Colour and the Human Being

I became interested in Personal Colour Analysis (PCA) about 1 1/2 years ago and soon after got an in person PCA. It was a fun experience, although I really had no idea what I was looking for in the mirror and the result was a True/Cool Summer. I put 100% trust in the analysis results, bought a fan and for a whole year I bought clothes and makeup in Summer colours. I did my best to embrace them but after a time started seeing some “red flags” that something was wrong!

No matter how hard I tried, I could not get Summer makeup to work for me …and I’m a makeup artist…I ended up ‘cheating’ and going back to my black eyeliner and mascara (which worked so much better than the Summer recommendations). The worst thing was that the True Summer makeup colours were too insipid and resulted in me looking like a corpse in photos. Needless to say I was confused as I had been told by the person who performed my PCA that these colours would make me look better, not worse!

Of course I blamed myself at first and thought that something was wrong with me or that I needed to get my eyes checked! I never questioned my PCA result until a few months later when I attended my sister’s wedding as a bridesmaid. The dress I had to wear was not found on my fan as it was way too ‘warm’ for a True Summer to look good in…the problem was I not only looked good in it, I looked great in it! I remembered that since I was determined as cool during my original PCA, the Spring or Autumn drapes were not used for testing, which had made me wonder now-what if’

The penny finally dropped as I realised that a True Summer wouldn’t have been able to successfully wear a warm colour…whereas I had definitely pulled it off. I began to question whether this could mean that I actually needed more warmth than was available in a True Summer tone?   I asked my husband and family members how they really felt about me in the True Summer colours, and they finally admitted that they had secretly hated them all along, but didn’t say anything because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

Over the next couple of months I really started to question my PCA result….during this time I not only confirmed that I could successfully wear warmer colours, but that I could also wear colors much brighter than those found in my True Summer fan. Needless to say it was high time to end the questioning and the doubts by getting a second opinion, so this time I decided to seek out a trained and certified expert in the PCA field.

My second PCA experience with Certified Sci\ART  12-Tone analyst was amazing! I finally had the opportunity to see the difference between the warm and cool drapes and acknowledge the greying effect of the True Summer colours. I was so relieved when the Maytee confirmed that I was not a Summer of any kind and that these were, in fact, my worst test colours! I felt relieved because I now knew that I was finally going to get my real colours…the ones that would make me look and feel as good as I had hoped. When I saw myself in the mirror with the Bright Spring drapes and makeup I was beyond happy and I felt so validated. I really love the range of colours in my 12-Tone Bright Spring fan from True Colour Australia.

My instincts about needing brighter and warmer colours were right all along! This time my analysis was very thorough and I was draped in all the seasons instead of just one or two. This allowed me to see and feel the effects of the different tones and to understand why the Bright Spring colours worked so well, compared to the other tones. I feel so much more confident after this analysis experience because I know for sure that the colours are my best!

In order to answer this question let’s look at a brief history of Personal Colour Analysis. During the Impressionist movement, young artists in Paris began to paint outside.

 They noticed the effects of light and colour on the landscape, and they began an intensive study of how sunlight, the atmosphere, weather conditions–different seasons and times of day effect colour. They began to organize colours around the four seasons. This was the birth of Seasonal Colour Theory as it evolved organically as a simple way to refer to the unique colour tones found during the four seasons Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. 

Companies such as Colour Me Beautiful commercialised Seasonal Colour Theory  in the 70′s and 80′s which provided a great introduction  to personal colour analysis for many individuals. However, Analysts  soon discovered that four categories did not allow for the large variety of human colouring which they encountered.  At the time, it was assumed that all  human beings could be classified into just two groups- warm or cool – with Winter and Summer considered cool, and Spring and Autumn considered warm. As analysts soon discovered, in the majority of cases, warmth or coolness of hue was not easily established and often found it difficult, if not impossible, to determine with any certainty.  As a result, over two-thirds of those who had been “seasonally” analysed within the 4-tone system  felt something was ‘not quite right’ with many of their colours.

The reason for this difficulty and subsequent ‘miss diagnosis’ is that the majority of colours are neither warm nor cool, but are in fact somewhere in between these two extremes. 

 For example, a red colour with a yellow content is considered a warm red. A red colour with a blue content is considered a cool red. A  red that contains both yellow and blue is neither warm nor cool but considered ‘neutral.’  A colour, therefore, may be considered as warm, cool, or neutral.  What we now know is that approximately 2/3 of all human beings colouring falls into this ‘neutral’ area of colour space.    

An Accurate Personal Colour System is Not Arbitrary

Over the years numerous attempts have been made to expand seasonal colour theory to overcome the limitations of the 4 tone system.  The results from these attempts have been varied in terms of their accuracy  according to what we understand to be true about colour, and the manner in which a human being perceives it.

What we do know is that an accurate personal colour system must acknowledge that over 2/3 of all human beings  fall into the neutral are  of colour space.  Secondly, to achieve colour harmony the hues within a pallet and with a client’s skin tone, the “natural order of colour” must be observed. This natural order cannot be changed and is consistent with the electromagnetic (visible) spectrum which is most recognizable in the form of a rainbow. In this natural order we can see that colour moves from cool to warm, than back to cool and so forth.   Colour never moves from cool to cool or warm to warm. For more information on this please click on the following link and refer to the post “warm+warm and cool+cool” http://www.truecolour.com.au/main/page_blog.html

This natural movement of colour is also seen in the artists colour wheel, which is simply the result of joining the two edges of the visible spectrum to form a complete circle.

The natural realm of colour is vast and in reality we could  create 100′s of different tonal groups within a personal colour system, however our ability to distinguish difference is limited by our visual capability as human beings.  If we are unable to see the difference between hues from one tone to the next, then the exercise would serve no purpose. For the sake of argument if we were to create more divisions, the next division would from 12 to 24. To arbitrarily add more or less tones would not be consistent with the natural order of colour. 

Another point to consider is that with each division, the number of possible hues within each tone diminishes accordingly. Put simply, it is because there are 12 tones that there are between 65-80 different hues available in each.  Likewise there are no two colours found within two different tones, commonly known as ‘cross-over’ colours.  Each of the 12 tonal groups should be distinct and distinguishable from each of the others.

The fact there are so many colour systems is a result of the unregulated nature of the PCA industry.  Colour just is the way it is and a personal colour system simply reflects that accurately, or not.