Fair warning: 15 minute read on how to find your own colour palette without endless guessing

Until I actively and purposefully sought out all the information about colours in personal style that I humanly could, I was just like you may be right now – clueless. Not having the slightest idea about the importance of colours, about how the colours we wear influence our looks, about how each of us has a set of colours that will make us look appealing, a small group of colours that will make us look irresistible and a decent group of colours that can reverse all that in a nanosecond.

I searched and searched until I found the best image mentor I could wish for. Every single sentence she uttered was correct, as I have learned over the years. Thoroughly enlightened, I read as many supporting books on colour as have been published to this day. You know how it goes – when you feel like you suddenly start seeing clearly, it may very well become your passion. So yes, colours have become my passion. They changed the way I dress, how I look, how I feel, how I use colours in my branding, how I shop for clothes, shoes, jewelry and everything else – for myself, my loved ones and – on occasion – for my clients. Not to mention how much more I enjoy colours in general. 

It wouldn’t be fair to call it exaggeration, when I say that colours skyrocketed my self-image, my self-esteem and gave me the confidence I needed to present myself without feeling insecure about my looks. The change was so profound that I wanted the same for everyone! I want every shy woman and every shy man to know that they matter, that they needn’t be afraid to show their work, speak up or make that offer knowing they look presentable, possibly appealing, but definitely trustworthy. 

It is one thing to know about something but it is an entirely new realm to teach it, esp. when the audience is just as involuntarily ignorant of the impact of colours on our looks as I used to be. I wanted to make the learning easy for them, palatable and memorable, so I came up with DESSERT.

DESSERT is an acronym. 

Before you have the first bite, I need to point out to the importance of not skipping any steps in this process. If you want to find your colours you have to take one step at a time. They build on one another. Here it is:

D – Define your tonal characteristics

E – Eliminate your worst colours

S – Select your colour season

S – Select your neutral colours

E – Establish your colour personality

R – Refine your colour palette

T – Tailor your colours to your body type

Let’s go into details – or ingredients.

What the hell are tonal characteristics?, you may be asking at this moment. And I can tell you, that that is an excellent question. I have created an massive 4 module course called Colour Breakthrough for hairdressers, makeup artists, image consultants and other people interested in every detail of colours for image and branding, but I’ll try to condense it into a few lines. May God help me succeed with this.

The sum of your natural hair colour, eye colour and your skin tone (NOT colour!) is something we, in the colour circles, call natural colouring. Your natural colouring can have one of each pair of tonal characteristics:

You can be either Bright or Soft (Muted)

You can be either Light or Deep (NOT dark)

You can be either Cool or Warm

(Technically, you can also be neutral but I am not going into that now. That’s what the Colour Breakthrough course is for. Besides, the probability is low anyway.)

In the world of human colours, the most important thing to accept is that everything is usually, typically, normally, or most of the time like this or like that. Nothing is 100% defined. We are all unique and expecting mathematically accurate statements is unrealistic at best. Just relax. It gets better.

So, how do you know if you are Bright or Soft? That’s easy. If your colouring is Bright, it’s most likely in your eyes. Your sclera (the white part in your eyes) is very white, therefore whichever your eye colour, the contrast with your sclera is obvious. Your limbal rings may be rather strong also. The size of your eyes is irrelevant. The colour and the contrast is all that matters. It can also be your hair – typically bright blond, very bright red or raven black. Something instantly noticeable and intense.

Anne Hathaway is bright. George Clooney is bright. Viola Davis is bright. Audrey Hepburn was bright. Google them and observe if they look better in bright colours or softer tones. Mind you, light colours may be bright, too. Not all light colours are automatically soft.

This part of the process is easy because when you are not sure, you just eliminate. If you are not bright, then you are soft. If you are not sure, cross out what you are not and thus you are left with what is probably correct. Similarly, if you are not decidedly deep or dark, then we can safely assume that you are light. You can also be in between but for simplicity’s sake, we will go with the obvious.

If your skin has a strong melanin base, don’t go automatically for deep or dark, just because you are darker than white people. You could very well be soft or bright first, which is more likely esp. if you have dark eyes. That’s why i specifically wrote that your skin color is technically irrelevant in this process. The tone of your skin is the deciding factor.

When I was blonde, I was decidedly light, right? My hair was light, my skin is obviously light and my grey blue eyes are also on the lighter side. It was my dominant tone or dominant tonal characteristic.

Before I was blond, I had my natural hair colour, which most hairdressers call light brown or dark blond. My eyes are the same grey blue and my skin remains beige but they are a bit in contrast with my natural hair colour, which is not strikingly bright or dark in any way, thanks to the white renditions here and there. As a result, I am soft. My dominant characteristic is soft because of my natural coloring as a whole (eye colour, hair colour and skin tone combined). I am neither dark or light as per the second pair of contrasting tones. My most noticeable characteristic is that without makeup I am barely noticeable. Greyish eyes, greyish hair, beige skin. Pure genetic win!

Clearly, deep soft purple compliments Laura Dern’s natural colouring on several levels I am not going into. The purple literally softly lands on her skin and sinks in to make her look radiant. Mid-gray, on the other hand, makes Laura Dern’s skin and hair scream in protest. I know that there are contractual obligations, I know that sometimes she doesn’t have a choice, sadly. At any rate, if I were her stylist, I would never ever put this Warm Spring into anything even remotely resembling cool gray. And if I were her stylist, I would never allow anyone to part her hair in the middle and make aging waves of her hair either. But that’s another matter.

As you can see, the unsuspected general public takes such appearances at face value, as the example of elegance, as a pinnacle of style, while it’s neither when a star is surrounded by amateurs, no matter the brand or the money that changed hands.

Unlike many useless pieces of information guide you to, looking at your wrist veins determines exactly nothing. Especially not the colour of your lipstick. You might as well try it on your ankle.

What does help is the right comparison. Take a piece of fabric or some paper or a napkin or that thin paper tissue you put into the gift bag and the receiver of your gift will throw away in two seconds afterwards. Create three sets of colours:

Brilliant white vs. light warm beige

Bright orange vs. bright fuchsia

Light cool pink vs. light peach

Now that you have the ultimate tool to start your style improving journey, sit down, have a mirror handy, place the colours on your shoulders or near your face, compare the colours, and observe how each individual colour behave on your face. Does it sink in easily and make you look resplendent? Or does it stay on, creates a film, makes you look ill, old or overall hideous? Colours can do that.

If Brilliant White is better on you that Light Warm Beige you are bright. It automatically means that most soft/muted colours will stay on your face and make you look all sorts of negative things.

If Light Warm Beige is better on you than Brilliant White you are warm and possibly soft. Bright hues overpower your natural colouring, make you look ill, mid-grey makes you look violently ill and brilliant white turn you into a prematurely deceased.

If Bright Orange looks better on you than Bright Fuchsia you are definitely warm, possibly warm and bright, which can mean that you are a Bright Spring, possibly a Warm Autumn, potentially a Warm Spring or Deep Autumn. (I told you it’s complicated, if you want to go further, which you should. But not without proper guidance. Ahem!)

If Bright Fuchsia looks better on you, you are definitely cool, quite possibly a winter. Warm colours make you look like you had eaten something you shouldn’t have and now we all see that you made a dietary mistake that may very well end in some major digestion issues.

If Orchid looks better on you than Peach, you are definitely cool, most likely a Summer, possibly a Winter.

This is where all the fun ends and hard work starts. Kidding. It gets better.

Removing your worst colors from your sartorial repertoire is as vital as removing processed sugar and processed seed oils from your diet. I dare say that this single step takes you close to the 50% mark of your journey to your signature style destination. Unless I meet you, whether in person or online, I cannot tell you which exact colours are your worst. What I can tell you is that the first step – defining your dominant tonal characteristic – is a vital step in the right direction. You cannot define your worst colours without knowing your dominant tone.

This part is always fun for me. After we define the client’s dominant and secondary tones and their colour direction is clear beyond any reasonable doubt, I enter their wardrobes – with their permission, of course – and remove everything that doesn’t serve the client. Sometimes they prefer the gentle way – they put each item on one more time to see for themselves why it’s not going to work for them. They more or less reluctantly put it in the Goodwill bag. Especially, if there is sentimental value or a significant sum of money attached to it.

When you are on your own, and you don’t have a specific colour palette created for you yet, approach this step carefully. I am not encouraging you to keep that lime green top that you unsuccessfully wore with that mid gray suit hoping for the best. I am suggesting that you don’t throw away anything you are not sure about. Not yet. Wait until you finish consuming DESSERT.

If you are cool, your prayers for looking radiant in warm yellow-based colours are futile. You won’t. There is hope for a cool icy yellow, light lemon yellow or other cool yellows but the chances are limited to Buff. Buff sometimes works for some cool people, which means they can wear it without looking like a stretcher case. However, I would never call it their best colour, even if I put Buff on their overall cool colour palette.

Eliminating your worst colours can be a heart-breaking process. A couple of years ago I had a client who loves yellow. She showed her yellow dress to the group of Summer School of Style students. They all confirmed what I had told her – Yellow was is not meant to be her colour.

I empathize because bright warm yellow happens to be one of my favourite. However, I look hideous in it. Therefore, I often buy yellow flowers so I can look at something I love without compromising my appearance.

As per the above mentioned client, I showed her how she can wear yellow beautifully and still look radiant when wearing yellow, just as I do with all other clients. It’s a matter of strategic colour placement I will mention at the end.

Now you see, that some of your colour affairs will end up as unrequited love. Sometimes you love a colour but it doesn’t love you back. Or just not in the same intensity.

What I can promise you is this: This single step, if done properly, will get you your first compliments on your changed looks. Yes, you will get compliments for something you will stop doing – wearing unflattering colours. Do you know why? Because you will consistently look good or great and never awful. What an achievement! 

If you paid attention in Kindergarten you know what cool and warm colours are. Even without your colour palette you can determine, which colours should leave your wardrobe and never return into it.

Below are two colour palettes I’ve created for my clients. As you can see, Samantha is very cool (she really is very cool!). Bella is warm. So if Samantha wants to eliminate her worst colours, she can start with those that are not in her colour palette – virtually anything that has a yellow base. Conversely, Bella, without me guiding her, can hold onto her heavenly yellow-based colours and eliminate cool greys, cool blues, cool greens, cool reds… Anything blue or gray-based.

Now we may be again at the point where you have no idea what a colour season is. Perhaps it’s just a fancy name for the good old Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter but in colour terms. Without going too much in depth of colour season theory, your dominant tone, together with your secondary tone will lead you to your colour season. Meaning, which colours are typical for your season.

Maybe this will help:

This single picture explains the base of colour season theory. Seasons next to yours from either side are your friends and you will share some colours, the tone opposite your dominant tone is your mortal colour enemy. This colour season graph can answer most of your basic questions. If it doesn’t, contact me here: www.styleandchic.ca/contact

Say, you are a Warm Autumn or a Warm Spring. Your worst colours will be those blue and gray-based tones. If you are a Bright Spring, you will share some colours with Bright Winter because it’s next to you. Soft Summer colours must leave your wardrobe now. You will always share colours with other seasons. Sometimes a few, sometimes even half. Each of us are different and colours in humans are unique. Therefore, our colur palettes will be different, so will our worst colours. There will be similarities but the specifics will often differ. 

I know. I know! What the hell are neutral colours and what makes them neutral? 

Most people wear most of their clothes more than once. Ideally 20, 30 or 50 times. You wear some of your items more often because you wear them with other things. Typically, these items are coats, jackets, blazers, suits, skirts and pants. 

Let’s take a suit. You can wear it with a million different shirts or blouses and tops, provided, your suit is a colour that goes well with those shirts or blouses and tops. If something can be individually worn with colours, which cannot be worn together, you have a neutral colour suit. It’s like Switzerland. They talk to anyone with money, no matter which side of the conflict they are on. 

Normally, you will have one or two coats (I have eight but I am not normal, so it’s ok). Provided, you are not an IT nerd, Mark, Steve, or any other person who gets decision fatigue when they have to get dressed, you will not want to wear the same clothing of the same colour every day. You want to wear something new every day like a normal person. 

But you don’t want to have a completely new outfit for each day of the season – a different coat, a different suit, different shirt, blouse, top… for each day in a season – 90 completely different outfits. There are at least two rational reasons why:

1. you don’t want to spend money on clothes you will wear only once in a season

2. you don’t want to turn your bedroom into your closet and sleep in a closet due to lack of room.

So you have two coats but you want to wear a different outfit on most days. You want all those outfits to colour-match your coats. So you buy coats that have colours that go well with your suits, skirts, pants, skirts, blouses, and tops. 

Most people in the Western world wear black as their only neutral. They buy one black coat and that’s it. Reason? “Black goes with everything,” they say.

I say: Black doesn’t go well with most people of Northern European, warm toned Indian and some African origin.

I also say that there are at least 12 solid neutrals to choose from – 6 for cool (taupe, pine green, charcoal, navy, burgundy, violet…) and 6 for warm toned people (camel, olive, tobacco, teal, rust, purple…)

There are a few things more unbecoming than a combination of warm and cool. Almost never works.

And then there is red. Also a neutral for vivacious drama queens.

Colour personality relates to your personality type. There are four basic colour personality types: yellow, blue, green and red.

Again, I am not going into details but I can summarize it succinctly. It relates to matching the colours from your colour palette to your personality.

I will give you an example: As I mentioned above, My colouring is soft. Luckily for me, my best colour, which is also my neutral colour is Red. I love Red!

At the same time, blue grays and gray blues look good on me, too because they match my eyes. Guess what? I don’t like wearing them. I have a Red personality and soft grey blues are too beta for me. I am by no meansone of those lovely soft spoken women with a quiet disposition and calming presence. Blue-related colour I am willing to wear is teal because it’s stronger.

One of my clients, a lovely Warm Autumn with bright olive skin, tobacco brown eyes and dark brown hair who looks impressive in various bright and warm greens, told me: “I feel the same about green as you do about grey blues.”

So we could say that your colour personality narrows down your colour palette further. In other words, some colours love you but you don’t love them back.

When I work on your colour palette, I organize for easy orientation – light neutrals on the top, dark neutrals near or on the bottom, accents on the right or on the bottom. Your best colours are always on the left, so you will notice them first.

Then I create a write up I call Colour Compass so that you won’t get lost in your colours. There is one thing to know, which are your colours but there is more to it, if you want to call yourself a stylish person. Some people can wear 5,6, even 7 colours and look stunning, while others would look like clowns in the same colour combination. Some soft seasons look stunning in monochrome (various tints, tones and shades of one colour) whereas Bright Springs would look almost dead in them. I call this further specification Colour Number. You simply need to know your ideal colour number – the minimum and the maximum number of colours from your colour palette in a single outfit.

I don’t know a single person who teaches this so consider yourself a privileged person who knows a secret.

There is more but this would take too long to explain. If you want to deepen your colour and style knowledge, I suggest you sign up for Summer School of Style.

Colour placement can alter the perception of your height and width.

Very broadly speaking, we could call it colour blocking. Strategic placement of colours can do wonders for your overall image. Its impact is more profound when you have extra pounds, short legs, broad shoulders, wide hips, and other body features you want to battle with strategically.

There are quite a few lessons on the topic in Summer School of Style, should you feel inclined to explore the realm in more detail.

Now you know the biggest secret that even the most influential Hollywood stylists don’t know. What are you going to do with it? Will you continue with endless guessing about the colour of your sweater, hair, nail polish, eye shadow, lipstick? Or will you accept the fact that there, perhaps, is something to learn that you could benefit from for the rest of your life?

You have three options:

1. You can try to do it on you own. It will consume about 150 (one hundred and fifty) hours of your time (that you will never get back) to figure it all out by yourself. Oh, and you may need to read about 10 good books on the topic. And a few contradictory blogs. That’s it. One more thing – you will never be 100% sure. But that’s ok.

2. You can sign up for Summer School of Style here. In less than 15 hours of instructions you will learn absolutely everything about colours, style, image, shopping, and a great deal about yourself. After you finish, you will be 100% sure about all of it.

3. Or you can ask me to make your first personalized colour palette for you. Once you receive it, you can ask me anything about it in a consultation. After that, I will support you via texts or emails for the following two months because you will walk before you run.

The day you discover your most flattering colours will be the day of liberation from endless guessing, frustration, and self-doubt. Your self-image will positively change. Your self-esteem will take off and your confidence will guide you towards success. You will look great on every picture. Trust me on this.

The world of colours is magnificent. Your life will never be the same. It will be so much more colourful. You’ll see.

Apply here: www.styleandchic.ca/application