the grey scale, even though I believe my hair to my skin are actually high contrast, my eyebrows are dark and so are my lips. I am not helping am I :-)?

Shevia, this is a confusing exercise for many, and it is for you, so if it doesn't work don't fret! Thanks for trying

Suz, I am certainly not an expert, but I am guessing that if you are not dominant in either color contrast or value contrast that it doesn't mean to wear all neutrals. I think it means that you want to acheive some sort of balance between the contrast level of your neutrals, colors and person so as not to make any one of them stand out more than the other in the process of achieving your contrast. For some people the value contrast and color contrast is very different. Another explanation is that you are lucky, and can work with either one equally well, either the color or the value, or both.

I am making this up but, someone with red hair and blue eyes, and freckles might be a high color contrast. But they could potentially still be a low value contrast due to fair skin, very pale red hair, and pale blue eyes. So they would have to work with both a high color contrast and low value contrast. It's possible to do both I suppose, they could pair something like orange and purple to get the color conrast going, and then they could make them pale tangerine and lavender or something for the value contrast. However in this example their color may look dominant so they would work primarily to acheive the high color contrast. The low value contrast would become secondary. So if they didn't want to wear tangerine and lavender they could still put on some mix of contrasting colors (Orange and and go happily on their way without worry about the low contrast piece. They could probably ignore their value contrast completely, but look better when they take it into account as mentioned above. Oh, I also didn't include any neutrals on purpose, because I don't think you necessarily need neutrals to acheive color or value contrast.

Does that make sense? I could be totally off base, and probably am, because right now I am totally making things up as I go! It's fun to speculate though What do you think?

I think my hair is fairly easy, neutral and medium light. My skin maybe
neutral and fair? Not sure. Also my eyes - they are grey/blue/green with
a hint of yellow. They are not brown, but they aren't very obviously
colored. Not very remarkable. So maybe neutral too? And medium? Which would be 3 neutrals and mean I would look best in monochromatic looks or all neutrals. But I don't think that works for me, I feel very blah in those kind of looks, like I'm fading into the background. It works better with some colors, but I really prefer low to medium color contrast, so neutrals and a color. I do think my value contrast is low.

I've done a lot of searching for my colors myself and finally returned full circle to Soft Summer. That said, I only use it as a loose guideline. It's nice to have that knowledge in the back of my mind when I'm shopping, but I think if I also had to consider color contrast, value contrast etc. when I'm dressing I would go crazy.

Em, I somehow missed your post earlier! So very sorry! Your link is excellent and so helpful! I hope others will look at it! You have clearly thought about this! Please forgive me for not acknowledging you sooner. I don't know how that happened, maybe we posted at the same time?

Astrid, I appreciate that life with all neutrals would be fairly drab. I looked at the examples and the one I liked least was the most neutral. I do however love when people wear all black, all white, or all camel, or even camel and black or camel and Ivory. I find those combinations very classic and beautiful, and I never get tired of them. I am jealous of people who can pull them off. Maybe I can do the all Ivory?

By the way, I question whether your hair is a color? In your pictures it looks that way to me. Maybe slightly, and I agree that I like you with some color. I also think you have some color in your cheeks, and maybe your lips, it's so hard to judge from photographs. In any case, you can see that this is not a fail safe method.

I haven't read all replies fully, but I know it can all get a tad confusing.

I just did the task on Imogen's website and found it to be reasonably easy and to be honest I think that I already abide by the guidelines withough consciously thinking about it.

My results are as follows:

Hair - Colour (quite a bright multitonal dye job with a fair bit of red in it) Medium

Skin - Fair and quite Neutral I think

Eyes - Medium deep and Neutral brown

So.. I have two neutrals and one colour and according to the assessment =

2 elements separated by half the grey scale – medium contrast – best in light and medium, or medium and dark, but if you want to do light and dark you MUST put a medium colour on too

"2 elements separated by half the grey scale" I think this is correct as I have medium deep eyes and fair skin so I can stand a bit of contrast.

Interesting thread, thanks for the food for thought

ETA, FWIW Staysfit, of your photos, I like you best in medium contrast I think. I'm with Suz in having the least preference for very pale outfits with low contrast as I also fee that they wash you out somewhat.

Please help me understand value contrast. When reading Imogen's article, my neutral hair is what I'd call medium (3rd from left on the scale), my neutral skin is fair (3rd from left on the scale) and my colored eyes are medium (4th from left on the scale). According to Imogen, this means I look best in neutrals + a color. Today I'm wearing dark navy and ivory; no other color except for silver jewelry and my tall brown boots that bookend my hair. Is dark navy and ivory considered high contrast or not, and am I supposed to add a color, and is navy considered to be a color or a neutral?

I would definitely call my hair neutral. I have ashblonde hair that looks always different depending on the light. In most pictures it looks darker or more colored than it really is. Not sure about having colored skin. I would have said neutral, but I do have slightly rosy cheeks.

(Beautiful hair, Astrid.)

If it helps your analysis any, Staysfit, I'd say that for myself value contrast is dominant.

So, golden blonde hair is a color but not other blonde shades? I'm still confused. Then when considering the addition of dark colored lips (naturally in my case) or brows (also naturally) - there is no guidance. Or the pupils of the eyes and eyelashes reading as high contrast against the blonde hair and light skin - all of those subtle things seem to make a huge difference.

I'm not very patient when it comes to these types of guidelines I must admit.
I say we break the rules and just have fun!