I too was introduced to Colour Me Beautiful by my mum in the 80s/90s. My mum spent a decade in golds and browns because she was told she was an Autumn - though now with the benefit of hindsight (and perhaps her going grey) I don't think she is at all! It's such hard conditioning to break, though, because it made shopping for my mum's presents much easier when I was young - the number of scarves and accessories we bought in autumnal colours! - I still catch myself thinking 'Ooh that's just Mum's colour' - but it isn't!

Based on rigorous self analysis (Pinterest) and a scientific, data driven approach (more Pinterest) I am a Cool/True Summer, though I too look terrible in pastels. As a 20-something I wore lots of jewel tones and black, but now I realise that whilst the colours look good on my pale skin, the high-contrast drowns me and my low-contrast features look much better in moused versions of the same colours.

I had this brought home to me a few weeks ago when I tried on a simple marl grey top and I suddenly, no kidding, thought I looked FLIPPING BEAUTIFUL.

I do a lot of people watching, too. That has helped a lot.

Hah, Janet, I'm the opposite. I don't think I'm rebellious by nature, but I have always felt like the proverbial square peg in a round hole who is always a little out of step with everybody else -- the one who wants to fit in but is always a little "off". As a child I was singled out for being way smaller than all the other kids, and being adopted; at uni, for being the lone artist in a field of scientists; at 30, for being the lone mother in a social circle of career women -- and look, it's happening again! I'm now a lonely voice for science in a world of artists. And it's even worse because I'm a mature student surrounded by 20-year-olds, bless them. Hahhaaaaa. Maybe that's why I've always quite liked the fact that I'm definitely a Leo -- right smack in the middle of the sign -- even though I do think astrology is complete nonsense.

Texstyle, black is far and away my favourite colour, but I do reach for military green, navy, heathered greys and charcoals, and brownish-purples too -- all about equally.

Ooh is that silk -- I guess that's one of the dangers of colour analysis: that you could spend decades wearing stuff that doesn't suit you because you've been mis-typed!

I think I have a handle on what looks good on me, but as Gaylene says, it's not just the colours that make your skin look glowing that matter; it's also the ones that elicit an emotional reaction. I figure as long as I don't wear the colours that make me look like I've got dengue fever, I'm all good.

Deb, good point. Colour analysis does give you an automatic cohesive whole. That would be useful for those who don't even know where to start. I'm pretty opinionated about what colours I think go together, though.

Staysfit, you are lucky that the colours you are drawn to also happen to be the ones you like. What if it's the opposite? I love snowy white, but it does me no favours.

I decided today that J Crew is my color season. I got a couple of boxes from their clearance sale in the mail today and all the colors just make my heart smile. I remember in college a friend and I would daydream and thumb through their catalogs.

Color analysis is part science, part art. Much like medicine. Belief is not a part of it, although you do see a lot of "I believe" and "I don't believe" statements from clients, would-be clients, and people who have a lot to say about the subject without ever having studied it.

Re: mustard - have you ever noticed how many different mustard colors there are just in your supermarket's mustard aisle? So which mustard color are people referring to when they talk about their or somebody else's outfit? No telling. (And more confusingly, fairly recently Pantone named Honeysuckle as one of their major fashion colors. It was in the pink family. Today, I saw a lovely yarn in a Honeysuckle colorway. It was a pale yellow. So what color is Honeysuckle, exactly?)

Alexandra, you've hit on something important here: any given colour name can actually represent a whole range of actual colours! I would have thought "honeysuckle" was some shade of yellow, more golden than lemon, but what shade, exactly? Same goes for all the colour words. They only narrow it down, to a greater or lesser degree -- like, tomato is a more orangey-red than maroon, but how much more orangey?

And then there's the perplexing issue of whether or not the colour I see is the same as the colour YOU see, when looking at the same object.

It's all very subjective. Good medicine analogy, btw. (Although there must be at least an element of belief to it, if it's subjective -- it's like assessing an artwork. I don't always agree with the critics, and they don't always agree with each other).