Now, there’s an area of fashion styling that’s suddenly getting airplay. It’s called color analysis and it focuses on helping to figure out which colors and color palettes look best on you. While color analysis isn’t a new thing, it’s making the rounds on TikTok again, with people explaining exactly how to do this and why it matters. “Have you ever wondered why you look slightly ill in certain colours?” TikTokker Ellie-Jean of Body & Style wrote in the caption of one video, before breaking down how she discovered that she’s “a summer" by holding various fabric swatches against her face. “This is information people pay a lot of money for,” news anchor Amanda Jaeger said in another TikTok. “Colors you wear can impact if people are attracted to you or not. You have colors that are made for your specific skin tone.” TikTokker @mamamarques also has several posts of herself holding up several strips of fabric colors under someone’s chin to try to determine the best shades for them. OK, but…what is this? Here’s what you need to know about color analysis.
What is color analysis, exactly?
It’s important to point out upfront that color analysis isn’t an exact science, and people aren’t required to have certain qualifications in order to call themselves color analysts. That said, people who specialize in this area are generally fashion consultants or stylists. Color analysis is a method used to help determine the colors that are the most flattering for your complexion, eye color, and hair color. “Colors that look great on someone else won’t necessarily translate into those colors looking great on you,” explains style and color consultant Carol Brailey, founder of Carol Brailey Image Consulting. “Everyone is perfectly unique.” Lauren Toomey, a holistic personal stylist and creator of the Laurie Loo fashion blog, agrees. “We’re all so diverse in our mixtures of skin, hair, eye color, highlights, and undertones, even,” she says. “Knowing your special combination is going to give you those moments where people say, ‘Oh, wow. You’re glowing.’”
Why does it matter?
Knowing “your” colors can help enhance your overall appearance, Brailey says. “When someone is wearing colors in harmony with their coloring, they tend to appear more vibrant,” she explains. “When someone is wearing colors out of harmony with their coloring, they tend to appear dull or washed out.” Knowing your colors matters “if you’re interested in dressing in a way that is artistically proven and used to complement your features,” Toomey says. But, she adds, it’s OK to pull in colors that maybe aren’t the most inherently flattering on you but you just like wearing them. “It’s a balance,” she says. After a color analysis, though, Brailey says you should know the best color choices to make for your hair, makeup, clothes, and accessories so you can “showcase the benefits of wearing them on a daily basis.”
How does color analysis work?
A color analysis will usually assign a “season” to a person that helps them know a general palette of shades that are the most flattering for them. The actual analysis is pretty simple. “The process of color analysis involves comparing specific colors on someone,” Brailey says. Worth noting: There’s some debate among people in the color analysis community about whether it’s better to have someone do a color analysis for you or try it out on your own. Brailey advocates for having a professional do it for you. “In my experience over 95% of clients who try to self-color analyze—lately this number is 100%—self-color analyze themselves incorrectly,” she says. But Toomey says it’s possible to do this correctly on your own. “It is not as difficult as people make it seem,” she says. “Also, I think we usually know ourselves best and our features, so to me it makes the most sense to DIY it.” If you decide to attempt this on your own, she recommends looking at your skin tone, hair color, eye color, and undertones while trying out different color palettes against those areas of your body. The results of your color analysis will give you a “season” of colors that you should stick with, and there’s some variation here, too. Some people will use the four weather seasons as basic color guides. If you look good in a particular season’s go-to colors, then that’s your “season.” Toomey breaks it down this way:
Fall: gold, burnt orange, red, muted olive greensWinter: whites, berries, plums, deep bluesSpring: soft greens, pinks, purples, yellowsSummer: blue-greens, pink-beiges, cocoa browns, pinkish and bluish grays
“When I describe these, I usually want people to imagine their most ideal scene from that season,” Toomey says. Brailey follows a more detailed system that divides color palettes into 16 seasons. That involves comparing “cool” vs. “warm” colors (think: ones with blue undertones vs. those with red or pink undertones), comparing the colors of the season (fall, winter, spring, and summer), and then deciding whether someone’s ideal colors land between two primary color seasons. There have been some general rules thrown around with color analysis, like that blondes are usually summers, but Brailey says that’s not always the case. A lot of this really comes down to holding different colors and shades against your skin and hair to see what works for you, Toomey says.
What should you do once you know your ‘season’?
The goal is to then largely stick with that season and color palette when you dress and style yourself, Brailey says. That can mean aiming for certain hair color, makeup, clothes, and accessories to max out your natural features. These are “basically the colors that will add to your sparkle for your life that would be recommended to wear head to toe,” she says. That doesn’t mean you have to do it every single time, though. “You need to know the rules before you can break them, and color analysis is going to give you the rules for your features,” Toomey says. So, for example, if you know you’re autumn but you love bright pink, she recommends going for a pink that is “warm-toned but not cool” to complement your natural coloring. Overall, color analysis is designed to be fun and insightful. “Knowing your ‘season’ is knowing what colors of clothing and accessories are going to meld best with your unique coloring,” Toomey says. Check out these 101 Riddles and Brain Teasers for Kids.
