My color wheel

gardenchick

My mom and I got our colors done about 20 years ago. These are my colors -- I find this very comforting/clarifying and helpful to take to shopping.

My hair was medium brown and is now grey. I have olive skin. The "color lady" said I was 70% spring, 30% winter.

Warm or cool?

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7 years ago

Dressing

24 replies

Latest reply was from Firecracker (Sharan)

texstyle

(website)

Veteran

I see mostly cool.

7 years ago

Anonymous

I see mostly cool. Pretty nice way of compiling your colors.

7 years ago

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

LOTS to choose from. Fun.

7 years ago

lady

Active Member

What a lovely spread. You have lots of beautiful shades to choose from.
It appears to be both warm and cool.

I've always found the color theory fascinating. I've done some online research and found that I'm intuitively most drawn to "my own colors".

7 years ago

Barbara Diane

Veteran

Pretty colors.

Having my colors done was the single biggest thing that affected how I dress.

I had no idea that certain colors looked better on me than others, my colors and the tones and intensities of the colors were all over the map, my print sizes were all over the place, etc. There was no cohesion,

I had mine done when my hair was dark brown and now it's gray. And my skin tone is not quite as white as it was as I have a bit more color than I used to. I actually had it done twice, as the second time someone was teaching herself how to do it and practiced on me. I was 60/30/10 and 65/20/15, or something close to those, winter, spring, fall I think. Although she had other names like Striking, etc. The only colors that don't work that well on me are my eye colors, as they don't look great with my current skin tone. And that's not supposed to happen, but it did.

They said the colors would work even when I turned gray, and for the most part, they have. I have needed to tone down the intensity of a few colors, and sometimes the degree of contrast. The funny thing is my hair is not the gray I expected. I think maybe I was expecting something with less fall/winter undertones. I've been pondering having my colors redone so I have a complete set, and having my DH's done to help with decorating. Luckily our tastes are similar as our skin and eye coloring is completely different.

7 years ago

gardenchick

Veteran

Thanks everyone!

Consensus is that these are mostly cool--which I did not expect! I've always thought that I was more into the warm colors--I wear reds, yellows, royal purples...

So perhaps a mix of both. I like the drama of the reds and yellow AND get a lot of compliments on the blue shades.

7 years ago

Liz

Veteran

Hm...to me, that array looks 85% warm. Even most of the blues, greens, and purples are those with warm undertones.

I wonder if the color swatches are showing up differently on our
different screens? Or whether we all just view colors differently?

7 years ago

JAileen

Veteran

I thought the colors looked warm, too..

7 years ago

Vix

Veteran

Hi GC --

Beautiful shades! Agree that on my monitor the colors are predominantly warm.

Overall it seems wearing "bright" [saturated] warm colors is your primary need, with perhaps "deep" as a close secondary given the number of shades that are medium value or highter.

A very oceanic meets spices palette!

7 years ago

Joy

Veteran

My best colors have changed a lot over my lifetime from autumn colors when I had reddish brown hair, jewel tones, greyed warm colors, and now clear midtones. I no longer look good in teal or burgundy ( unless it is more rust) and these used to be my best colors. You may need to re-evaluate every so often, especially with changes in hair color and with the seasons in different light. Even a move to a new location can make a difference. You may wear different colors in Hawaii than in Minneapolis.

7 years ago

Alexandra

(website)

Veteran

It looks like a mix of warm and cool colors there. The lighting is really warm in the picture (on my screen) so that throws things off a bit.

My own colors are 80% Striking Contrast (winter), and 10% each Lively Bright (spring) and Earthy Rich (autumn). My whole palette is shown in photo #1. For photo #2 I pulled the ones I'm most drawn to and wouldn't want to live without. My purchases, both RTW and fabric/yarn, all work with my palette, which makes for an easily coordinated wardrobe.

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7 years ago

Sal

Veteran

I think these colours are called Clear Spring now, which is the border between Spring and Winter - which is where I have self diagnosed myself!!

It seems to be clear colours - mid range in the most part, with dark and light neutrals. But nothing too muddy (although brown is there) and nothing too muted or greyed..

My best colours are coral, blue-greens, tomato red, warm pinks and warm whites- I can wear black, chocolate brown and navy pretty easily. My worst colours are optic white, cool lemons, the wrong olive green and the wrong cool pastel pink or blue.... Does this sound like you?

7 years ago

Bennett

Veteran

I am very confused by both your color fans and Alexandra's color fans. I see yellow represented in both, pretty heartily represented!, and yellow is - no doubt about it - a warm color. There is nothing you can do to yellow to make it skew warmer, you can only muddy it up.

Maybe a difference in our monitors can throw a lot of shades off, but yellow is yellow, no matter the monitor you're viewing it on. Both these examples look like a hot mess of warm, cool, and neutral colors. It seems they go way too broad when presenting your final palette, these need to be narrowed down some more - though it sounds like you naturally do that yourself by choosing a 'core' of your favorites from them.

7 years ago

Anonymous

Interesting. I wonder if we don't see those colors that most appeal to us. Cool colors appeal to me. I saw those and suggested that the color palette looked mostly "cool." To my eye, it still does. But I can see how others might see warm colors if those colors appeal to that individual.

Bennett does have a point about the color schemes being all over the place. My personal color scheme is limited to three foundation colors (Black, Ink Navy, White) and three accessory colors (Fuchsia, Pink, Mid-Blue). This works for me ... but as I have said in the past I don't need as much variety as others.

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7 years ago

Alexandra

(website)

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Bennett is correct in tha both of us have a full rainbow of colors. Incorrect about it being a "hot mess". Also showing an incomplete understanding of warmth vs. coolness.

Yes, you can divide the color wheel into a cool half (purples, blues, greens) and warm half (yellows, oranges, reds). However, within each color family, say those yellows, for example, there will be a spectrum that goes from cool to warm. In the yellow example, you can see that the yellows in my palette are fairly cool, with an almost green undertone. Contrast that with, say, school bus yellow, with its warm orange undertone. See picture below.

Having a warm or cool coloring does not mean one is limited to the respective side of the color wheel. Instead, it refers to the end of the temperature spectrum where the person's best colors are likely to be. Many people with blended coloring have beautiful rainbow palettes of colors that harmonize with their nature-given colors.

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7 years ago

gardenchick

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Thanks everyone for weighing in. Here's one more photo in more natural, less warm light. Perhaps that clarifies things?

To tell you more about the process of getting these colors--we met with the "color lady" in her office during the day--important to know that her office had a lot of natural light coming in. On the wall she had thousands of color swatches. She went through her boxes to find shades that worked for my mom and I.

I am quite sure that there are NOT too many colors on here--every color on the wheel works for me. Actually I was surprised to find out that I could wear some shades of yellow, since I had never worn in before in my life. But there's yellow there! Very different from Angie's favorite yellows.

The one color that is absent is orange. The color lady told me that orange doesn't do anything for me. I had a few orange sweaters that I reluctantly passed on soon after.

The colors also go in groups around the wheel. The greys on the bottom left are neutrals. Then some reds, greens and blues, which she called dramatic, and another group of yellows, greens, purples which are categorized as "elegants". The colors on the right side starting with the creams are neutrals.

Warm or cool? (The original question!) I have always heard that my colors were warm and that I need warm undertones (this was the case when I was dying my hair brown--it needed to be a warm brown.) So probably warm is mostly correct, with some cool.

Happy Thanksgiving and hope you all have a colorful time!

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7 years ago

gardenchick

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BTW some of you asked whether I have "favorites" or ones that I feel particularly drawn to. I am less drawn to the neutrals and more drawn to the dramatics. The elegants can be calming. One problem is that certain shades just aren't easy to find in stores--especially the greens.

Also agree with Kiwigal/Sally that there's nothing muddy in here. Those earth tones (olive, mustard, dark burgundy, dark navy) look great on a lot of people but just make me look washed out.

7 years ago

Bennett

Veteran

Just my honest opinion based on what I'm seeing on my monitor along with my art education - I am a watercolorist and do NOT have an incomplete understanding of warmth vs. coolness. I mix colors every day and stand by my statement about yellow - you can change the saturation or VALUE of yellow from pale to deep (which is what I see on your yellow color strips), but yellow with even a touch of green makes nothing but muddy, odd mixes until you add enough green for it to become a yellow-GREEN (a warmer green than the bluer end of the green spectrum, the cooler greens).

Yellow is just a weaker pigment and can modify other colors - resulting in yellow-greens or oranges (when with red), other than that it has VALUE from pale to deep, and is a warm color completely.

As for people with blended coloring, I agree they would have a fuller range of acceptable colors than a full-on cool or a total warm would. Wear what makes you feel good!

7 years ago

Alexandra

(website)

Veteran

In my experience and all literature I've read on the subject, mud comes from combining all three primaries. As long as there are only two, the resulting color is definitely not muddy. Below are pictures of my color scales in polymer clay - you can see that the colors are clear, not muddy. Both going from yellow to blue in the first picture, and from green to yellow to orange in the second. Does it really not work the same way in watercolors?

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7 years ago

Bennett

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Perhaps that is the cause of our different viewpoints, our different mediums to work with. If the three primaries (red, yellow, blue) are mixed, mud results. On a color wheel, which can be as small as six segments (mix each primary in equal amounts with the one next to it, producing orange, green, purple) or as large as you wish to expand it by mixing these colors in graduating UNequal amounts, it becomes easier to find a muddy color when you mix by jumping across or around the wheel. Two colors on this expanded wheel can make mud, as simple as mixing a yellow with a purple, a red with a green, a blue with an orange shade.

Yes, yellow is a touchy color in creating a watercolor, easily overpowered and changed by ANY other color on the wheel. I'm sure that is why I have such a firm opinion of yellow!

7 years ago

gardenchick

Veteran

Thanks Alexandra and Bennett for chiming in to explain your different perspectives. Color is complex..and maybe how we talk about all of this depends on which medium we're talking about.

7 years ago

Firecracker (Sharan)

Veteran

Gardenchick, thanks for posting your colors. I found this discussion fascinating, and I enjoyed seeing your fan and Alexandra's. I had my colors done in maybe 2008 and then updated a few years later, to the ones below (only slight changes overall--but my darkest neutrals went from espresso shades to olive shades, each time with the darkest looking almost black). My consultant, Nancy Nix-Rice, did not use any of the labels I've heard around here, but I think I did find one time what system she was using, and it might have been one like what Staysfit's consultant used. Anyway, they work for me. I find it so helpful to have them along when I'm shopping. I am not a slave to them--and find myself wearing a fair amount of black and charcoal, which aren't in there at all, but which I am comfortable wearing--but I do like to check in with them a lot.
Here are mine. I took the photos next to a window, #1 without flash, #2 with flash.

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7 years ago

gardenchick

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Thanks Firecracker! It's fun to see your colors too. They are much more muted and (what I would call) earth tones than mine or Alexandra's, and it sounds like they suit your coloring.

Did your consultant say anything to you about seasons? I see your colors connecting more to Fall/Autumn tones although I'm not sure about that.

7 years ago

Firecracker (Sharan)

Veteran

No, she didn't talk about seasons. She said it's not a seasonal palette, but one that starts with colors found on the person (hair, skin, eyes) and then works from there.

7 years ago

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