Pursuit of Essence

Speaking from experience, I wasn’t always obsessed with my colour season. In fact, before being typed as a bright winter, I was fully convinced I was a soft autumn. HUGE difference by the way.

While trying to figure out my colour season on my own, I was influenced by tons of misinformation on the internet. Believe it or not, having soft, mousy brown hair, pale skin and light brown eyes doesn’t make you an autumn by default. Who knew?

Aside from this, I was also drawn to the soft autumn palette. The quiet warmth and depth of the colours felt so aligned with my identity at that time. Being seen in soft colours was comfortable, as opposed to bold, bright colours. Needless to say, being typed as a bright winter led to some serious adjustments.

If you’ve been typed as a season that you don’t resonate with on the inside, hope isn’t lost. There are ways to honour your natural colouring, without the big sacrifices. In this post, I’ll share three ways!

1. Contrast

Without giving too much thought to an items individual colour, pay attention to how the entire outfit works together. If you have low contrast, dress in monochromatic or similar-value colours. Let’s say you’re a soft summer, but love wearing black. Instead of forcing yourself to get rid of all your black clothes, wear them with other dark items!

On a similar note, let’s say you’re a bright spring. this doesn’t mean you have to go out in a bright orange top if you don’t want to. You’re high contrast, so just make sure your outfit matches that! Try a white top with dark brown trousers. I would argue that if you aren’t going to wear colours from your palette, the right level of contrast can still redeem your outfit. Though I love my bright winter palette now, I still don’t wear bright neon colours. I don’t have to, because my mostly black and white wardrobe provides contrast that works for me!

2. Try Your Sister/Neighbouring Seasons

Learn the characteristics of your season, and try palettes that share one of them. As I mentioned, I’m a bright winter who doesn’t wear bright colours. I love the true winter palette, because it’s still icy and cool, but without the overwhelming neon. This is my neighbouring season, so it still works well on me.

Neighbouring palettes usually share some colours. However, your sister season is the one that shares your primary trait. For example, a true autumns sister season is true spring, as you are both primarily warm. With this shared warmth, the colours in true spring can also work for a true autumn. By trying out colours from your sister/neighbouring season that you like, you are only compromising one characteristic.

3. Play With Makeup

If you don’t wear makeup, ignore this tip. You don’t have to start just because you want to pull off certain colours better. However, makeup in colour analysis is incredibly powerful! As long as it works within your colour season, you can more easily pull off an outfit that is in an unflattering colour.

To ease in to this, try the neutrals of your palette. Winters suit cool tones with medium-high contrast, springs suit warm tones with medium-high contrast, summers suit cool tones with medium-low contrast, and autumns suit warm tones with medium-low contrast. My everyday natural makeup that suits my bright winter palette is black mascara/eyeliner, neutral-cool concealer, natural berry-toned blush, and a sheer, berry-toned lip. Since makeup sits directly on our face, it can be used to compensate for unflattering outfit colours.

BONUS TIP: JUST WEAR WHAT YOU LIKE!

Don’t let colour analysis stop you from wearing whatever you want to. The world will keep spinning regardless of what you choose 🙂

I hope these tips are helpful for those of you struggling to accept your colours. I understand wanting to look your best, and it’s hard to not see the effectiveness of your colour palette once you’ve been exposed to it. I would encourage you to keep an open mind and keep trying the colours of your palette. There are colours you may never take a second look at in the store, but end up loving once you see how great they make you look. So don’t knock it til you try it!

Post by Pursuit of Essence

What if I told you there’s a reason that an outfit can look in harmony on another person, but doesn’t have the same effect on you? Maybe you want to try a trendy makeup look, but when you apply it with the exact same technique and style, you end up looking better before you even put anything on.

Unflattering outfits or makeup go beyond the issue of fit or application. The real culprit of these struggles can often be the use of the wrong colours. Yes, it’s a simple as that!

For those who are unfamiliar with Colour Analysis, it is a system where people can be typed as one of four seasons (spring, summer, autumn or winter) based on the natural colouring of their features and skin undertone. There are different systems that have been created in Colour Analysis, but the one I focus on is the 12 Season system. This Colour Analysis system was highly popularized in the 80’s, and has since made a comeback on social media among gen z audience. While some believe that Colour Analysis is just a dated trend that makes people feel limited in what they can wear, many who have experienced the power of discovering their best colours say it is a timeless tool that guides you toward confidence and security in your natural beauty. Alternatively, let me share three more advantages to learning your colour season that you may not have considered.

1. It’s Science!

You can’t argue with objective truth, even in fashion. Colour Analysis uses hue, value and chroma of the skin to categorize individuals into 12 different sub seasons. This is a reliable and objective approach to achieving beauty and harmony in your appearance. Using coloured drapes and natural lighting, it becomes obvious whether our faces have high contrast or low contrast, and lightness or darkness, because the colours that match it will make us look more vibrant and youthful. In your best colours, you may notice more skin evenness and brightness, natural rosy cheeks and lips, whiter eyes, and a more contoured jawline. On the contrary, your worst colours can dull your look by enhancing eye bags and hyperpigmentation, taking colour from your lips and cheeks, making eyes look tired, and overall giving you a drained and sickly appearance. What I find so helpful about colour analysis is that we never need to question if a colour really looks good on us-we know the science doesn’t lie.

2. Intentional and Conscience Consumerism

In a world where consumerism is out of control and so many give in to the latest fashion trends, advocation of individualistic style is fading away. Young teens and adults buy into these trends with no concept of whether or not the items honours their personal beauty. When used correctly, Colour Analysis fights consumerism by making shopping more intentional and personalized. No more impulse shopping, it’s time to make informed decisions!

Purchasing clothes is much easier when you can weed out the colours that don’t go with your skin. Not to mention, Colour Analysis is great knowledge to have when decluttering your own wardrobe, or building a capsule wardrobe that allows you to mix and match different items. For example, when you focus on purchasing or keeping clothes that are specifically warm/cool colours, it becomes easier to build a capsule wardrobe since the colours just make sense together.

Not everyone feels they can justify the cost of a professional Colour Analyst as some charge much higher for their services than others, but booking a reasonably priced service is an easily justified one-time cost when you receive the results that open doors to unlimited fashion and beauty advice from the internet that help elevate your style.

3. Personalize Your Brand the Right Way

Brand isn’t just a concept related to owning a company. We all have a personal brand that is expressed through our energy and outward projected style. It affects the way we are perceived by others and our first impressions. The colours we choose the wear on our bodies to express ourselves, or use as signature business brand colours can evoke different emotions and feelings in others and ourselves. Specifically in regards to a business, when you choose signature colours from your own personal colour palette to represent your brand, it can be a tool used to give a more authentic and genuine appeal to your audience. No colours are completely off limits for any Colour Analysis subseason, but there are shades in each colour that work and don’t work depending on the season.

Let me give you some examples of celebrities that may have studied their season and used it to their business and personal brands advantage.

-Hailey Bieber and her makeup/skincare brand Rhode is the first one that comes to mind. Though not confirmed, Hailey is widely thought to fit into the autumn season of Colour Analysis, leaning more toward true or soft autumn. The colours chosen to represent Rhode are soft and leaning warm, perfectly aligning with the autumn season. Think soft neutral grey, creamy beige, muted pinks and brown. When we see Hailey surrounded by these colours, she looks cohesive and well-integrated.

-Audrey Hepburn is widely recognized as a winter. Her most iconic outfits include her little black dress from the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), as well as her red dress featured in the musical Funny Face (1957). Even outside of iconic film roles, she was often styled in bright and cool toned colours which seemed to really work with the high contrast of her features, and made her the style icon we still admire today.

-Elle fanning is easily recognizable as a light season, with most agreeing that she leans more toward light spring than light summer. Pastels and off whites are a staple in most of her styled outfits. Her portrayal of Aurora in the film Maleficent (2014) felt very natural for Elle because her hair, makeup and outfits were light in colour, which was a representation of Auroras young and innocent nature. Elle Fanning was arguably the best casting for this live action adaptation of the classic Disney film Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Whether you’re dressing up for a social event, job interview or date night, consider what colours you choose to wear and how they reflect your individual beauty. Without even realizing, you may be dressing or doing your makeup in colours that fight against you, giving the opposite effect of what all the effort was meant to do. Your beauty deserves to be celebrated and accentuated, and there is no better way than to compliment it with the right colours. Beauty becomes easy and natural when we customize our routines and outfits to our own unique look, so let this be your sign to book an appointment with a professional Colour Analyst and discover how you shine!