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Grey hair with warm skin

Roxanna

Veteran

On one of my earlier posts, a few of us started lamenting how difficult it was too understand what colours looked good on us now that our hair had grayed but our skin tones are warm.
I found this from Imogen:
https://insideoutstyleblog.com.....rtone.html

This helps me understand why I have intuitively going with 'smoky' softer colours that blend well together there last few years, and why I love taupe for the first time ever.

Shevia, krishnidoux, Paula, Jenni NZ - Does this help?

Dressing

15 replies

Latest reply was from rachylou

Paula

Good article from Imogene, Roxanna! Before my hair began to gray, I had a pretty classic Winter (season) look: soft black hair/cool-neutral beige skin/hazel eyes. As I've grayed, I no longer have the contrast I once had; my coloring is more "soft." My eyes are still dark, but read a bit warmer, and my skin and hair, having "faded" are more neutral---some cool and warm. So contrast has been the biggest shift for me. I used to look good in bright colors and could wear unrelieved black like a champ! Now brights and all-black overwhelm me. Charcoal (and taupe are working, as well as shots of soft deep color. And yes, smoky works, too.

An interesting shift, to be sure! Thanks for starting this thread. I'll look forward to reading about what others are experiencing.

Aida

Veteran

Interesting! I'll be headed down this path eventually. Have you been experimenting with adding more gray, or perhaps more lower contrast outfits? I think of many of your outfits as higher contrast.

Joyce B

Veteran

That is such a good link, thank you for sharing it. The colors she suggested definitely look fab on you. Now I need to find suggestions for cold skin tones. I think grey is probably easier to manage and look fab for people with warm skin tones, cold tones plus grey are easier to look washed out.

Joy

Veteran

Interesting, but my experience with going grey causes me to disagree with some of Imogene's ideas. There was a time when I was partly grey that I loved smokey colors, not any more. Now that my grey is further developed, the greyed shades do not work. Clear midtones work best. My complexion is not cooler, but some warm tones and some cool ones work well. At one time taupe was my best neutral. Now it is bone or dove grey...a very light grey that is a mix of black and white (clear)
, not warm ( greenish or yellow) or cool (bluish or purplish). One color that is supposed to be good is teal. Deep teal and fuschia are my very worst colors. I don't think Imogene realizes yet that grey hair is complicated. It keeps changing and so do your best colors. What needs to be realized is that, as you get older, your color pallet must change, even if you do not let your hair go grey.
The other thing I beg to differ with is her feeling that one should go with less contrast. Contrast and bright color can play an important part in avoiding the invisibility that comes with aging. That's why I embrace hot tomato reds, oranges and hot pinks and neon corals.

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

Oh great that you dug that article up Roxanna! But I have to agree with Joy that it is much more complicated than that. First of all, my good colors when I was younger were always cool winter colors - typical autumn colors made me look green and not in a good way. I always thought of myself as a winter, despite my warm skin and eyes. My original hair color was dark brown, near black and not warm if I recall correctly . With age my hair is now a salt and pepper grey, my skin is still olive but lighter (also I am much more strict about sunscreen), and my hazel eyes have become lighter also. Imogen's middle example would probably work great but the other two are not so obvious.
I strongly agree with Joy about contrast and brights also.
In short, I think there is a hole in color theory when it comes to grey hair.

eta: As I explain below, I actually meant a hole in assigning seasons based on coloring not color theory itself (thanks Liz!).

anchie

Veteran

I was never able to tell if my skin is cool or warm. Or which season I am, or what colors look good on me. I just know which colors I like. But it is possible that colors that are good for me are not my usual favorite colors like my recent example with burgundy. I should probably be more open toward experimenting with colors and try some that don't look so appealing sitting on the shelves.

approprio

(website)

Veteran

I've found it helps to understand the basics of colour theory to really figure out how to use them. It's not just about warm or cool (hues), saturation and depth have a role to play as well. So I like what she's saying here about softening the colours, but maybe there's more than one way to achieve the same effect. (I've also been wondering what to say about the beautiful tailored jacket you posted the other day.)

Now I'm thinking you could carry off a lot more detail and contrast by combining intensely coloured prints with softer neutrals. Do you still feel good in these kinds of designs? For instance, how would a bright graphic floral play with the soft neutral of the jacket? Just a thought...

Jenni NZ

Veteran

That's a good article. I'm not sure. I still think I look good in the old bright "Spring" colours that I embraced in about 1984 when I was 23 ( now 56). I actually feel I can wear a bigger range of colours as I can mix warm and cool? Still more drawn to brights as you can probably tell from my WIWs!

Mainelady

Veteran

I found the article to be helpful, with some points worth considering. I began my commitment to going gray at the end of June. We stripped as much dye from my hair as we could and went heavy with highlights and adjusted with toner. Currently, my own silver-white hair is 3-4 inches long and blended with ashy blond. So far the transition has been easy. Each trip back to the stylist changes things. I am on a road to discovery with which colors enhance my changing hair and warm skin tones. My evolution is likely to continue and I will learn as I go. Articles and tips from others are helpful, but my study of color, tone, hue and saturation is a personal exploration. Colors that look great in natural lighting may not look great under fluorescent lights. I wear colors that make me feel happy and confident when I go out the door. This is a time for trial, error, educated guesses and a willingness to change my mind on what works.

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

I miswrote - it is not color theory that cannot handle mixing warm and cool, but rather the system of assigning people seasons based on whether they suit cool or warm clothing. I do think this creates confusion when your throw cool grey hair into the mix, particularly if it replaces a warm color (either natural or colored) and creates different variables than usually mentioned with seasonal analysis. Very interested in everyone's experience.

texstyle

(website)

Veteran

I feel like contrast has a lot to do with it. When I was younger and wore more makeup I could wear higher contrast but I always did gravitate towards more muted shades as a general preference.

Now my hair is many shades of warm and cool silver, starting to lean towards cool. I feel I can wear both cool and warm colors but lean towards muted shades of my favorites. I prefer a deep dusty olive, a dusty coral, a slightly ruby red, etc. I will happily wear the right shade of ivory (not yellow) or bright white and wear both silver or gold jewelry.Though I think it is a "cool" color, cobalt blue is absolutely wrong on me an I think it's due to the intensity of that shade. Even one of my favorite shades of emerald green is feeling too much for me now, so I"m looking for heathered shades of emerald.

Some of this is just my personality and leaning towards a feeling of woodsy, natural feeling clothes, more so than what likely suits me from someone else's perspective.

JAileen

Veteran

I was thinking of this yesterday when two friends came over. We're all about the same age and all have grey hair with quite a bit of white. Two of us are pale but the third friend has a lot contrast, with olive coloring. Think of Joan Baez. So whereas I wear grey but not black, she wears black exclusively, like a 60s beatnik, and looks fab in it.

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Barbara Diane

Veteran

I haven't read the article but the color advise doesn't sound right for me.

A big shock for me is that my hair is not at all the gray I expected. It is much more mousy. And my skin-on my face-is not the pale white it was. Wearing a shade of my eye color used to work but it doesn't work with my skin color anymore. I still look best in saturated clear colors but there is a difference now. I think I can look good in navy instead of black, etc. but I recently put on black with intense red lipstick and found I felt like I had found myself again. Navy actually started the summer I lost weight, needed new clothes, and couldn't find black. Now I am replacing navy with black when items wear out.

Roxanna

Veteran

I find this discussion iso illuminating - and I think you are all very right: just like shades of brown, blond, red are not the same, shades of grey are not the same either.

As a warm honey tone in my youth, I was shocked when my grey started coming in blue-silver. I love it; it was just not at all what I expected given my skin tone (as Barbara Diane says.) This has meant, though, that I can wear pastels for the first time in my life (that purple sari I posted in a past WIW; I had tried that on innumerable times and it had never looked right; and suddenly, with my cooing skin tone, it did.)

I think the smoky soft colours are working for me now because I am salt and pepper, but Joy, I think you are absolutely right - as our grey changes and our skin tones change, our colours change too. And I agree with you that those of us with greying hair can absolutely wear bold colours (as you carry them off smashingly!)

Ultimately, I found this article helpful as a starting point, but as Shevia pointed out, there is no one solution for grey hair and there really is a gap in the 'season' theory around grey hair. Personally, I am a mood dresser and so I can never subscribe to a set of colours; a few years ago I was all brights; now I am all pastels and neutrals; and I may be feeling the siren call of bordeaux, olive and cinnamon in my future. (And approprio - you have sent my mind spinning with the idea of bold prints with neutrals!) I just go where my mood takes me and find shades of the colours that work for my skin tone at that point.

rachylou

Veteran

I think I need a professional colour analysis. I’m deeply tanned, but the fact is, I burn easily and am not a ‘warm’ skin tone. I don’t exactly know what you do about that. I know I look bad in orange, pumpkin; but if it’s bright, neon orange... that’s kinda ok. Same with yellow (although I really like mustard anyways...)