36. Skin, Hair and Eye Color

“What colors should I wear?”  This is a basic question asked by style-conscious women.  The field of color analysis strives to offer useful and practical answers.

Several philosophies coexist about how best to respond to this question.  Should skin tone, and/or hair color, and/or eye color be considered when seeking to determine one’s palette of best colors to wear?  The majority of color analysts believe that skin tone must be the major consideration.

• The first step is to determine the “warmth,” “coolness,” or “neutrality” of one’s skin color.  
• The second step is to then identify the depth of color of one’s skin on a scale that measures skin color from lightness to darkness.  

Your answers to the steps (above) will determine the correct category of  colors that will most flatter your skin tone.

Some color analysts believe that one’s hair color, and perhaps also eye color, should be considered for the purpose of:

• Further refining the best group of colors to wear, and
• To compare to the skin tone to determine a subject’s color contrast level for the purpose of determining a palette of colors with appropriately similar contrast.

This necessarily opens the door to a new set of questions.  How does a sun tan effect my choice of best colors?  My hair color has changed over the years.  And sometimes I dye my hair.  How does that effect my color choices?  Also, I wear colored contact lenses.  Does that make a difference?

Color analyst and author of Color Me a Season, Bernice Kentner, taught that skin color alone is the key to answering your question, “What colors should I wear?”  The answer should not rest on hair and eye color.  Most other color analysts believe that skin tone is, indeed, the first and major consideration.