Your Color Style

Understanding chroma and how it affects the colors you wear best - Part 2

February 15, 2019 Jen Thoden Season 1 Episode 2
Your Color Style
Understanding chroma and how it affects the colors you wear best - Part 2
Show Notes Transcript

One of the most common misunderstandings in determining what colors look best on you is the chroma of a color. In this episode, I break down the first step in the Your Color Style methodology so that you can understand, right away, what types of colors will look best on you. We focus on chroma of a color and your personal chroma. Then we dive into what it means to be "Soft" in Your Color Style. What you learn in this episode may surprise you and hopefully, steer you in the right direction for choosing your most flattering colors.
Please visit Your Color Style to discover more info and products on learning your best colors. And please email support@yourcolorstyle.com with any comments or questions you may have.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the your color style podcast where we believe the more you know about color, the more you'll know what colors flatter you best. I'm your host Jen Thornton. Last week we started talking about chroma and how the brightness or softest of a color affects if it will be flattering on you. If you missed it, make sure you go back and listen to it because we're going to continue talking about chroma in this episode, focusing on soft. So again, make sure you go back and listen to last week's episode to learn about right and what it means to be bright. So we're going to continue this conversation, but we're going to focus now on what it means to be soft. So when we talk about color, again, chroma is how soft or how bright the color is. And so when we think about bright, we think about clear chroma colors that really don't have much, uh, manipulation to it, right? I mean it could be lighter or darker, but there's really no gray quality to it. It's not really muted or soft. When we talk about soft colors or muted colors, you can also think about grade colors. These are colors that, um, in painting you might add the compliment to the color to, to dull it. Okay? A compliment means a color that's opposite on the color wheel. You could also add gray to dull it, okay? But really we're talking about the quality. Doesn't really matter how you actually do that. But um, even in fabrics, uh, when we ha we look at colors that are shimmery, we sort of translate that into bright colors. And when we look at fabrics that are heathered, that have a blend of colors, they tend to be softer and more muted. So that's a good rule of thumb. Sometimes when you're looking at fabrics, you'll notice that some colors and some fabrics are heathered and they tend to be a little bit softer feeling. Okay? So what does that have to do with you? So you have colors that are, have a greatest quality to them, and you may be someone that looks better in those types of colors. Bright, clear colors, maybe feel really strong on you. They just look off too bright. You maybe a, with lipstick it looks like you're painted, just doesn't feel right and you might've even declared that you don't like a certain color on you and not realize that maybe it's just because you just didn't like the bright version of that color on you. I can tell you that. So often I hear people say things like, you know, I can't wear blue. I simply can't wear blue looks. It looks terrible on me. But what really, what it really means is you can't wear that blue because the color blue can be very bright. It can be a very bright Royal blue, it can be a soft gray blue and um, you can be very deep. It can be very light and pastel and any of those versions, one of them is going to look perfect on you and others are going to look off. So try not to bucket yourself into saying things like, you know, I can't wear that color cause it could be that the color is just too bright on you. Okay. Not always. Sometimes it's just too cool if you're a very warm person with warm undertones, right? So this is something that's so commonly misunderstood, and a lot of people don't realize that they're dominant quality about them is softness and those bright colors just aren't working. Okay? So what does that mean? Well, we're always talking about harmony, right? Colors that are going to flatter you best are going to be the colors that are in harmony with you. So if you happen to have softness about you, a grayness about you, and it doesn't mean you have gray hair, but sometimes it does, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But if you have that softer quality about you, you're going to look better. And probably in those softer colors, what does that mean? You can't wear a bright color. Absolutely not. This has to do with personality too. If you really love those bright colors, well then by all means you should totally wear them. You know? If you're confident and you own what you're wearing, it doesn't really matter what I tell you. But then again, you wouldn't, you may not be listening to this podcast if you're super confident about your colors, right? So obviously wear what you love, but if you're looking for colors are more in harmony with you, it could be that the softer, more muted colors are going to be more flattering on you. Okay? We're going to get back to talking about chroma and what it has to do with your best colors. And just a moment, if you are struggling to figure out what colors look best on you, go ahead and take the quiz@yourcolorstyle.com. It's absolutely free and it will walk you through each step to help you learn your best colors. So visit your color style.com/quiz.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so

Speaker 1:

how do we know if we are soft? So I'm going to give you some key characteristics, very common characteristics about individuals that look better in the softer colors. Okay, so soft gray, blue eyes, not crystal clear. Bright blue eyes probably are bright but soft gray, blue eyes. I kind of always think about it as if you had a uh, a paint palette. You took your fingers and kind of smudged the blue and the gray together. So it's kind of soft and swirly that that's kind of a cloudy quality too to the eye. That to me feels very soft and I'm a gray. Blue is a very common eye color and quality of someone who is soft. My husband Joe has soft gray, blue eyes. The other thing that he has, which is why I know that he has soft, is that he has a gray blend of hair. It's not white and it's not silver and it's not salt and pepper. It's a gray blend of gray hairs and a little bit of some Browns and maybe even blonde at one point. And a lot of people get confused with this because you don't fit any, you don't feel like you fit anywhere because you have this blend of cool and warm hair. I can tell you that if you have a blend of cool and warm qualities about you, you are probably soft when you have the spectrums like that. The, the S, the S uh, excuse me, the cool and the warm together. It kind of neutralizes things. It makes you feel like you might be neutral because you're not dominantly warm or cool, but that also tends to soften you a little bit. So when you have that kind of hair, you are typically going to look better in those softer colors. All right, soft Hazel eyes. Kinda how I described that, those gray blue eyes again, now Hazel eyes does not mean Oh, you are always soft. I've seen Hazel eyes that are very, very bright and um, and, and the person wears colors that are brighter, better. I've seen bright Hazel eyes and the difference between a soft haze ally and a bright Hazel, I, I kind of describe it like I did in the, in the last week's episode. It's like you've took a camera and you just tweaked the lens a little bit to sharpen things and that you can almost see the lines sharpen and the eye quality. And so the clarity of the, I might tell you that your more bright than soft, but a lot of times Hazel eyes are these blend of colors and they have a nice, really nice softer quality about them. Okay, so remember how I described the this, what a soft color, a muted color is that they have. It's, it's a, there's a grayish quality about it. I also said that heathered fabrics have a soft quality about them and so you'll notice the same words are how your, you might be describing yourself. I've got a great quality about my eyes. I have a great quality about my hair, right? Heathered is sort of like that gray blend of hair and the those mix of colors in your eyes and so you can start to see how you describe the color is perhaps how you're describing your, your features as well. And that will tell you that you might look better and be more harmony with those softer colors. Okay. You sort of have a, a lack of rightness, if you will. Okay. There's another type of individual that fits really well and soft, but it's not so obvious right away. And it's someone who kind of has like medium tones with very low contrast. By daughter's a perfect example of this. She has medium Brown eyes. They're medium golden Brown eyes and medium golden Brown hair. And her, she's not super fair. Uh, so her very low contrast, everything is kind of medium and so a little bit of an earthy quality about her as well. And so she wears softer colors much better now because she has a little bit of a deepness to her. She can pull off some brighter colors, but for the most part even she feels more comfortable and the softer tones. Okay. So when you have a low contrast and everything sort of is a kind of medium quality, uh, you know, medium depth, that also may indicate that you have softer tones. Okay. So as I said in the last episode, you may not feel like you fit perfectly in soft and or bright. Now that you've heard about both qualities of chroma, it is kind of the first step in your color style. When we talk about color analysis, where do you fit? I like to choose between bright and soft because it it, it really does dictate the types of colors that you can wear, but it's a lot of times you could feel like you're right in the middle. You're not too bright, you're not too soft. You could be in transition, your hair could just start now to be grain and you still have some bright qualities about you, but it's not as bright as it used to be. So what do you do? I give people the advice that you should wear what you really feel comfortable in. So if you were once bright and you are softening, but you still like those bright colors, my advice to you is to continue wearing those brighter colors, but maybe not the brightest. If you have one of my color fans, you'll know that C on the color fan is the brightest color on the fan and then be an a go darker and then D through F go lighter. So if you're someone that's kind of in transition where the brighter colors but maybe avoid, see that brightest color, wear something that's a little bit darker or a little bit lighter. Imagine if you have that color and you dropped a little bit of white into it and just lightened it. Or if you dropped a little bit of black into it and darkened dip, that also softens the color a little bit. So those in between. So if you're in between, you can kind of say, well, okay, I can't really with the brightest colors anymore. It just doesn't feel right. But if you soften it with just lightening it or darkening it a little bit, that could be all that you need to do to feel right in your colors. Okay. But if you are tipping over towards the skills of the, the softer colors, try wearing more of those softer tones and see how that feels. And, and you know, look at your eye color and quality too because the galleries that are in your eye is a great indicator of the, that are really going to look flattering on you. So you can try that as well. So I hope that helps. If you really want to learn what colors look best on you and create your signature color palette by the course, discover your color style, visit your color style.com/course and get immediate access to this online course. It will really help you identify those. Go to colors, the colors that light you up, that make you look and feel amazing. It's kinda like a professional education, but without the hefty price. So if you really want to learn what colors look best on you and create your signature color palette, go to your color style.com/course so next week on the your color style podcast, we're going to take a break from the series of the your color style methodology. And we're going to talk about the spring and summer trending colors of 2019. So they are already starting to show themselves in the store, come March and April, work on sr to see them everywhere in the stores. And these are colors that are very bright and more them. Now that you're, um, you know, now that you're in the know of what that means between bright and soft, I'm going to share with you those trending colors who can wear them best and give you some tips on how you can learn how to wear those colors so that you can actually shop the season versus going into the store and not knowing how to wear any of those new trending colors. Okay? So make sure you tune in next week. So please subscribe and get the course. Discover your color style again, that's at your color style.com/. Course. Thank you so much for listening to the your color style podcast, where we believe the more you know about color, the more you'll know

Speaker 2:

Slattery's your best.[inaudible].