47. It's All About Contrast

A customer wrote, "Originally when I was color-typed I was given the Winter season (Color Me A Season Snowfrost Winter to be exact). Those shades have worked for me very well over the years. Are the colors in the C2 [First Edition] color chart vibrant enough? If not, I may have to consider ordering another chart. When I checked my skin tone with the L'Oreal foundation, the C2 matched my skin perfectly. I saw the C2 color sampling on your blog and it left me with concerns the shades might be too dull for me." 


MyBestColors.com:  ...the C2 (and all MyBestColors.com) color palettes have a great variety of colors ranging from soft to strong.  The recent blog entries just happen to be working with softer selections.  Be assured that if your skin tone closely matches the C2 skin tone,  your palette of 620 [380, 2012] colors will be very beautiful on you. 


As the color palettes progress from those for lighter skin tones toward those for darker ones, (C1, C2, C3...C8) the nature of the color collection changes.  The colors progress toward more dark color options, and towards stronger possible contrasts between colors. Each palette is absolutely unique.  

For a moment, I want you to ignore the 3 color swatches (upper left) with an asterisk. Notice how much lighter the overall effect of the color palette is, and how much less contrast is present within that page of colors than in the color selection at the upper right for a dark skin toned person.  On the upper right page you will notice that there are more dark colors, a greater range from light to dark, and a greater range from dull to bright.  Subsequently, there is more HVC (hue, value, chroma) contrast available between the colors on that page. 


People with a dark skin tone have naturally high color contrast between their skin color and the white of their teeth and eyes.  These people come into focus when they are also wearing a high contrast range of color on their person. 


People with a light skin tone usually have a naturally low color contrast between their skin color and their hair, eyebrow color, or eye color.  These people need to wear colors that have a similar contrast range in order to bring them into focus.  However, some people with a light skin tone also have very dark hair, eyebrow, or eye color.  In this case, they would allow the color swatches marked with an asterisk into their palette.  



Please avail yourself of the earlier blog entries dating back to 2010 for more complete explanations of this brilliant new personal color analysis system.