et’s talk colour and personal colour analysis
Personal Colour Analysis (PCA) has been around for a long time now, yet it’s developed a long way from it’s original roots.
Back in the early 1980s Colour Me Beautiful by Carol Jackson took the world by storm and brought the concept of colour analysis to the masses. And it was a great start, but so many people didn’t fit into one of only 4 seasons, as complexions and colouring are way more nuanced than just 4 palettes. Plus this system was developed in a very Caucasian world, where many skin tones were not thought about.
This is why since then various models of PCA have been developed, many seasonal systems now have around 12 palettes and so do many tonal models (which use the properties of colour – undertone, value and intensity as their basis), yet after 5 years of draping hundreds of clients in Australia, which is a very multicultural place colouring wise, I found them lacking and had started figuring out where all the gaps were in the existing systems.
This is why I developed my Absolute Colour System of 18 colour palettes, as I wanted to ensure that there were palettes that fit every different skin tone and colouring.
It’s more nuanced and gives more options so that you can find your best palette rather than fitting yourself into one that’s OK, but doesn’t feel quite right.
The foremost thing to know about colours is that they should be in harmony with you. They should look like you rather than taking attention away from you. They should enhance your complexion rather than dull it or overwhelm it.
Think of colour like a picture frame. The frame is there to make the picture look good, but it’s not the star, the picture is the star. The colours you wear should make you look great, but they shouldn’t be all that people see as then this creates a body focus rather than a face focus.
3 Properties of Colour
Let’s look at these colour properties on which all colours can be categorised.
Undertone of Skin
Undertone – aka how warm (yellow based) or cool (blue based) a colour is. This is based on your complexion in PCA, as when you look ill it’s your skin that looks pale and washed out or palid. Eye colour is secondary to skin, plus many blue eyes and brown eyes can be either undertone.
In the the image blow, notice how the cool green is in harmony whilst the warm green pops out – you see it before you see her.