Basics of Understanding Your Colour Palette
Colour theory is really important to understand if you feel like you don’t look good in your clothes. Sometimes the way a garment looks online on a model/ on a mannequin vs when we wear it look different, because of the difference in skin colours.
To understand what looks good on us, we need to figure out our colours. And in order to understand our colours, we need to therefore understand our colour palette, for which we need to know our complexion and undertone.
Now, I’m no expert on this. But I’m sharing how I found out about my colours and what worked for me.
So step 1: what is your complexion and undertone?
For this, we look at three things:
Complexion refers to the color of your skin, while undertone is a specific shade within that color.
See if you have cool or warm undertones by looking at your wrist.
The colour of your veins can help you determine your undertone.
Look at your wrist veins in natural light. If they’re green or greenish-blue, you have a warm undertone. If they’re blue or purple, you have cool undertones.
Hold a sheet of white paper next to your skin to find your complexion. Double-check your undertone color by looking at your arm next to a piece of white paper. You have a warm complexion if your skin looks yellow, green, or golden. If it looks pink, red, or blue, you have a cool complexion.
Step 2: understand your score
Out of these three categories, how many warm/ cool toned features do you have?
Use your score to figure out your type:
1. Cool leaning: 2 cool features and 1 warm feature
2. Warm leaning: 2 warm features and 1 cool feature
3. Completely warm: 3 warm features
4. Completely cool: 3 cool features
Step 3: skip if you’re completely warm or completely cool. If you are cool/ warm leaning, you need to then understand your contrast:
High contrast: hair is significantly darker than skin tone
Low contrast: hair and skin colour aren’t too far apart
Step 4: now, let’s understand the four seasons.
Anuschrees explains it well with these photos:
If you feel like you don’t fit in these categories perfectly, there is a further explanation on 6 secondary factors:
1. Light: light hair, light skin, light eyes. Recommendation: soft, light and muted shades of your colour palette, e.g. peach (Spring) or a pale lavender (Summer).
2. Deep: Dark hair, warm eyes (brown/ hazel/ green). Recommendation: deep, vivid shades of your palette, e.g. deep terracotta (Autumn) or black (Winter).
3. Warm: Warm undertone, warm hair (golden blond- brown, strawberry blond to deep auburn). Warm eyes. Recommendation: the mid-range colours in your palette that are neither too intense nor pale, e.g. a medium tomato red (Autumn) or a soft aquamarine (Spring).
4. Cool: overall colouring has an underlying cool quality to it. Recommendation: you look best in the mid-range shades of your palette, e.g. emerald green (Winter) or periwinkle (Summer).
5. Clear: high contrast, warm hair, cool eyes. Recommendation: saturated, clear colours, e.g. a bright, warm pink (Spring) or hot pink (Winter).
6. Soft: little contrast between your skin, hair and eyes, hair is in between warm and cool, eyes are green, grey-blue, hazel or brown. Recommendation; soft, muted shades, e.g. olive green (Autumn) or blue teal (Summer).
Once I figured out my basic palette (autumn) I went online and began researching celebrities and colour palettes for it. I went through more colour palettes, celebrities and eventually felt that I was more true to a Warm Autumn. Pinterest was a great tool for that.
I also used this chart initially:
areudirty
romaincrisis
pixelskylines
titsay
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