Over the last two fortnights, I’ve done a series on colour theory. In part one, I covered and explained the colour wheel and what happens to the pure colours (on the outside) when white, grey or black is added and that they become a tint, tone and shade respectively.
And in series two last fortnight, we talked about the warm or cool undertone of peoples skin, and that when we wear clothes and accessories with the same undertone we look radiant, fresh and healthy.
This fortnight let’s look at why a certain colour palette suits one person over another and how to determine what yours might be.
When we look at a colour we notice certain properties in and about that colour. There are three properties to consider – undertone, value and intensity. We’ve talked about undertone (warm and cool) and this is first and most important part of correct colour analysis and ultimately leads to the application of the right clothing and accessory colours.
Then we consider a colour’s value and this relates to the light, medium and dark factor of a colour, for example, cream, medium olive and navy blue.
And the third property of a colour is its intensity – brightness or softness, for example, hot pink or salmon pink.
It’s the combination of these three properties that need to reflect a person’s natural appearance for looking radiant in every wardrobe item. These three properties – undertone, value and intensity need to match a person’s skin, hair, eyebrow and eye colour which are referred to as the ‘dominate characteristics’.
After the undertone has been determined a person’s hair colour becomes the dominant characteristic as it’s usually the largest and most obvious thing we notice when we look at their face. This is where the right colour palette or colour type is very evident – either light, medium or dark (value) and either bright or soft (intensity)
Someone with black hair needs a deep darker palette of colours to support their depth of colouring, while someone with blonde hair needs a lighter range of hues to support their predominant lightness. A red-haired person may need medium but also bright colours to allow them to look radiant while different grey haired individuals may need either light, medium or dark colours to support their natural hair colour.
Eye and eyebrow colour are also a significant part of someone’s colouring, but they’re only a small part of the overall face compared to a person’s hair. However, this is where clothing and accessories worn in either the same or complementary to your eye colour can achieve even more radiance, ‘pop’ and balance to your natural colouring.
As seen in http://www.weekenderherald.com.au/ on page 14
