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Rules are made to be broken

Helena

Veteran

Hi friends, just pondering some of the thoughtful posts (Lisa's and Carla's especially) around personal style and things changing during quarantine as our style contexts change.

I love a good style rule and am all about them; once they are reasonable, they make life easier and help one navigate the overwhelming style choices out there. (of course, this is a matter of personal choice; no one *needs* to follow any style rule and many of them don't meet my benchmark of 'reasonable').

I also love contemplating colour, and have changed my mind about what season, system, palette, etc. I should wear a million times. The one thing I've never deviated from though, is the idea that I am cool-toned. But wait. Recently, a few comments have noted that I do have warm characteristics, such as the warm tones on my hair. My eyes, similarly, have some warmth in them. My skin leans cool I'm quite sure, but it's not pink - it has more of a yellow overtone, and is perhaps neutral leaning cool, rather than purely cool. And is neutral or even a touch warm beige more flattering than cool gray - why, yes it is!

So the orthodoxy that I need to adhere to 'cool' tones is now under review. I even dug out some warm lippies from Clinique gift sets, and lo and behold, some of them aren't too bad at all (some are ha!). I'm not saying I'm warm-toned, but I am perhaps more of a mix than I realized, and thus can bend the rules more than I thought. I doubt I'll be wearing pumpkin or golden-brown anytime soon, but I definitely won't shy away from pushing the scale a little if something warmer catches my eye.

What rules have you always followed that one day you decided, wait, does that really apply to me? What style assumptions about yourself have you questioned lately?

Photo - Lippie is Clinique Mega Melon. I tried this to push the envelope because it is definitely warm, with an orange-y tone to it. Admittedly not my best, but not hideous (?? by all means disagree!) Fun for a change anyway!

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24 replies

Latest reply was from unfrumped

Anonymous

Have you ever checked out redleopard.uk? You remind me of one of the principal stylists there. They specialize in colours, and then assigning you a style type too. I'm endlessly fascinated with this and if I could afford it, I'd absolutely do an on-line consultation . Anyways - you might find it interesting.

nemosmom

Veteran

OK - the Mega Melon is so pretty on you and perfect for Spring!!

Colors on or around my face have always been tricky. I have warm copper hair, cool green/blue eyes, and I do not have pink undertones, yet I sunburn easily. Are you familiar with the vein test where you look at your wrist to determine undertone? Mine are BOTH green AND blue. I can wear some cool jewel tones that many 'autumns' can't, and I can wear warm, deep earthtones that many 'springs' can't. Makeup colors - particularly foundation and lippies are so tricky on me.

Audrey Coyne posted a video a week or two ago that talked about olive skintones and I think I might also be olive (or at least lean more olive than pink or yellow). Have you seen her video?

ophelia

Veteran

Whoa, that looks great on you! I’ve always suspected that with what I could see of your hair and eyes you might look good in warmer tones as well as cool tones. It seemed to me you could easily wear both! But I’m looking at pics on a tiny phone so I couldn’t be sure.

I’ve always had trouble with the warm/cool thing personally. One thing that really threw me was when Imogen Lamport was describing her foundation color—she said she was cool toned but with warm overtone. That was toooo much for me and I gave up.

I also have trouble understanding what is neutral. But when it comes to personal coloring, I’ve decided that a roughly equivalent amount of cool and warm tones in skin, hair and eyes = neutral or mostly neutral coloring. For some reason this clicked with me and was “good enough.”

Hope that made sense. Have you checked out “cardigan empire” website? Her info on coloring was helpful to me.

Anyway, that lip color looks fantastic on you!

Liesbeth

Veteran

I've had so many revelations in the past, among others:
- you can combine different neutrals
- cool and warm colors can work together
- and like you, I have warmth in my hair and can get away with some warmer colors - especially when combined with my typical cooler palette

I love that lippie on you and admit I'd like to see a try-out with certain richer, warmer colors

Liesbeth

Veteran

Ps I once read something (with regard to interior design, but whatever) about nature combining different shades of the same color so why wouldn't you. I try to think of that, since then. Of course, in nature, the quality (?) of colors often has harmony to it because of the natural lighting that's the same for every color :).

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

You DEFINITELY have warmth running through your pretty eyes, lovely hair, and gorgeous skin, Helena. I think you're a little freckled too - right? So cute!

Cool tones are the bomb for you. BUT! You cannot see colours in isolation. It's HOW you wear them and what you wear them with that counts. Make-up helps too.

For example, I'm a warm colour gal through and through. I wear cool tones too! Like white, navy, black, ice blue, fire engine red and burgundy. I wear them WITH my best warm colours. Sorted

Helena

Veteran

Angie, yes, very freckled, especially with a modicum of sun exposure! Love your strategy and I think this would work well for me too.

Liesbeth, thank you! I'll dig into the makeup stash to see what other gems I might have overlooked.

Ophelia, thanks and good eye. I think I've been trying to fit into a box so intently that I've chosen to ignore a few of my characteristics - but I'm keen to embrace the lot, even if that means *gasp* contradiction!

Nemos, I love Audrey but haven't seen that one - will check it out. I feel your pain for sure - all those stupid lists have me going in two directions - I mean, what do we do when our hair, eyes, eye pattern and veins all say different things *shrugs*

Lisa, thank you, I'll check that site out.

Sal

Veteran

Nice work!! I have been doing a bit of colour analysis myself so I can understand your interest.

The lipstick looks good - and that does open things up. I love mixed warm and cool colours such as navy sweater and jeans with a cognac bag and shoes. Or light blue blouse with camel coat etc..

I might have mentioned Jen Thoden and her approach on a thread and I liked it. She split people into soft and clear colours, and warm and cool. Then you can be light, medium or deep (based on contrast and depth of tones). Cools can wear some warm universal colours and vice versa. She has lots of youtube video and I found one person with very similar colouring to me and found it really helpful.

I now avoid my worst colours totally and am happy to include all others - no charcoal, magenta, chartreuse, citron, optic white, oatmeal or taupe.

UmmLila (Lisa)

Veteran

I had my colors done when I was 13 and there were just 4 seasons. I am summer. I definitely skew cool on coloring. However I've found recently that camel is actually good on me, for example, and it shouldn't.

Helena

Veteran

Sal, I've been watching some Jen Thoden; I'm soft, cool and deep according to her system, which makes sense ... She did have a video on people with mixed-temp features like warm hair and cool skin etc and she says these are usually softs ... Which I take to mean that I can swing a little warm as long as I don't go for bright orange, for example. Your approach makes total sense.

UmmLila, isn't that interesting ... I LOVE you in warm colours like camel and would have put you down as warm. Just shows it's not as clear cut as it seems it should be!

Sal

Veteran

Yes I was sure you would be soft and cool but wasn't sure on the medium or dark. and that does make sense.

I think I am the opposite - warm and clear. I can wear some of the soft tones but in general I think the clearer ones are my best.

I think some people are really clear cut as to what they suit - and ideally it lines up with what they like as well!! But some of us are a bit more fuzzy.

Helena

Veteran

I suppose if I was going to be exact, I'd be a medium-dark ... but I'm not giving up my black!

Agree that you are warm and clear - you look SO good in that new red lippie, and bright coral is also amazing on you ... although you also do amazingly well in the sophisticated creams and beiges.

Joy

Veteran

Like Angie, I ignore color rules. Warm tones usually look best, but I wear plenty of cool tones too. The rule I break most is white in winter, actually all year. This year I am pairing traditional spring colors with earthy fall colors....pink and pale blue with olive, orange with yellow, lavender and chocolate brown. Old pieces seem to have new life worn a different way.

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

I highly recommend Audrey's youtube video on olive skin. I just totally related to everything she said. Although my skin tone looks yellowish, I definitely look better in cool colors, although can wear some warm too. Back to your question: one of the rules I changed was no more brown after going grey. But I am constantly trying to dig out my own rules and break them.

SarahD8

Veteran

The coral lippie looks great on you and brings out the amber tones in your eyes. I think coral is also great with your summer-beloved navy! I fully support these explorations.

To get extremely geeky about it, a variety of different genes are involved in hair, skin, and eye color, and they are not all located on the same chromosome, so it makes sense that people would be a mix of warm and cool elements.

To get anecdotal about it, I’ve mentioned before that my skin has cool undertones but my hair has a lot of warm tones. I think I’d probably be classified as some sort of summer in seasonal color analysis, but all those soft browns that are supposedly lovely on summers are the woooorst on me. And I’ve noticed that I can wear just about any shade of green (that doesn’t have a lot of brown in it!). I’m not totally sure why but I’m running with it!

Synne

Veteran

Neutral definitely is a thing! At least according to my guru Trinny! She consideres herself neither cool nor warm, but neutral, and hence can wear any colour that flatters and all metals.

kellygirl

Veteran

I find colors so confusing. I used to think I was a winter and should wear cool colors but I never really liked them on me. I think my coloring leans warm and that's really my preference. I think that coral looks so nice on you. It warms up your face--so pretty! Maybe you can work some of these warmer colors into your make up routine for summer at least!

Mainelady

Veteran

First of all, I think that warm lip color looks beautiful on you! I do think Angie’s comment about how and what we wear warm or cool tones with can make all the difference in enhancing our looks.
I was raised to follow rules. In most areas of my life, if there is a rule I follow it. In terms of fashion and style when I became an adult I drifted away from a lot of the style rules I was raised with. My mom is a lovely classic dresser. Her style is admirable and I have adopted quite a few of her likes. Others I have let go of: no whites after Labor Day or before Memorial Day, wearing a slip under every dress or skirt, nothing sheer, wearing pants only 2 days per week.
I keep changing my mind about colors next to my face. As my hair and skin lighten I find that where I once wore bold, pure colors, I am now leaning more towards softer shades and neutrals. Earrings and a little lip color keep me from looking washed out. I welcome a little sun kissed tint to my skin, but the weather is not cooperating just yet.

Anonymous

Watched the olive video, and it was very interesting. People have called me olive, due to my warmth/darkness. It kinda seems used as a catch-all word for medium skin (Mediterranean, Latina, Middle Eastern, etc). Interesting to see it has nothing to do with darkness, and many people with light skin are olive.

I don't have anyone to compare to here, DH is lighter than me, but I'm quite sure I am not olive. I definitely blush and get red with intense exercize! I'm closer to Beyonce in coloring, than any of the celebrities she mentioned. So- warm- not olive!

My mother looks a bit like me, though lighter, and says she's olive. Her overtone is yellowish, but she rocks cobalt, which makes me look sallow. But we both wear dark green and purple well
I do break my color rules with hot pink, which isn't an autumn color, but pair it with burgundy or brown. I don't like it with black, cause it feels too bright and contrasty.

Style Fan

Veteran

I like what Angie said about colours. Colours are not worn in isolation. Makes perfect sense. A warm lipstick might look great on someone with cool skin if everything else is harmonized. Your lipstick in the picture is very pretty.
I have warm skin, hair and eyes. I tan, well I use to tan before I realized the damage I was doing to my skin. I like the autumn colours and don`t really want to wear cool colours but I do wear black sometimes. I suppose that is breaking a rule. Who makes these rules?

rachylou

Veteran

I like this colour on you!

I hate trying to think about colour in theory. You can’t just say ‘olive’ is for ‘olive toned’ people. Reality is, there are many ways to manufacture an olive dye. I am tan with supposed cool undertones. There are olives I can wear and olives I can’t. And Angie is so right about there being no colour in isolation. Colours change depending on the colours they’re surrounded by.

DonnaF

Veteran

FWIW, when I had my colors done in the '80s when it was all the rage, I came back as 70% animated (neutral), 20% warm, and 10% striking. Since I had the worst time figuring out what would look good on DH, I had his done as well. He came back as 80% warm, 15% animated, and 5% striking. We have almost no overlap in what colors look good on both of us. The warm colors that look so great on him make me feel heavy and sluggish.

DD is a different story; she is dark and olivey like her dad, but warm colors don't really work for her; probably jewel tones do or at least that's what she likes.

Zaeobi

(website)

Veteran

I definitely hear you on the 'mixture of warm & cool colours' thing - I grew up in the west, where admittedly a lot of the makeup counter staff in my youth were trained to automatically see brown skin like mine as 'warm' or 'yellow' toned (the situation is getting better though as more PoC-owned makeup brands now exist). So whenever I'd take the time & money to spend a little more on a makeup consultation, I'd actually end up feeling more confused when the 'expert'-approved picks would still look strange on me (either too ashy/ grey or too yellow).

I thought the dilemma would be solved when I moved to Hong Kong, where much of the population has yellow undertones. But imagine my confusion when I found that local makeup here is often still too yellow for me. What gives?!

I just watched the olive skintone YouTube video that people above have referenced (by Audrey) & a lot of it rang true: https://youtu.be/uEYWhFYTEcE

I think this comment thread in particular was useful (people diagnosed her as a deep autumn or deep winter):
"As an olive with more yellow in me, I find that I can wear both cool and warm colours, but curiously, only in a specific range. Saturated but deep jewel tones for cool shades like mulberry, deep emerald green, navy (because contrast between black hair and light/medium asian skin), and muted for warm ones like mustard, camel, cream, olive green (because my olive skin leans more yellow). Can also never go wrong with blacks and whites! (but an off-white almost always looks better than an optic white on me)"

I suspect that I may be olive toned but not TOO warm of an olive. The above colours generally suit me but I find that most of the 'typical' midtoned autumn colours (like mustard or khaki) actually wash me out. I can rock a cornflower blue though, & find that pinks & corals look better in my makeup kit than earthy browns. I mentioned PoC brands - Fenty has actually been a game changer for me in that it's the first time I've found makeup in a 'neutral' shade that's still dark enough for me (210, neutral medium).

My hair has been going grey since I turned 16, so I'm probably only going to keep veering into the 'less warm' end of the spectrum over time. In the meanwhile, I fully intend to continue wearing all of the well-saturated colours that I adore. Khaki & mustard are 'supposed' to be my friends, but not yet

unfrumped

Veteran

Great lip color!
Congratulations for breaking the color rule. I agree, overlaps are very common as well as all the things about combinations, lighting, fabric, depth of color.