What's your shade?
When it comes to choosing the right colors to wear, it's all about your skintone. You want to appear to have a fresh, healthy look, but if you don the wrong colors, it can make you look overly pale or washed out, and in some cases, downright sickly. So, before you start picking and choosing colors, you should first determine your skin tone type. There are two basic characteristics that will determine your colors.
The basic options are warm or cool and clear or muted.
The overall tone of your skin will fall into one of four categories. Coloring is based on the seasons; Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. Each one of these has a palate of colors that will most likely suit you best. But first,let's find out what your skin tone is.
Warm skin tones tend to have yellow undertones, and cool skin tones tend towards blue undertones. These undertones are usually quite subtle and not easily noticed at first.
If your complexion is sallow, or if it appears to be somewhat golden, then you can consider yourself to have a warm skin tone. Blue undertones often have red cheeks, slightly ruddy or somewhat splotchy, and are usually pale. These are considered to be cool skin tones.
Clear skin tones are generally easy to notice. There is usually a sharp contrast between you hair, eyes and skin, and you will have what is a almost translucent quality to your complexion. Some might even say that your skin seems to radiate light (Meg Ryan is a good example of this).
Muted skin tones will have less of a contrast and often has an ash tone. You skin coloring will usually be softer than people with “clear” tones.
If you skin tone is warm and clear, then you are a spring. If you are cool and clear, then you are a winter. Warm and muted signifies that you are an autumn, and cool and muted means you are a summer.
If you look at yourself in the mirror and are still unsure of what your tone is, a simple test you can try is the “gold and silver” test. Just stand in front of the mirror and put a piece of metallic gold near your face, then do the same with silver. You will be able to see more of a bluish or yellow tint, which will tell you if you are warm or cool in skin tone.
Spring Colors
Spring colors are clear and bright. Yellow undertones and bright greens are common for this season. If you are a spring, then your colors can basically be taken from a bouquet of spring flowers, like tulips or daffodils. Red-orange, coral, yellow, etc... are all spring colors. Think bright, youthful and vibrant.
Summer Colors
These colors are also bright and clear, but tend to have blue undertones. Emerald green, royal blue, violet, red, white etc... are summer colors. Summer flowers, like petunias, red roses and pink geraniums are a good guide to summer colors.
Autumn Colors
These colors are tend to be earthy rich. There are a lot of golden hues everywhere you look in the fall. Ambers, deep reds like burgundy, browns, burnt orange, teal, rust and avocado green are the most common colors for you. The shades are generally deep, rich colors that almost seem to evoke a sense of warm security.
Winter Colors
The colors for winter are generally cool with blue undertones. Basically you are looking for the pastel version of summer colors, like pale blue, seafoam, light grey, light pink, country blue, mauve, etc... During the winter, the vibrant colors of nature in the summer have faded into shadows of their former selves. An easy way to determine winter colors is to think of bright cheery colors and imagine looking at them through a medium to heavey frost. The colors will be substantially toned down.
Remember! You are not necessarily limited to wearing the colors from your seasonal palate. It is not unusual to find a color from another palate that looks great on you, so don't be afraid to explore. These are just general guidelines, not law!
A sample of some of the popular colors in fashion for 2008 – 2009 seasons can be seen below.
Spring & Summer 2009
Fall & Winter 2008
Happy shopping!
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