I’m trying to keep this short and include enough details for an informative post. There are a few different methods and many opinions out there for color groups, and my education has been the one that’s been around for a long time & most of you are familiar with, the “seasons”, based on cool and warm undertones. Color groupings as we know them today, started in the 1800s by an artist in Europe, Johannes Itten. He noticed that each student’s painting of the same subject had a unique color interpretation, related to their own personal physical coloring. The art world looks at color in terms of temperature: warm & cool. Warm colors have a constant undertone of yellow-to gold and cool colors have blue as their base. Each person’s skin tone, eyes and hair also has a ‘dominant’ temperature. Very few people have 50/50 warm & cool. There are three basic components to discovering your color key: 1) temperature 2) clarity 3) value, of color. How you can use this information:
Temperature:
Skin: does your skin have a cool cast (the undertone)? This is determined by the color pigment that is coming from the dermis (second layer) – in natural light, relax your eye and look to see if you are dominantly pink, white, neutral beige, olive, or blue-black. If you are anyone of these, then you are considered ‘cool’ skin toned. If you see ivory, peachy, golden beige, golden-black, golden bronze then you have ‘warm’ skin tone.
Eyes: You need to look closely, if you see brown, blue or green, don’t stop there. Is there a golden cast to the brown, is it clear, is there yellow speckling. Overall dominance of a cool eye is: cool dark brown, grey-blue, grey-green, blue, hazels. Warm eyes: golden-brown, rich dark brown, warm hazels (that have gold & moss greens, browns and yellow), greens, aqua, clear blue, light golden brown.
Hair: The color that is the ‘native’ color; what color is it when it grows out of your scalp? Does it have a cool cast (blue or ash based) – blue-black, medium to dark brown, gray, salt & pepper, ash blonde, ash brown, cool dark brown. You have ‘warm’ hair if it’s red, auburn, chestnut, copper, golden brown, golden blonde, golden gray or strawberry blonde.
Clarity:
‘Cool’ color groups fall into either Winter or Summer seasons. ‘Warm ‘ color groups are either Autumn or Spring. The Clarity of the cool or warm colors determines if you are Winter vs. Summer or Autumn vs. Spring. If the color is clean or clear you are Winter or Spring. If they are muted or look like they have mixed colors then you are Summer or Autumn.
The Value:
This has to do with how light or dark any given color is. If you have darker or stronger coloring you will see that deep, dark and strong colors look very vivid and alive on you and so on. Some refer to this as "soft' or "dark", etc.
Why knowing all of these might be important? The right color garments smooth your skin complexion and make it look clear; minimize wrinkles and enhance features. Here is a simple test when choosing a color - hold it in front of you, close to your face and pay attention to the color of your teeth & the whites of your eyes, the wrong color will make both of those look more yellowish and also you will notice shadows under your eyes. Another easy test, find a piece of gold fabric and piece of silver fabric and hold them against your face, one at a time and see which one makes your skin clear and make you look more vibrant and alive.
I sometimes buy a piece of item that is not in my color group, simply because I love it, however, if I stick to my color group (Winter) I know that I won’t waste money, or clutter up my closet with wrong or too many items and everything in my wardrobe works together in harmony. My favorite color is burnt orange and I cannot wear it, because it makes me look sick, so, I use that color in my home décor OR I will buy a purse or something that is not too close to my face. I just realized how long this post is! Oh, one more note and I promise I'm done, as we age, our color group doesn't change, but since our coloring fades, we might need to change the "value" of the colors we use. Same thing with tanning, we all tan in the same temperature as our original color group.
Thank you for the suggested links above, I am going to check those now
