when the colors you love don't match the colors that flatter you - YouLookFab Forum

Category

Dressing

Welcome! Read about what to wear and how to wear it on the YLF Blog. Join the YLF Forum to ask specific questions or just chat about fashion and personal style. Or check out the curated list of things we love in YLF Finds.

Outfits Ensembles Trends Advice

when the colors you love don't match the colors that flatter you

Lesley

Veteran

I started chatting about this with Angie on today's post. In a nutshell, I love strong, bright colors that I associate with jewel tones—in my mind, colors associated with the classic "winter" designation. Problem is, all signs point to my colors being more "autumn"—my skin, eyes, and hair all point in a warm direction (although the silver hair growing in is the first "cool" color I've got!). I want to know how to choose colors that will flatter my complexion while still coordinating with the fun brights that I've collected for my adult life and that have become signatures at this point!

(To be specific, I love tomato red/poppy orange-red, magenta, pepto pink, cobalt, grass green, and peacock teal. (I do love tan leopard and tortoiseshell, so maybe that's a crossover point!)

Dressing

21 replies

Latest reply was from Stagiaire Fash

Lesley

Veteran

Also I've always loved true white and I love black and grey, although the latter two are not my best, admittedly. I do play around with navy in the summer. I've always made up for black and gray not being my best by keeping some color near my face, in the form of jewelry or lipstick!

Anonymous

My solution is to wear them together! When I wear cooler colors I try to add warmth in the outfit, and ideally not just pair them with black. Is it possible that you are Dark Autumn and can wear both (though cobalt/most blue-at least for me-is a firm no).

Helena

Veteran

Lesley, as someone who has hand-wrung over color for literally years, my biggest advice is to wear what you love! But of course I totally get wanting to wear what's most flattering too (hence my hand-wringing), so here's my suggestions for what they are worth:

as you mention, the easiest thing is to wear the flattering colors up by your face, either jewellery, lipstick, or a scarf (if you love leopard, a scarf in this print would go with a lot)
some of the colors you mention I think work (or have versions that work) with warm skin tones - e.g. tomato red, poppy red, pepto pink (which can be warm) and peacock teal would all flatter a warm skintone imo
I personally think blues are the easiest "wrong" colors to pull off because they tend to be easy on the eyes and to most people's liking (or at least, not their disliking).
I think warms can pull off black, especially if they mix it with earthier tones like camel (so sophisticated), leopard or rust. I suspect white and gray would work similarly. Mixing warm and cool neutrals looks so modern, I think.

Good luck and have fun playing!

Runcarla

Veteran

What torontogirl said. I'm a red-head who wears red. Next to my face! Autumn colours look really good on me - but they don't make me happy. I wear what makes me happy.

If you absolutely adore a colour that doesn't suit - use it for footwear, a bag, or gloves.

Magenta fan

Perhaps you can wear some really bright warm colors as a compromise?

Might it be so that your coloring can take brighter colors than you think? I have recently found a girl on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....#038;t=77s that has some different thoughts in color analysis, and simplifies it a lot. First I felt reluctant to take in her opinions since it's very different to the usual way (like calling people with my coloring "summer" rather than "winter" since she doesn't count with contrast at all), but giving her a chance I think what she says makes a lot of sense, and also she solved the problem I've always had with traditional color analysis confusing you by giving you a color-palette of basicly all colors. (I don't need to know my "best yellow" since no yellow will ever look nearly half as good as a bright blue or pink)

I used to have the opposite problem, liking browns and greens and never wearing anything blue or pink, even disliking them. But by "mistake" borrowing my mother in laws old stained fuchsia top when dying my hair in her home and discovered it made me look so much better dispite the less than glamourous state of it made me reevaluate my colors. Because it's hard to keep disliking something/someone flattering you. So maybe you will like "your" colors better if you find some really nice clothes with those colors.

Lesley

Veteran

I love all these responses! I agree with all of you, and I have always just worn what I love and I am satisfied with my style as a result. I am just trying to experiment with more shades that I haven't liked for a while, to see if maybe they are flattering to me, too.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

My dear Lesley, what makes you think that your favourite colours don't look good! Looking at your profile page, I'd guess you rock them.

em

Wear the less-attractive colors as bottoms or as accessories. In other words, not near your face.

MsLuna

Veteran

You mentioned Peacock Teal and Tomato Red. From what I recall of my old colour theory classes, they look great with “Autumn” colouring. I also recall learning that you can’t really go wrong with blues (like what TorontoGirl said) and teals. Teal is sort of a mix of blue and green (which can look warmer). Also, if you are open to deeper/darker purples or “eggplant”
colours, that should be great too. Wear those colours near your face, and combine the other jewel tones/black/white elsewhere.

And you also mentioned tan leopard. I’ve seen this combined with fuschias and teals and they look amazing! I think you’re right about that being a great crossover point!

Lesley

Veteran

Angie, you are sweet! I think I worded the question wrong—what I mean to say is, I have lifelong crushes on all these amazing shades but every time a makeup artist gets a hold of me they put me in golden apricot (and I have to admit I do look great) and I have a memory of a beige, brown, and olive green shirt from the 90s that made me all glow-y, but I hate that combo now! Maybe I have to wear the colors separately and mixed with my more beloved colors to make it work.

Ms. Luna, I think you are entirely right—those shades are autumn-friendly. I think I am just so ga-ga when I see the winter color wheel and LOVE how all those colors work together and since autumn doesn't invoke this response, I forget about how there are some colors in there that I like! I just hate the whole "muted" thing of autumn. I love my colors to have presence!

Anonymous

Autumn colors are just muted in comparison, sunset light vs full sun! True and dark autumn (me) have very vibrant palettes!

Halogen Halogen Open Front Pocket Cardigan (Regular & Petite) | Nordstrom

View Info

Top Pick

17

Halogen Halogen Skinny Ribbed Sweater Midi Skirt (Regular & Petite) | Nordstrom

View Info

Top Pick

15

Topshop Topshop Popper Crew Sweater | Nordstrom

View Info

Top Pick

7

Sole Society Sole Society Maleah Pointy Toe Mule (Women) | Nordstrom

View Info

Top Pick

2

Mid-Rise Pixie Ankle Pants for Women

View Info

Top Pick

2

Banana Republic

Sloan-Fit Slim Ankle Pant

Sale

View Info

Top Pick

2

Lesley

Veteran

okay, my eyes are being opened tonight... !

rachylou

Veteran

There are warm and cool versions of all the colours when you get right down to it. Bright and muted versions to all degrees of variation. It’s all about the dyes. It may take time and luck to find real life pieces, but I think it can be done...

Sal

Veteran

My take is similar to above, there are very few colours that look truly awful on us, many that look fine, and some that look wonderful.

Avoid the truly awful and wear the ones that look fine to make them look awesome.

In my case I am avoiding optic white (near my face), charcoal, citron and chartreuse, cool pastels, cool beige and cool olive.

I will wear olive on the bottom and white in small doses. I avoid the rest.

Teals, blues, periwinkles are all flattering colours that suit most people - I think reds are a bit harder (I suit warm but not cool) as are yellows.

I also like warm/cool combinations - such as cool grey with yellow, black with cognac, denim with tomato red etc...

I think the colours that you mention suit you well so keep on wearing them.

Suz

(website)

Veteran

What TorontoGirl said! I think most of those colours you mentioned can work extremely well on a warm-toned complexion and what's more, most of them look awesome with leopard!

Freckles

Veteran

A soft summer is almost an autumn so perhaps you are treading this fine line. I am opposite, love the warm colours but they look like death on me. Some are better than others. I can get away with rust and salmon, depending on the shades. I find it impossible myself and even when I try come away with a crisp clear shade that is not right either. The only colour I know is perfect on me is that 80's shade of dusty rose that is never coming back in style...
Good luck.

Jessikams

(website)

Veteran

I think these days it is fine to wear warm and cool colors together- in fact it’s probablyfashionable as it sort of follows the idea of “hectic stylish clashing.” I really love to just throw colors together and see what happens.

What’s amazing to me is that if it’s wrong, you will know right away! This weekend I used a silver hairspray to do a hairstyle for a special event. Though I am warm-toned in coloring, I figured the silver would just kinda look like bleached tips on my light-brown hair. Wrong! It looked horrid and blue and made my hair appear super red by comparison. Crazy! We have strong instinctive responses to color- so I bet you can follow your instincts.

Gretchen

Veteran

I've given up on the seasons - like you, I don't like Autumn tones. Instead I've tried to find the colors I like, then play with saturation or pattern to get to the blend that works best. For example, I love green, but olive, khaki, kelly and lime don't work for me. I need a forest that has a lot of blue in it, or I need a print that brings a lot of different greens together. It's a good thing to play with and maybe you'll find some winter colors in the right tone for you.

Chiara

I agree with revisiting your vision of autumn colours- I know sometimes it can seem like they are all shades of khaki. However the photos attached are all from the true and soft autumn Pinterest of 12blueprints, and they are pretty vibrant.

This post has 6 photos. Photos uploaded by this member are only visible to other logged in members.

If you aren't a member, but would like to participate, please consider signing up. It only takes a minute and we'd love to have you.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Lesley, I bet you're one of those people who can wear both jewel tones, some sour brights, and earth tones. I have a client like that. She throws in pastel pink too.

Some tips:

Wear your favourite colours with some of the earth tones, and especially in prints.

Wear warm and cool tones together. Why not! I do this a lot: blush and citron.

Wear your favourite colours on the bottom and through accessories and footwear

Maybe adjust your make-up?

It's the auburn highlights in your hair - if you still have them! - that make earth tones a slam dunk. You can change those too, if you like.

You cannot see colours in isolation, which is why I take "having your colours done" with a big pinch of salt. What you wear WITH another colour affects it enormously. I wear saturated warm tones most of the time because they look best, but wear some cool tones just as well - like optical white and dark blue. Some cool tones like blush and light blue look less good - but I wear them WITH my best colours like white, citron, chartreuse, tomato red, shocking pink, white.

Stagiaire Fash

Veteran

Have you seen this? https://youlookfab.com/2013/09.....-you-back/

It starts out with theory and a couple amazing optical illusions, then has pragmatic tips similar to what Angie wrote above (because Angie wrote this too).