Top 15 Myths of Color Analysis

Lora Alexander Presented by PrettyYourWorld.com

Copyright © (2020) Lora Alexander All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

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www.prettyyourworld.com What exactly is Color Analysis? Color Analysis is simply the act of looking at one’s skin, eyes, and natural hair color to determine the best set of colors to wear to harmonize with that coloring.

It was wildly popular in the 1980’s, but it has never ‘gone away.’ In fact, with so many websites and blogs talking about Color Analysis, it is experiencing an increase in popularity.

I think this is a wonderful thing, as it is a powerful tool in helping both women and men look their absolute best.

However, there is some conicting and confusing information on the internet, and Pretty Your World wants to break through some of the clutter of misinformation.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #1- Color Analysis is old and outdated. Color Analysis may be old, but it’s not outdated. The principles of harmonizing temperature, value and intensity have been used in many different elds (art, gardening, interior design, fashion, just to name a few) forever.

Wearing colors that harmonize with a person’s coloring is just as vi- tal as ever. But it is not as widely popular to the average person as it was in the 1980’s.

However, the ColorBreeze System at PrettyYourWorld.com hopes to make it widely popular again.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #2 - Color Analysis puts someone in a box. I’ve heard this argument more than a few times, mainly from the fashion world who is opposed to people who want to stick with a palette of attering colors. These professions thrive on ‘trends.’

Once a person knows their most attering palette of colors, the effect is the opposite of being ‘boxed in’. They usually feel like many new choices have opened up to them!

While, of course, anyone has the right to wear any color they want, those who are interested in looking their absolute best want to know the colors they wear will enhance their natural coloring, allowing them to look younger, refreshed, and more condent.

See the Deep Winter below wearing just 6 colors - black, deep purple, pure red, pine green, turquoise, royal blue. They look fabulous on her. There are 55 in a ColorBreeze color swatch, but there are conceivably thousands of different colors and shades anyone can wear successfully.

Bottom line: There are more colors that someone can wear than there are ‘forbidden’ colors.

Color Analysis opens up a new world of color for you! And it saves time and money, too.

This is what Color Analysis is all about.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #3 - I don’t seem to fit into any season. Maybe color analysis isn’t for me. Analyzing yourself can be tough. We denitely can analyze others easier than we can ourselves. So sometimes it seems you don’t t into any category.

But the bottom line is that there will be one season that will be the best t for each person. A good analyst will be able to determine your undertone (warm vs. cool), gure out your value (light vs. dark, or somewhere in between) and your chroma (clear vs. muted). Once these are determined, there will be a corresponding ‘season’ or category you will t into.

I promise. *The “Color Tree” is a digram created by Pretty Your World, inspired by artist Albert Munsell’s Color Tree. It is the basis for the entire ColorBreeze system.

Each ‘season’, and therefore each person, will reside somewhere on that tree. See the tree at the end of this eBook.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #4 - What if my favorite color is not in my palette? I won’t be able to wear the colors I love! Color Analysis is about wearing the best colors that enhance your personal coloring. If a favorite color of yours is not in the palette, there are ways of wearing it and still look great. Use it as an accent color; wear it away from the face, which is the vital area you want to showcase your best colors; wear it in small doses; make sure the rest of your colors you wear are in your palette.

I’ve had some people tell me they want to wear what they want to and if they can’t wear [insert favorite color] they would just be devastated. My answer to them is: if something makes you deliriously happy and you would be devastated not to wear it, wear it. Life is too short!

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #5 - You find your undertone by looking at the veins in your wrist. This is a very pervasive myth.

But it simply doesn’t work. It’s not the color of your veins you are looking for, but the skin on top of the veins!

Myth #6 - If you have cool skin, your hair will be warm (and vice versa) since nature wants to 'balance things.' I read about this idea in a training course. There is no validity to it.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #7 - It’s all about the skin, nothing else matters. Skin is vitally important in determining your “season”.

But it’s not the only thing, as some color systems believe.

You must look at skin, hair and eyes before you can make a determination about your coloring.

Look at celebrity Nicole Kidman.

Her light skin and clear eyes suggest Spring.

Her skin is quite pale, sometimes looking cool or white.

Many pale-skinned red-heads have the same coloring.

But her naturally reddish blonde hair tells us she has warm under- tones.

I would label her a Warm Spring.

If one tried to determine her season just on her skin alone, the results would be way off.

And I did see a website analyzing her as a Light Spring, explaining her skin is all that matters.

But 'light' is not her dominant trait; warmth is. She's a Warm Spring.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #8 - It's all about hair color, nothing else matters See Myth #6. And then add to it that even if you decide someone is warm based on their (natural) hair color, this is just one component.

For example, you have to look at eyes to determine chroma. You can’t determine one’s chroma (clear and bright vs. soft and muted) from only hair color.

The eyes above are of warm seasons.

If we determined she was predominantly warm from her hair, we need to look at her eyes next.

The one on the left is generally clear (warm+clear = Spring); the one on the right is generally muted (warm + muted = Autumn).

Eye color is usually the most telling of one’s chroma, but again, it’s just one piece of the puzzle.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #9 - It's all about eye color; nothing else matters See Myth #6 and then add to it that eye color can often be the dening trait when determining someone’s chroma, and to a degree one’s undertones, but it can’t indicate a person’s season by itself.

For example, there are blue eyes in every season, not just cool seasons. And you can nd green eyes in every season, not just warm seasons.

Look at this woman below. She is a Warm Autumn.

But you would never know it if you just looked at her eyes. They look quite cool, muted, and even ‘summery.’

Without taking into hair into consideration, we’d never come to the correct Warm Autumn conclusion.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #10 - My skin looks warm, does that mean I'm a warm season? (or vice versa) This is similar to Myth #6. Keep in mind that there are “undertones” and “overtones” involved in looking at the skin.

Overtones refer to the surface color of one’s skin which may or may not be the same as one’s overall undertone.

For example, you get a tan, the surface changes, and you may need to modify your makeup foundation for it to match, but your undertone is still the same.

Many Winters, especially Deep and Soft Winters, often have what is considered “olive” skin. It looks warm on the surface like the woman below, right. But the undertone is cool. She's a Toasted Soft Winter in my system.

Far left, we have another red-head whose skin can look cool but has predominantly warm undertones.

So if you’ve ever been ‘typed’ at a makeup counter when having custom-blended foundations made for you, do not interpret the surface skin tone as your overall undertone.

It might match your predominant undertones, but it might not.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #11 - Your season will indicate your personality, or vice versa

For example, summers are great listeners, winters are natural leaders, autumns are great decision makers, springs are animated and cheery.

This is one topic where I break from the pack of most color consultants, even those whose knowledge I greatly admire on every other topic.

The idea that personalities are linked to the seasons has been around forever and it has always bugged me for many reasons.

First, where are the studies done on this? While certainly there are many people who will t into this theory, there are just as many who do not.

Surely we know some blonde, blue-eyed Springs who are not always cheery and uplifting. While there are certainly bold, opinionated leader-type Winters, I know many quiet, subdued, introverted Winters, as well.

For me personally, some descriptions may t me as a Autumn, like being down to earth and approachable, but the others couldn’t be more wrong. I’m not an extrovert. I do not make decisions quickly. Stubborn? Sure, but can’t we all be at some time or another?

The bottom line is that while it’s fun to see how many of these traits, if any, we have, it is not a valid indicator of your season.

If you don't t into these traits, it doesn't mean you aren't a particular season.

There is no logical connection to this idea, in my professional opinion.

www.prettyyourworld.com One nal thought on this: there is denitely truth to the notion that we all have our unique personalities and that you will want to express your personality through what you wear.

This is called your “Style Personality” and it’s a huge part of developing your own style that expresses your authentic personality.

But I believe that any style can be expressed while still utilizing your seasonal palette of colors. It is the cut and style of your clothing as well as the accessories you wear that will create your personal style. And it can be accomplished with any color.

Below are a few looks I put together to show how you can create your unique personal style regardless of what your season is.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #12 - Body size & shape determines your season Similar to Myth #11, there is a school of thought that your body shape and size will determine the colors you should wear. The thinking goes something like “tall bodies with dramatic bone structure will need to wear dramatic clothes and colors” or “soft feminine bodies with rounded features will need soft feminine colors.”

I don’t agree with this idea either.

Again, your natural coloring on the outside will tell you what colors to wear that will harmonize. What is inside will dictate your personal style.

While having a tall body with dramatic features will help her to project a dramatic look, it doesn’t limit that person to that look. Nor does it mean that if you have a dramatic personality but you are short and round that you cannot project a dramatic look.

I was always told Autumns’ style personality was natural and casual. Winters were bold and dramatic. But I like to use my “Ode to Mary Ann & Ginger” of Gilligan’s Island theory to disprove this. Any style personality can shine within any season.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #13 - If am naturally drawn to a color or colors, this means it is my best color for me This is a very pervasive belief. It states that if you are drawn to a particular color or colors, this inherently means you can wear those color(s) successfully.

This idea can be attributed to Swiss artist Johannes Itten who believed that people will be attracted to colors that are already present in their coloring. For example, light blonde, blue-eyed Springs will gravitate toward those light bright colors. Winters with the deep cool coloring will naturally be attractive to those types of colors.

Apparently, Itten developed this idea when he let his art students choose the colors they liked best for their next art assignment. He noted the preferences differed based on their coloring.

From this, some color analysts developed their beliefs and it became prevalent in many color systems. Once again, I disagree with this idea, for many of the same reasons I mentioned previously.

One reason is that this does not t with me and my preferences at all. I love cool pastels. I’m a Warm Autumn. I can’t wear cool pastels without them looking articial and boring. They certainly do not harmonize or enhance my coloring. Believe me I tried to make them work.

So, am I the lone exception to this rule? I don’t think so, because I hear this from so many others who love certain colors but they are simply not colors that atter them.

There is just no logic to this idea.

Are we drawn to our favorite colors? Absolutely.

Does this mean those colors will harmonize with our coloring? They may or may not, but it has nothing to do with any inherent connection to our coloring and our preferences.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #14 - Any person can be any season (ex: you can have red hair, green eyes, and golden skin and still be a winter).

I have to be honest. This kind of thinking is what prompted me to start my Online Color Analysis Training. There is a lot of information about color analysis on the internet. Some I agree with. Some I don’t. And some drive me crazy, such as this one.

While I am not militant about my beliefs (there are exceptions to almost everything), I also am not so ‘open’ to things that I would agree that anyone can be any season and that it’s just a matter of how you ‘drape out’ in a color analysis draping.

There are clearly visible differences between the seasons. These parameters distinguish one category from another. If there were no parameters, how would you ever distinguish one season from another, much less pinpoint one specic season out of 12, 16, or more?

When an analyst doesn’t understand these parameters and can’t identify them, she is left to just looking at particular test colors (drapes) under a client’s face and arbitrarily deciding that one looks good, one doesn’t, and not knowing why.

I was lectured about this many times from several people from another color system. I was told, for example, that Kim Kardashian, (whom I clearly see as a Deep Winter), might not actually be that season and there would be no way to know this unless she was draped. Kim could actually be a Light Spring, I was told, you just never know unless you are draped.

Well, I do know she would never be a Light Spring, and most skilled Color Analysts know this too.

Take a look at the woman below as an example. She doesn’t need to be draped for us to know she could never be a Winter of any kind.

www.prettyyourworld.com Normally this erroneous thinking shouldn’t bother me since I try not to get involved with other systems to see what they are teaching.

However, I get numerous questions from readers and clients when they hear this Myth. They spend lots of money on color sessions with these color analysts, and they come out with the most inaccurate results I’ve ever seen.

Dark eyed brunettes who are labeled Clear Spring; or women with cool skin and eyes who are the epitome of Cool Winter being draped a Warm Autumn. It mainly happens with one system in particular; the one who believes anyone can be anything.

It does a great disservice to the eld of color analysis when thoughts like these are put out there to further confuse people.

www.prettyyourworld.com Myth #15 - If I get draped as a certain season, I will always be that and will never change There could be instances in which you would change seasons. Some could be the results of illness, chemotherapy, and so on. But most of the time it is a result of aging.

As we age, coloring can become less intense and can cool down. This is not a big deal for most Winters and Summers who are already cool.

It’s most problematic for warm Springs and Autumns. They have the potential from going from one extreme to the other, such as when a warm red-headed Spring's hair goes completely grey and her coloring softens. She could fade into a Light Spring or if the cool down was dramatic, a Light Summer.

It’s a good idea to get re-analyzed if your coloring has changed signicantly.

www.prettyyourworld.com Last but not least, one can visibly change to another season if she colors her hair and/or changes her eye color with colored contact lenses.

While you may not actually ‘change’ seasons, it will certainly look that way to others and as a result you should dress to harmonize your look.

One pair of clear blue colored contacts can change a Deep Winter to a Clear Winter in seconds! (below)

I hope this eBook will help correct some thinking about Color Analysis because it is a fascinating eld, a powerful image tool and it has the potential to change one’s life.

It already has for millions of women, including me.

www.prettyyourworld.com About the Author

Lora Alexander is a Certied Color Analyst, license Esthetician, Makeup Artist, and Illustrator.

Lora specializes in Virtual Color Analysis via her website www.prettyyourworld.com She lives in northern Illinois with her three dogs.

For a professional color analysis, or to learn more about becoming a certied ColorBreeze Color Consultant, contact her at [email protected]

www.prettyyourworld.com 15 Top Myths of Color Analysis

Other titles from Lora Alexander include: (clickable titles) Color Revival, 4th Edition Pretty Your World's Makeup Book Individual eBooks for each Season