FASHION | Color Analysis

Color analysis is when a salon or boutique or spa therapist matches a palette of colors to your own natural coloring so that you can choose make up, clothes and hair colors that make you look your best.

WHAT IS COLOR ANALYSIS?

Color analysis is usually art of a beauty and style consultation or ‘makeover’. A therapist analyses your natural coloring and works out with you what colors of make-up, hair and clothes will suit you best.

Color analysis is based on the idea that colors are very important to how you look, how you feel yourself, and how you come across to others. We choose colors to:

• Suit occasions and feelings, from weddings to funerals
• Express how we’re feeling, and how we want other people to perceive and treat us
• Reflect the weather and the seasons: brighter colors in hot weather; more muted colors in the cold and rain
• Keep up with fashion
• Show our age, or the age we feel!

But choosing colors according to how you feel, what’s in fashion, or which colors you like can mean wearing colors that don’t flatter you. Just because you really like the color of that boiler suit doesn’t mean you can carry off electric blue…

Wearing the wrong colors can make you look washed out, pale, or even plain odd. Wearing the right range of colors can make you look younger, healthier and more attractive. Color analysis will work out which colors are which for you.

WHAT IS COLOR ANALYSIS GOOD FOR?

Color analysis is great for determining which colors make you – not your friend, or the model in the picture, but you – look good. If you feel all at sea when it comes to choosing eye shadows, or you’ve brought the same shade of foundation for the last 20 years, it’s likely that color analysis can really help you improve your appearance. It will refresh your look, to make it suit your age and lifestyle, and can give you a real boost.

BEFORE YOU GO

There’s not much preparation to do for color analysis, but there isn’t much point making up before you go; the therapist or stylist is likely to take all your make-up off when tou get there so that they can see your natural coloring.

Color analysis is like having your own personal stylist, and it’s one time when you probably should judge the book by its cover. To bend a famous advertising slogan: ‘If they don’t look good, you won’t look good’. If you can, pop in and say hello beforehand to give your confidence.

Some color analysts will ask you to take along a selection of your clothes or make-up so that you can discuss the rights and wrongs of what you wear already.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM COLOR ANALYSIS

The stylist will start by taking some time to find out about you and will ask about the products and colors you usually use. She might also ask you about your lifestyle, what kind of person you are, what colors you like and why, and what you generally choose. A good color analyst will try and build up a picture not just of what you look like, but what you really are like.

After this, they will probably show you a selection of swatch, and match your skin tone to a color on the card.

Color analysis should take into account your eye and hair color as well as your skin tone. The stylist may suggest you change you dye your hair. She might also advise you on what styles of hair would suit your tone and face shape as well.

Having established what spectrum of colors suits you, the color analyst may also advise you on what color and patterns of fabric will flatter you the most, as well as colors for shoes, hats and accessories.

A color-analysis consultation will usually include a full make-up and advice on which foundations and so on you should buy.

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