I had a color analysis done!

[ijack]

I know I don't usually post here, but this board seemed to make more sense than MM or CEP. A couple people have asked me what the process is like, so I thought I'd explain.
I started looking into it when a friend got really into seasons and was "draped." The transformation I've seen her go through is awesome and I'd been wanting to try it, but it's hard to find someone in my area. There happened to be someone traveling through CO this week so I made an appt.
It's a lot different than the old 4 season color chart. There are now 12 seasons (though each different method calls the seasons different things)


You start in a neutral room in front of a mirror and your consultant is wearing grey, and you have a grey cape and cap on, with very neutral light. You start by determining if you're neutral, warm or cool, soft or dark, bright or light and kind of narrow it down from there. I have light skin, light hair and light eyes. I'd struggled in placing myself online because the light colors just don't work for me. With the warm colors you see if they bring out too much yellow in your skin, with the cool colors you see if they bring out too much blue (mainly in your under eyes and lips). With soft you look to see if your face kind of fades away (especially the chin) but with dark colors you don't want so much shadow under your chin that it "creeps" up your face. With bright and light you want to make sure that the color doesn't make you disappear or that the bright color is too much and it's all that you can see when you look in the mirror. When she drapes you, she does 2 colors so you can see the difference between the warm and cool or bright and dark (so like a warm yellow and a cool yellow).
We determined pretty quickly that I am not a spring or summer, meaning that dark colors tend to be better on me. Then we swatched the dark and bright warm and cool colors. Most of the warm colors made me look pretty yellow, though not necessarily horribly yellow, just somewhat yellow. But the cool colors were making me look pretty tired and my lips were turning funky colors. We compared dark autumn and dark winter and dark winter just made me look tired. Then we tried dark autumn against bright winter and neither of them were bad, but not perfect. We had thrown out True Winter because I didn't seem to do good in any of the true colors, but we decided to try it out and BAM! So much better. We then draped the true winter against bright and dark winter and true winter was a definite winner. It was a total surprise because most true winters tend to be dark haired (Liv Tyler, Courtney Cox) and I'm not colored like them. But I'm definitely drawn toward jewel tones, so it was nice that I don't have to throw out all my clothes.
The basics are only cold colors, no hint of warmth.


Then we did my makeup. I don't wear lipstick, but she picked some pretty bold lips that actually looked really good on me so I'll try them out. This morning it was hard though because I'm not supposed to wear brown, and I have a lot of brown makeup :/

I'll post pics in the post below, but overall I think it was totally worth it. I've been feeling kind of lost when I shop lately and just buying things to buy them and I think this will help me avoid that. I've always floundered with which makeup colors to wear as well, so I'm excited to start playing with my new colors

[ijack]

The first one is me with full makeup, my best colors and a very bold lip.
Next is me with no makeup on and one of my best colors (excuse the weird face)
Lastly is me in full makeup with a lighter purple lip (which obviously doesn't look purple on)

[Deleted]

I would love to get that done sometime. I tried to figure it out myself and I got bright spring which seems decent, but not sure it's right.

[lostarz]

That's pretty cool.

[boston340]

That's really neat! Do you mind sharing how much the analysis costed?

[veruca5839]

That's really neat!

[315]

I am so weirded out by this, but also so intrigued. I wonder if this changes if you did this in the winter vs. in the summer.

[ijack]

Jul 31, 2014 12:46:05 GMT -5 315 said:

I am so weirded out by this, but also so intrigued. I wonder if this changes if you did this in the winter vs. in the summer.

it's not supposed to change because the undertones in your skin are present regardless of how tan you are.
For the pp who asked cost it was $250. And I found my person through this website www.12blueprints.com

[ijack]

Jul 31, 2014 12:59:01 GMT -5 @marshmallows said:

That's really cool. I would love to have this done.

Also, you are very pretty!

you're sweet

[majick143]

How fun! That seems like a useful thing to know The bold lip really does look fantastic on you

[BeagleMama]

Love it! My mom did this in the 80s and has drilled it into me my whole life - "You're a winter! Jewel tones! Stop wearing khaki!"

[aak0517]

This is really interesting. I've never heard of this before. Your top pic with the bold lip is very pretty!

[treedimensional]

The color "seasons" thing was a huge fad in the 80s.
John T. Molloy (Dress For Success) researched it and found that many color consultants/experts made the same recommendations to everyone who sat before them, no matter what they looked like. He also found that people in general respond favorably to some colors and negatively to others, across the board. He built his wardrobe consulting business around the fact that some colors make people trust you more, or think you are better educated, or sexier, etc. His clothing color research is fascinating. He also said that most of the colors in the spring/summer palates were perceived as "lower middle class" by people in test scenarios and strongly advised professional women never to wear them to work.

[callmehales]

i won't lie, part of me is astounded people pay to have someone tell them what colors to wear. i don't have that hard of a time figuring out if something looks bad on me.

[315]

Jul 31, 2014 13:05:46 GMT -5 ijack said:

Jul 31, 2014 12:46:05 GMT -5 315 said:

I am so weirded out by this, but also so intrigued. I wonder if this changes if you did this in the winter vs. in the summer.

it's not supposed to change because the undertones in your skin are present regardless of how tan you are.
For the pp who asked cost it was $250. And I found my person through this website www.12blueprints.com

$250. Clearly, I am in the wrong business.

[ijack]

Jul 31, 2014 14:51:30 GMT -5 callmehales said:

i won't lie, part of me is astounded people pay to have someone tell them what colors to wear. i don't have that hard of a time figuring out if something looks bad on me.

Well you're lucky then. I can tell you what colors look bad on me, but I can't tell you which colors make me look my absolute best.

[mnvegas]

I had this draping/season thing done years ago. I was already wearing most of the colors in my "season" because I already knew they looked good on me. It was something fun to do but I never limited myself to those colors if I saw something I really liked.

[miamigirl]

It's so much fun, isn't it? I had one done three years ago. I'm light summer. I take my colorimetry kit every time I go shopping.

[mrsg123]

What is draping?! And a grey cap and cape?! Color me baffled.

[scout8]

This was interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[MrsPotatohead]

Jul 31, 2014 14:40:47 GMT -5 treedimensional said:

The color "seasons" thing was a huge fad in the 80s.

ugh, this was my first thought and I'm not a fan. mostly because the cost is laughable when you could just find a stylist, but really, I don't want to be told what color I should or shouldn't wear.  Maybe that piece of fabric looks silly on your neck, but as shoes or a skirt it could be pretty.  Not to mention pattern mixing, color blocking... this is also why I hate physics, why study something in a vacuum?! lol.

My mom did this in the 80s and I've been trying to get her to 'unlearn' it because she'll say stuff like "well, I'm a winter so I shouldn't wear that shirt" or whatever.  Um no, it looks gorgeous on you so who cares if it's the right 'season'?!  And who knows if they were/are even doing it 'correctly'.  I guess whatever floats your boat if you want to spend the $$ on it, but I don't believe it...

[xokell2]

Cool experience thanks for sharing. You're so pretty I can't imagine any colors looking bad on you

[calico]

I didn't even realize the seasons thing was still around.

My mom drilled it into my head that yellow gold looked bad on me, so to this day I still subconsciously avoid it.
Glad to see they added options b/c I never felt like I fit into any of the 4 seasons.

[IIOY]

I had this done as a kid at Merle Norman. This was huge back in the day! I still have my little swatch packet with fabric and lists of colors.

CEP spent several days in the makeup thread discussing this and even knowing what I was supposed to be didn't help me because I found that I could actually be multiple sub-seasons. Plus, I have some odd issues - I look great in black if it's a turtleneck that comes up to just below my chin, but a regular black top that only comes up to my chest washes me out and looks pretty bad. So is black a fabulous color for me or a terrible one?

[candreco]

Fun!

We did Color Me Beautiful as part of a Girl Scout badge when I was about 10, and it was pretty awesome. I was totally obsessed with only getting clothes in MY colors, lol.

[Deleted]

Aug 1, 2014 11:08:23 GMT -5 candreco said:

Fun!

We did Color Me Beautiful as part of a Girl Scout badge when I was about 10, and it was pretty awesome. I was totally obsessed with only getting clothes in MY colors, lol.

I did that too! At some sort of day camp type thing.

I remember picking red, teal and black.

I by far get the most compliments when I wear red. And only true red or orange-y red. No other colors really, come to think of it. People will compliment an item, but not how I look in it.

I am undecided on how good I actually look in teal and black, not bad but not the best.

Navy and peach are great colors on me too.