The problem is that it is too visible, even in a flesh-toned formulation. Lipstick always wears off at some point and the line feels obvious, no matter how well it matched the lip colour to begin with.

It also sucks up even more of my time fussing about finding the right colour.

Since discovering the Estee Lauder Double Wear lipsticks, I don’t go a work day without them, usually as a base layer. These really will last hours. Since the colours are bright and matte, I apply a browner gloss to mute the colour down and give some shine. Still lasts hours.

A line around the lips first seems like overkill. It’s too much paint and too much time. What if you could apply a transparent sealant around the lipline that sets a shape for everything to come, and didn’t let it smear?

Yes, you could use regular lipliner applied faintly, or angle the pencil, but I don’t have time for makeup shenanigans. This isn’t astrophysics here. Smear it on in 10 seconds or less, thick enough to last till lunch. Get on with the day.

This lipliner, the Long- Lasting Anti-Feather Lipliner at Paula’s Choice in Clear, places a layer of something waxy around the edge of the lip.

It defines the border so I can smear on the EL and a gloss, and everything takes on the right outline. If the lip colour wears off, there’s nothing to be seen.

I love the Clinique Butter Shine lip gloss sticks for casual wear. But they’re gooey and tend to wander around. This way, I set the outline, apply lots of Butter Shine, it takes the right shape, and stays there.

The liner will last through 2-3 lip colour re-applications.

How often does something actually work as well as you were hoping?

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My search for good quality AND colour in cosmetics, laid out intelligently so women could understand how to use them, led me to MN. I don’t use the skin products because they’re not at Beautypedia, but I relax that rule for makeup. It’s hard enough to get colour right.

I care more about colour than finish or ingredients. As long as I don’t react, it’s fine.

Sunscreen doesn’t matter to me in foundation because I wear Clinique Super City Block every day anyhow. I don’t take chances with misleading labeling. The sunscreen ingredients in this product are not those I recognize to provide UVA protection.

Timeless foundation has been a happy find. I’ve sent several clients to try the product and they’ve all returned with an impressive colour match and true skin effect.

The #1 happy thing that caught my eye was that I’ve never had a better colour match (I bought Sesame). The colour range is very broad, organized by warm and cool, for very light to very dark skin.

The next pleasant surprise was that the product feels quite moist. It can be spread to create an extremely thin layer that still provides perfect real-skin coverage. I dab a little more on the sun spots because I have no time to fool around with concealer. The less makeup you put on skin, young or mature, the better the effect. Too much makeup can look like gunk all too quickly.

Happy finding #3 was that, unlike most foundations that make lines under eyes more noticeable, this foundation does not – or at least, less than any other I’ve tried. I still dab a little moisturizer over the lines at the outer corners of the eyes as the final makeup step. It softens the lines that much more.

#4: Still looks great at the end of the day.

#5: Weird but true, it seems to fluff up the hair on my face less than other products. We all have it, let’s be real here, and some makeup seems to make it stand on end. I paint downwards with the foundation brush and the powder brush, and it’s good!

They gave me a great big sample.

Age-defying? Anti-aging? Who knows? It’s not reviewed by a reliable independent source that I can find.

Light-diffusers? Blurred imperfections? Not obvious. It looks great and doesn’t sparkle. Just really, really good skin. Supposed to have these optical diffusers, and various percentages about how skin appears lifted 44%, and so on. Nobody buys that. It’s old fashioned marketing trying to sound like good science.

It would be suited for normal to dry skin. As I said, I think more about colour than finish. My skin is oily so I use powder. I don’t touch up any more than usual. I’m grateful for the moist look and feel in this dry season.

The old-fashioned plastic bottle is neither great nor awful. Packaging doesn’t matter to me as long as it doesn’t deteriorate the product and isn’t a huge inconvenience to use. Fancy packaging doesn’t sway me to buy. I’d far prefer a soft opaque plastic gravity-fed tube with a narrow opening, but I keep the bottle in its box so light doesn’t alter the colour.

With makeup, they try to distract you to keep you dropping money like a trail of breadcrumbs. The cosmetics industry must seem different and new all the time or the consumer’s attention goes elsewhere. Must be a rough racket to be in. Bottom line, I LOVE how this product makes my skin look.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

NARS Outlaw blush.

I’ve had this issue on my Product Search list for months.

90% of what’s out there can be canceled for being too brown or peach. The defining premise of this skin tone is that any amount of heat causes unattractive results.

I zeroed in on Estee Lauder Fresh Plum awhile back. It has a soft colour deposit. It’s not as blue as Lancome Aplum, my Dark Winter personal favorite (though it could be improved on with a breath of brown, just enough to turn it mulberry).

True Summer skin is usually not colourful. By December, Fresh Plum’s dusty softness doesn’t perk it up enough. Bronzer looks crazy on True Summer skin in the hands of real-world women because it adds heat to skin that inherently has none.

MAC Breath of Plum is too pink.

Most of the Rose Somethings out there are too warm. The trace of peach they add just ruins it. It looks coral.

What I wanted was a cool, fairly light Summer red-rose.

Here are a few other contenders:

MAC Breezy blush.

MAC Mineralize Gentle blush.

MAC Mineralize Love Thing blush.

The wonderful Karla has swatched the NARS product for you here.

I am asked if other Seasons can wear the makeup colours I suggest. Because the cosmetic industry offering is disorganized and random and unevenly weighted and I’ll just stop there, you pretty well have to. Soft Summer can wear Outlaw too. Dark Winter could try it ; on my skin, it appeared as a cool coral red.

NARS make beautiful blush. It is to be applied lightly. The shimmer is not enough to get in the way.

Any True Summers who try it, PLEASE let us know what you thought!

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Despite the $30, which I have not regretted, I had to buy it for 2 reasons:

1. Paula Begoun wrote a special post about it on her blog. I found it funny that she bought Rose and Coral, but I couldn’t ignore the recommendation.

I bet Paula is a Dark Winter. To achieve what she has, against those odds, would take a resolve and determination that no other season as a group could match. In the words of Color Me A Season’s Bernice Kentner, whom I hold in the highest esteem, in her book A Rainbow In Your Eyes, “there is nothing that these individuals cannot achieve”. If I would choose a colour for her, it would have been Plumberry, but maybe it went on too dark.

Paula’s issue with lip colour is bleeding. Mine is comfort, colour, and lasting strength.

2. The colours are gorgeous. In general, EL is good at lipsticks in clear colours.

My great friend, Gina, and my best ambassador, wrote it better than I could in a recent comment :

I bought Stay Ruby….I know I am a Deep Autumn but this colour looks fabulous! That being said the texture is not too dry and not too moist ( my hair can still get stuck on it at dance class but that is forgivable). Here’s the kicker…..this stuff does not move….SERIOUSLY it doesn’t feather, bleed, leak, run, walk, saunter, promenade….it is as sedentary as cream cheese on a knife that has gone through the dishwasher. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it…Lord have mercy! I am saved!

This is an interesting product in many ways. I think it looks different on whoever tries it. It changes depending on how many layers you apply, as it dries, and when gloss is added. Don’t discount a colour till you try it. The saleswoman here wore Stay Ruby and, like on Gina, it’s a red-brown. On me, the same colour is a strong pink-red.

Any product with staying power has a strong colour imprint. Blue pigments can seem too blue, and browns too brown. For fair complexions, it’s challenging to find a shade that doesn’t look too opaque or colorful. Here, even a single coating will feel good, last well, and look light. I like this product as a base for a lipstick or gloss. The gloss lightens the effect, helps it look less flat, makes the colour more interesting, and still hangs on forever. Pink and Pinkberry are very beautiful shades for light complexions.

It fades some, who really thinks comfortable lipstick is going to last all day, but it does not crumble. It leaves great colour even after you think it must all be gone. You go to the washroom and you’re surprised at how much colour is still there.

I apply the slightest lip liner after this lipstick just to refine the shape. There’s no need for any more. It won’t move. A gloss over top might try to slip between the lines, but it’s controlled far more than with lipliner alone.

You would not apply it without a mirror. The tip is wide. You won’t be reapplying often once it’s on, but it’s not for a day at a picnic. Use this as the base, and reapply a lighter product over top. You’re good till the next meal.

I bought Mauve and Ruby. The mixture becomes a colour that moves nicely into red-violet terrain, very much a signature colour of the Winter group. Let’s hope they add more colours to the range. Could I cast a vote for Mulberry?

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I’ve given up on Makeupalley because the reviews are all over the map for anything you look up. I guess the answer there is to find a reviewer you generally agree with and follow her. There seem to be many negative reviews elsewhere, but I’m going out on a colour limb and saying that I like this product and I like it a whole lot.

Anything that says “fall in love with colour again” and “crisper colour” is going to have me test running it. Color Sensational Lipstick is quite impressive.

The texture is fine. It is not greasy or oily. It is not of that feathery mousse technology that is supposed to feel weightless, but to me is too airy and doesn’t last anyhow. I like lipstick that is thick, fairly creamy, with a decent colour deposit, that lasts.

There were many complaints about the smell and taste. I tried 4 colours. Admittedly, my sense of smell isn’t razor-sharp, but I didn’t find anything other than a mild sweet waxy smell. I guess that’s your honey nectar at work.

Nude lips are bland, though they will have a place. They will always look fresh on a young face where the lip definition is good to begin with. Lighter lips will always balance a dark eye if a makeup artist lives at your house.

By the over 40 years, as the features fade into the face, it’s a brighter, more coloured lip that looks younger. If the colour is right, it is more than anti-aging. It also looks more interesting. More sophisticated. More confident. More creative. More exciting. More fearless. It is less safe and it gets noticed. That takes some getting used to so you don’t begin with the full face on Day 1. But is “Don’t notice me. Don’t make a fuss over me.” , really what you want to tell the world about you?

But, of course, I’m all about colour. This delivers! It is organized! The shades are great! I would venture to say that every person of the 12 Seasonal Colour Analysis groups, regardless of colouring intensity, can find a colour here. Many brands make a good attempt to organize the colour offering but are much stronger in some categories than others. This is fairly even. The colour deposit is significant and true, so the darker shades go on pretty dark, but so opaque as to be Goth.

It’s $10 in Canada, just coming into small-town Ontario now. There are a lot of us who fit the Budget Beauties profile and don’t care about name-dropping. We who have $10, 10 min., 10 things to do, 10 things we forgot to do, 10 things our kids want, and do not have Bobbi Brown for a nextdoor neighbor, can buy several over time.

It lasts outrageously well, in that it leaves a stain. I swiped some on my hand this morning at 10AM. It is 2PM, I’ve washed my hands 3 times, and there is still a (faint) stain. Perhaps my expectations were too low but I’ve been marveling at it all day.

Watch the video of the ad being filmed, on Maybelline’s product page linked above. It’s your slice of  cheap thrills today. Wear your lips like that IRL and you look demented, but it’s still fun.

Are the colours crisp, as they say? YES, they are! They know what they are and what they’re not. They’re not trying to please everyone by being pinkish-beige-brown-berry-whatever.

Do the colours look like the tube? WYSIWYG.

The colour pop thing, if that’s what you want? Depends on what colour you buy. If you are of light or low contrast colouring, the mania for colour pops is probably what scared you away from makeup in the first place. There are no pops of colour on your body and they look nuts when applied. If you own any, did you wear them once? Twice? No worries, you have plenty of softer choice here.

Play with the arrows on either side of the colour display to see all the shades. The swatch is a pretty good rendition of the tube. The colour on the tester display is not.

It’s just coming into Canada now so they don’t even have a full range of testers yet, let alone having sales. It goes on the Christmas lists.

Let it help you move to the edge of your look.

Note: I find some controversy about whether this company conducts testing on animals. Does anyone know?

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When contrast is high, as are the Winter seasons, the whites are pure white and the blacks are deep black. Low contrast means less difference between the lights and the darks – think of Jennifer Aniston compared to Catherine Zeta-Jones. On a black and white TV, low contrast looks like a lot of grays. When the coloring is low contrast, the shades in the palette are also closer to one another in intensity.

Here is what high contrast looks like:

It makes sense that this is only group that wear black or white extremely well, since they are the extreme high and low of the contrast scale. It also follows that the light colors are the very lightest and the very deepest of the same shades – the lightest and the deepest pinks, grays, and blues to keep the contrast high.

The more you work the particular strengths of your season, the more together your look will be. Winter is a season of stark clarity and respecting that will work the feeling best. If Spring bubbles, Summer flows, and Autumn glows. Winter gleams like platinum. This is not a season for fussy details. The colors are a little hard and the look is dramatic. There is no need to be shy with color intensity. The stronger the color, the healthier the season looks.

You can heighten your season’s impression in many more ways than colour alone. Cool Winter (True Winter), using the types of colours above, can maximize their cool, clean, shiny, expensive effect by avoiding more than 2 or 3 colours together, and choosing colours that contrast strongly. Monochromatic looks have no sparkle here, but on a Summer (low contrast season), they create a soft shine. Diamonds vs. opals. Satin vs. cotton.

Because Winter glistens, you can wear shinier makeup. After 40, shimmer and frost on a rough (wrinkled) surface draws attention to the wrong thing. On skin that stays fairly smooth, like just under the brow, a little shine in your highlighter could look good. A trace of satiny gleam in your grey eyeshadow is quite believable.

What does this season wear as contour/bronzer? There is not a lot of  yellow, orange, or gold inherent in this skin. It is about blue and red. Women with darker skin pigments have more brown, but then don’t need bronzer.

Cool Winter looks odd with a tan. The other 2 Winters are blended with a little Autumn or Spring and can carry a little warming of the skin more believably because there is a little warmth in the skin already.

It has to be cool. Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Soft Matte Bronzer (not the duo) may be good. There’s little orange or yellow in it. Use it more as a contour but don’t use a lot.  EL’s Lucidity Translucent powder in Medium Deep and Deep, depending on your skin tone, would be worth a try.

Colour Tour

Lipstick: Estee Lauder Gloss Stick in  Wild Plum ; EL Long Last in Red Apple ;  EL Signature in Lush Rose. MAC Slimshine Grenadine, very comfortable lipcolor.

I think red lips are about as wearable IRL as black eyeliner, which is to say not. It is hard looking because these are dark, cold, strong colors. Pure red and pure black also carry too much emotional signal, at least for medium-and-lighter skin tones. If you feel you must, EL Signature Rich Red is a contender. MAC Slimshine in Urgent is too.

Blush: NARS Sin ; MAC Pink Swoon, Coygirl. Kevyn Aucoin Liquifuchsia .

What I would really like to find is a pure red blush. Slightly red-violet would work too. Does anyone know of a pure red blush? It’s not made because nobody would be confident enough to buy it, but a sheer wash of real red on Winter skin is awesome.

Eyeliner: MUFE Aqua Eyes Waterproof eyeliner 1L ; MAC Suite Array Pearlglide liner in Black Russian; Clinique Quickliner in Black Brown.

Eyeshadow: Stila Kalahoo, Kamet, Shore, Storm, and Nanda Devi at TNBTTGSY. This woman is doing a better job than the makeup companies themselves.

Mary Kay Crystalline and Onyx duet, very nice. Not too dark. A clean, cool beauty. Brown gets muddy in a hurry on these people, but a sharp gray is gorgeous. I asked a woman wearing this the name of the colour but I don’t see it at Mary Kay’s site. Steel looks close.

Chanel Mystic Eyes Quad .

Eye hilite : PC Cream and Shell. These are matte and good. If you want to try a little shimmer here, it can work. Look for icy pale colours.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

In a recent comment, Taji wondered when I would post the pictures of me in my Dark Winter colours so everyone could finally see what I’ve been talking so much about.

It’s on my mind and it is going to happen. Between a heavy work schedule in June, 3 little photographers who are busy, hot sun, sweltering heat, … you know.

This shows how the makeup colours have been adjusted. The old palette on the left is, of course, warmer, lighter, softer, browner, and altogether fuzzy-looking on my face. The little smudgy lines are eyeliner, hard to see, I know. Lip colours are on top, blush in the middle, eyeshadow at the bottom.The picture is crowded but I wanted them side-by-side for comparison.

The new colours are on the right. They are cooler (more blue; less yellow and orange), darker (more black), and bring the features of my face into sharp focus.

The colours are not labeled but I’ll gladly identify any that you would like to know the name of.

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These women look better in taupe and grey eyecolors. Camel brown won’t have the chops to match the intensity of the natural coloring.

This is the yellow undertone of Spring moving closer to the neutral line till it flips to its sister season of Clear Winter. Sometimes, the hair is so dark with very brown eyes that the person is mistakenly classifyied with the high contrast of Winters. Clear Spring is the only season outside of Winter that can pull off black clothing.

It’s difficult to find examples. Meg Ryan seems like a possibility. Her coloring is too strong for Easter eggy colors, but she’s softer than Marilyn Monroe, who had a Clear Winter look when her hair was whiter and her brows were dark.

Meg Ryan

This can be a deceptively strong type of pigmentation and calls for surprisingly deep colors to balance the colors of the face.  For the last 3 seasons of Clear Spring (Bright Spring), Clear Winter (True Winter), and Bright Winter (Bright Winter), I’ve used Estee Lauder lip colors. Bright, clear colors are easy to find in their collection.

Remember that blush and lipstick must be in the same color family. Coral blush and blue-pink lips doesn’t work.  You’ll need both products in both colors, right out of your swatch book.

The makeup

Lips: Estee Lauder Gloss Stick in Pop Pink and Summer Melon ; EL Pure Color Long Last in Lotus Pink (light color) , Wild Rose, Raspberry Pop, Nectarine, Chelsea Rose, Apricot Sun, Spiced Coral.

Blush: NARS Torrid is the coral blush.

You need a blue-pink one too and it’s hard to find.  Try MAC Fleur Power.

Clarins Framboise (the newer one, number 80) (why would they name 2 different blush colours Framboise? did I miss something?) belongs to this group as well.

Eyeliner: Clinique Quickliner in Dark Chocolate or Slate.

Eyes:  Bobbi Brown Grey, Flint, Steel, Slate, and Hot Stone. 

Look also at Stila Kamet, Kalahoo, Sajama, Storm. Luckily, you don’t have to go further than your screen to see these colours, here from KarlaSugar at TNBTTGSY.

MAC Nehru, Print, Brun, Mystery, Copperplate, and Contrast are shown here.

Eye hilite : MAC Orb, Vanilla – but look, has everyone noticed Paula’s Choice eyeshadow in Cream? I mean it’s perfect. Although I avoid this sort of statement because it’ s usually false, this color might be appropriate to any of the 12 seasons of a medium-or-lighter skin tone. A good highlighter is so basic and so hard to find.

Mascara : black.

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Clear Winter is the clearest, least muddified color out there. It is clear saturated color from both its Winter roots and its Spring tendencies, both seasons of pure (not dusty or grayed) tones. Look at the 3 pinks.

From L, Clear (Bright) Spring, Clear (Bright) Winter, True (Cool) Winter.

The colors in the swatch book do not look the same as these, but they illustrate the point well enough. Beginning in reverse, on the right, you see True Winter pinks as the coolest of all. There in no warmth in those tones. They are all about blue and black. Moving to the left, you see Clear Winter in the middle. Though the color is still vivid and strong, you see that it has warmed up a little. Moving still more to the left, you see Clear Spring on the far left. The colors have warmed relative to True Winter but they have also lightened, meaning that they contain relatively less black or blue.

Subtle, I know. Interesting to think about, but nothing you need to know as long as you have your own swatch book. When we color analyze you, we find the colors that naturally exist within you and hand them to you in this nice book. The colors of these 3 groups are close. The correct shade will disappear into the skin tone of people of that season, or will be just slightly discordant on the wrong coloring.

Clear Winter is Elizabeth Taylor when she was 30. Dark dark brown hair, the color of 85% cocoa chocolate, the color of black coffee.  Even as a child, her hair was very dark. Strikingly colored eyes. And very white skin. There is high contrast here, a lot of distance between the lights and darks.  We’d have to look at her without makeup, wearing various colors to decide for sure but she gives the impression of the classic version of this season.

No season can have such wild variation in hair color as Winter so there are many possible looks, all the way to blonde (often with dark eyebrows). You would find that they’d be washed out in Spring’s soft, warm colors. It takes the intensity of Winter’s brights to balance the degree of color in the complexion.  Who is an example of that? Marilyn Monroe in her platinum hair phase.

Makeup to try

Lips: Estee Lauder Gloss Stick in Golden Violet , Berry Pink;  EL Long Last in Candy; EL Signature in Rich Berry ; Clinique Butter Shine in Raspberry Rush.

Blush: NARS Crazed. MAC Breezy and Dolly Mix. Kevyn Aucoin Liquifuchsia. Clarins Framboise blush 30.

This was challenging blush to find. I wonder if these colors are more intimidating for women and companies stick to safer brownish colors. The option of just using your lipstick as blush (if the formulation is not too greasy or glossy) could be considered.

Eyeliner: MUFE Aqua Eyes Waterproof eyeliner 1L ; MAC Suite Array Pearlglide liner in Black Russian; Revlon Colorstay in Black Brown; Clinique Quickliner in Black Brown.

Eyes: Chanel Smokey Eyes eyeshadow quad. As ever, KarlaSugar does the browsing for you. You’ll see the liner and shadow in this post. 

 Eye hilite : Paula’s Choice Shell or Cream.

Mascara : Black

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I wasn’t planning on buying foundation but I got overheated with the excitement of finding this color and formulation. And I’m still on a Winter Self-Discovery kick. And I had an afternoon alone. So what, you might say. Or, you might say, “3 hours?! In a row??” . I myself fit into the latter category.

I went to Sears to buy another tube of Estee Lauder Zero-Smudge mascara because my daughter appropriated mine. And I had a gift card, you see. So I wandered over to Clinique because they make some good, and more affordable, stuff and they had a GWP.

Their gifts are pretty good and free has a certain appeal that I’m certain you can understand, especially if you have teenagers. I wish they’d put some new lip products in those gifts. The ol’ Different Grape (this is a widely wearable color?), Apple Cider ( less wearable than A Different Grape), and Raspberry Glace (kind of boring), they’ve seen their day. I guess that among Clinique lipsticks, I really like the Butter Shine best, but I can see how not everyone would because it’s so creamy. I do like the choice of gifts, the various glosses, and how they’ve done a warm and cool option.

Clinique has a PWP offer right now of Summer Pinks or Summer Bronzes.

I’m always drawn to foundation. It fascinates me for some reason. There’s a sticky spot in my head for all those nuances of beige. My own skin issues are,

-lines under eyes,

- a lot of pigment discolorations on sides of face,

-large pores on nose,

but the skin is pretty smooth in the sense of not-bumpy.

Foundation these days is astounding in the number of finishes available and even the more complete coverage products look and feel pretty good. So I started looking for a foundation with heavier coverage that might still look believable with a face full, and would allow for less coverage in some places and much more in others. Although we all need a darker skin-tone concealer (for imperfections on the skin) along with the lighter one (for shadows), I feel unlikely to begin mixing 2 concealers to arrive at my perfect shades. Even if I did, I don’t have time to dot concealer on a hundred little spots. What if foundation alone could cover well enough to hide those pigment spots?

Decades ago, foundation used to be too pink. Eventually, I think makeup artists convinced cosmetic companies that skin is actually more yellow than it is pink. Now, I wonder if a lot of products are too yellow. The salespeople tell you that they make it that way to diminish redness. Well, ok, but you’re not supposed to see the yellow tones. Your skin becomes a different color than your ears. I see skin as kind of grayish, but maybe that’s because mine is. I freely admit that I have no experience matching foundation to anybody but myself. Does anyone remember Club Monaco makeup? Monica Lewinsky wore it, just to date it for you. Those were neutral foundation colors.

I found Repairwear in Fair Neutral 03 and Neutral 05. Micaela, the very nice Clinique saleswoman who has worked at our counter for years and knows me to be weird, contesting, and hard-to-please but does a great job of pretending I’m a normal client, gave me a sample. I’m thrilled to see they’re taking a page from the MAC book and doing this now; must have all been at the same staff meeting. You should get a sample too. It’s very hard to get a sense of this foundation, or any foundation, at the store. Like mascara, it can only be tested in your own bathroom.

What happened was this. I tried it on, just the smallest bit, as Micaela advised. She said clients who buy it love it and don’t buy another bottle for ages. Your initial impression is “No way, this is too masky”. But once it’s all spread out, after about 10 seconds, dayam, it looks good. It feels a little bit heavy if you get too much on, but your skin seems rather perfect. Maybe a little too perfect, but I can get with the drama easily. This is not the formulation to begin with if you’re leery of the artificiality of foundation.

Pick a Saturday when you have a lot of time. Apply it as you usually do your foundation. Realize immediately the coverage is more dense than you expected and the only way to make it look real is by wiping it off which will make your skin red and uneven. Rinse it all off instead. Wait 10 minutes.

Begin again. Use ¼ your usual amount of foundation. 1 pump of the bottle is about right for your face. Apply it on the side of your hand and from there, put little dots all over your face and start blending them together. You have lots of time to work it around. The sunscreen in it doesn’t sting so it can go on eyelids and at the inside corners of eyes.

Take a little more off your hand and dab it, or stipple with your foundation brush, over pigment irregularities. It covers very well without looking cakey. If you have larger pores, drive the foundation brush into them end-on, with a little more foundation, and they’ll go away. Only the thinnest coverage goes under the eyes, as with any foundation, mostly just to blend away the concealer lines.

It is supposed to dry matte, and it does an ok job of it. You will need powder. I don’t need more touchups during the day than I normally would. I think the product looks a little “tired” at the end of the day, after a couple of powder re-applications. If I were going out at night, I’d wash it off and reapply. Luckily, I have no night life besides chauffering to soccer games so … if it ain’t my problem, … it ain’t a problem!

I start with Clinique’s All About Eyes concealer in Light Neutral, fabulous in its own right, and paint it in the usual places, the darker shadows. I don’t even blend it in, just paint it on with a lipstick brush. Wait 2 minutes and it will dry looking like Indian paint. The foundation brush will blend it for you but don’t smear. Keep your foundation brush strokes feathery, light, and quick. You want the concealer to stay where you put it.

Don’t buy makeup without visiting Paula Begoun’s group at Beautypedia. You’ll get another opinion and a better sense of what’s in this product than I can give you. You’ll learn whether it deserves Clinique’s “anti-aging”, or even better “de-aging”, label.

Unbelievable someone could have so much to say about foundation.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Product Review : Clinique Repairwear SPF 15 Foundation. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

We can’t shop for clothes without wondering “Is this my color?”  At the makeup counter, we’re at the mercy of the taste of the salesperson or we just stick to the safe rut we’re in, resulting in 5 of the same shade of lip color rattling around the bottom of our purse. Not only are we not objective about ourselves in any way, but we don’t know what to look for.

 The truth is that nobody knows their innate colors. Nobody. Famous and rich people get it wrong all the time. Until they’ve been analyzed, nobody knows their colors. Personal color analysts (PCAs) can’t guess their own seasons till they get draped or see themselves in many different colors (often many shades of the same color, red being particularly telling).

How controlled the lighting and background have to be depends on the analyst, as does the importance of hair and eye color. As with anything, there are many ways of arriving at the answer. With anesthesia, it’s not so much which drug you’re using as how well you know that drug. There is no right or wrong, no best or worst. There is an analogy here in that it’s not so much which color system you choose as how well the PCA knows that system.

Women might say “I wear a lot of white and navy.” Whatever. Navy and white might be better in your kitchen than on your body. Nobody can experiment with sure success till they’ve been color coded. Nobody knows their undertones. They might know their overtones but that’s not really helpful for making buying decisions. So if you don’t know your colors, don’t feel bad. 99% of the world doesn’t either.

Climbing down off my soapbox. I’ve just been at the Clinique counter and I look at the money women put down. As you know, I like MAC and Clinique. They don’t have everything but the price is manageable, the color selection is 6.5 out of 10, the application is 7 out of 10 (Clinique) and 8.8 (MAC) and most women can find these lines.

“Warm Spring” is a Color Me Beautiful label which allows for a flowing of any given season towards another, in this case Spring towards Autumn. This season doesn’t exist in all the color systems. Nonetheless, the 3 Spring seasons’ colors in any system are warmed by yellow and are clear.  When I chose the colors below, I was working with Sci\Art’s True Spring swatch book.

 If you’re Warm Spring, you have noticeable gold, orange, copper, or strawberry tones in your hair but your skin is still warmed by yellow.  You are too fair to move into the golder, hardier-looking skin of an Autumn. Think of Nicole Kidman (notice how dark her eyebrows always are?  they are seldom bleached to match her hair; may be deeper coloring than Spring going on here). Delicate skin, almost fragile looking. It’s skin that looks like it’s trying to have freckles but often doesn’t because it’s just so fair.

Your colors are moving towards the browner tones of Autumn. Blush and lip colors are coral and apricot, so stronger than peach and with some brown in them but still bright and lively. Warm Spring can take a lot of color.

Lips: All Springs should know about MAC Lustreglass in Instant Gold to warm and reduce the strength of many lip colors, and add a light yellow-gold shimmer; MAC Prolongwear in Clingpeach if you like this type of product.

Clinique Lipsticks in Golden Brandy, Peach Pop, Poppy Love, and Ripe Raisin.

Blush: NARS Luster or Gilda; NARS makes fantastic blush but demands a light application to look normal.  Estee Lauder Pink Kiss might work.

Bobbi Brown PotRouge in Calypso Coral.

Eyeliner: Clinique Roast Coffee.

MAC Industry might work as a slightly warmed grey. Clinique Slate is too sharply grey as is MAC Grey Utility. 

Eyeshadow: Clinique Butter Pecan and Copper Canyon. In the singles, Champagne was good. In the creams, Sable Shimmer Touch Tint is nice but awfully shiny.

MAC Camel which they no longer make, darn them, it was a superb color … MAC, bring back Camel!!!!

Eye hilite :  Paula’s Choice Cream or Chiffon.

Mascara : Black-Brown.

Bronzer: MAC Golden, a truly good product.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Makeup Model : Warm Spring. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

This is a big range of women. You’re Ellen and Kate Hudson (or at least, Kate looks like Light Spring. Have you seen Ellen’s pic from high school? Reddish hair. Although the blond hair she wears is beautifully done, sometimes I think it makes her eyes look bloodshot. Ellen, you need to don the gray showercap and draping cape of truth and uncover who you really are). You can be the fairest softest coloring and you can be the blond beach ideal.

In general, Spring looks better in peach than pink. If you think you like both, what you might be liking is the lightness of the two shades. The basis of color analysis is understanding what the colors that flatter you best have in common. So, we’ll have to push the extremes to decide if you’re Light Spring or Light Summer. Take the peach all the way to coral in clothing or makeup – only the Spring will pull it off, while the Summer will be more beautiful in a cooler rose pink color.

Or try the ultimately Springs Only color of yellow-green. Summer would probably refuse to even put the item on and negotiate hard for cool, light turquoise. Spring would be sneaking the yellow-green into her purse.

Light Spring represents that type of coloring that is most prominently Spring (warmed by clear yellow) but has some cool carryover from Summer. Your colors follow suit, with pink-peach instead of pure peach or yellow colors, and tan-brown instead of golden brown in your eyeshadow.

 Colors to sample

 Lips: Clinique Colour Surge Butter Shine in Pink-a-boo; look at Poppy Love while you’re there. I love these lipsticks, so wearable and comfortable.

Eyeliner: Estee Lauder Softsmudge Brown.

Eyes: MAC BrownDown, Kid, Wedge; Stila Champara, Tolima.

Eye hilite : MAC Wisp, BlancType; Stila Chinois.

   I am loving the blog The Next Best Thing To Going Shopping Yourself (TNBTTGSY) for the swatch posts. Follow the link to see the MAC eyeshadows. On the site, you’ll also find all the Stila eyeshadows swatched in a different post. Shop at home thanks to the wonderful woman who does all this work.

Look very attentively at the iris of your eye. Is there a soft yellow in it? Many Spring eyes have a yellow light in their eyes to correspond with the yellow light that their entire body coloring emanates. If you see that color there, emphasize it with a yellowish hilite. Have you looked at Paula’s Choice Chiffon? It is fantastically colored, fantastically matte, and fantastically priced.

Mascara : Dark Brown – be sure it’s darker than your eyeliner or the liner can look too harsh.

Bronzer :  This is light skin. It can handle warmer tones but in a gentle dose. MAC Select Sheer Pressed powder goes on well and some of the lighter shades have some peachiness that could work as bronzer for this group. Go easy with the application so you don’t end up with an overly colorful face. That’s just practice.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Makeup Model : Light Spring. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

I’ll begin by getting  the poor review out of the way because I did try it.

Product Review : Revlon 3D Extreme Mascara

Dry and sticky is the first impression. The stickiness makes it easy to push the lashes upwards and they stay there, like they’ve been hairsprayed. You can really work that aspect with more coats. It is very controllable.

The brush is tiny. I prefer that to gigantic for ease of handling but this one is also rather flat, like a little wee spatula. Actually, the bristles are short and unless you clean off all the extra product, not much of the bristle sticks out. Still, it works better than I expected it to. I had to press the product off on the sides of the tube to get the picture.

You expect clumps to form but they don’t. The lashes don’t separate so well either. In fact, they stick together fast! It’s like those hair products that dry and stiffen within 4 seconds from some very volatile chemical or other so you have no time to work with the hair before the product sets (that would be Redken Rough Paste).

It wears moderately well but I still had a few smudges if I put too much on the bottom lashes.

Wash? Terrible. Black smears, with or without makeup remover. Just as bad the next morning. I didn’t do so well with this product.

Never support animal cruelty

I’d love to try Elizabeth Arden’s Ceramide Lash Extending Treatment Mascara because it’s said to leave lashes feeling soft but there’s no freakin’ way. There is too much animal suffering as it is. What kind of pathetic excuses for human beings are we when we support animal testing in an industry where it is not only unnecessary, but also in the minority.

 From Vogue Australia Forums, a very comprehensive list of cosmetic companies with info about who tests and who doesn’t. For A to H, for I to Q, and for P to Z. Bookmark those pages, they’re hard to find again.

It was back to Clinique High Impact. It might not be perfection but it’s pretty darn good. I should know better by now than to vex the gods by veering away from it. I want to believe that great cruelty-free mascara can be bought at the drugstore but I can’t find it.

 I decide to take my chance with the gods yet again.

 Product Review : Estee Lauder Zero-Smudge Lengthening Mascara

 I don’t try $25 mascara without a good reason. I read about this one in the Best Beauty Products Of 2008 Report from Paula Begoun and her group. I was attracted by the ease of removal comment.

Mascara is one of the few products where I don’t rely on MUA (Makeup Alley). I have the filters set to show reviews from worst to best and it’s the same for every single mascara. Even the repurchase rate hovers around 60% for every product.

Here are the reasons I love this one:

1.     It doesn’t smudge. Doesn’t move, fade, or change over the day. I like to add moisturizer to soften the lines under my eyes during the day and now I can, without black smudges. It really is zero-smudge. I moisturize to my heart’s content and there are NO smears. 

2.     Doesn’t clump, easy to work with, separate , and add.  The job gets done fast.

3.     It DOES come off with water. Easily!! Even High Impact didn’t do that!! I don’t even use a separate eye makeup remover. Hallelujah for that alone!!!  There may be the odd black fleck the next morning but it removes easily, unlike the tarry smears that take some work. You just splash water on your eyes and rub gently and the stuff comes right off. You might need an eye makeup remover for your shadow or liner but not your mascara. Big selling point here.

4.     The brush is grand. It’s long and skinny and straight. The product doesn’t goop all over it. The corner lashes can be coated without smearing it on the skin. The maneuverability of this brush is terrific, maybe because it goes back to the brushes we all learned with 30 years ago. The big bottle-brush style and the curved designs, never could get used to them.

5.     Lashes are not too stiff or crunchy. I really don’t like that at all.

6.     I’m wearing mascara on my lower lashes again. I like to wear a little more makeup on the center of my eye because a rounder eye looks a little younger and it draws attention away from the outer corner where not-so-good things are happening.  I can use all I like, wherever I like. It will not move.

Clinique High Impact, does apply better. Thicker, smoother, creamier, softer. But it will leave little smears under your eyes.

This formula seems a little stickier, a little drier, than what you may be accustomed to but it gets the job done fine. They sell it as an extraordinarily lengthening mascara. In that respect, it’s fine but not astounding. Estee Lauder also claims that “the lash you see in the morning is the lash you keep all day”. That is true.

Who in the world can look at our lashes and know what mascara we used? Nobody. You never really notice other women’s eyelashes unless they’re at an extreme of underdone, overdone, or oversmeared. Mascara is all about application and removal.

Clinique Lash Power gets similar reviews for ease of removal and it will be a little cheaper, so it’s next up.

Note that this is not for you if you’re after major volume or length. It gives real-looking lashes and that’s all I really want in this world  - makeup that looks real.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

How do you know if you’re Deep Winter?

Dark eyes and dark hair are common but not a requirement. Your skin can go from Porcelain to Ebony so that’s not helpful.

So, Penelope Cruz is a classic Deep Winter…or at least, she looks like she would be. She can wear black but she has some ability to wear a few warmer colors. Her best spectrum wouldn’t be as cool and sharp as Elizabeth Taylor’s whom you just wouldn’t put in rust.

What about Salma Hayek? If you’re not sure, push the extremes of the 2 possibilities. Deep Winter holds the neutral line with Deep Autumn, where Deep Winter is cooler. You could take a Deep Winter all the way to blue-black hair and red-violet lips and they’d still look pretty good. You could take a Deep Autumn to bronze hair and beyond to orange-brown and it would be wearable. I can see Salma in the black hair and violet lips. I do not see her in orange hair.

Now, this doesn’t work backwards. You can’t assume red hair is automatically Autumn. Not at all. Often they’re Spring or Summer, many times, Winter. Why do books keep showing Autumn with red hair? I don’t know. Maybe because red hair goes well with orange clothing (analogous colors), so the extrapolation says the person must be Autumn. The closer to orange the hair, the more possibility it belongs to an Autumn.

Julia Roberts has dark hair and eyes. Since blue-black hair and purple lips would be ghoulish, but orange-brown hair is good, she’s likely a Deep Autumn.

Keira Knightley? Tricky. Very difficult. I’ve seen people conclude both. I side with Deep Winter but black hair isn’t perfect; neither is orange hair. This auburn here is good, and a Deep Winter can do auburn. It’s creating some odd shadowing around her nose and yellow around her mouth but it may be the makeup or lighting. For me, her eyes are more arresting and her makeup better in pure Winter colors. They might clear the yellow and turn her skin to milk. Maybe she’s neither. This is a woman who probably needs to be draped in person to figure this out.

Jeanne Tripplehoorn? I cannot see her in orange hair.

Jessica Alba? She’s almost surely Deep something but her hair’s been dark and her lips have been cool red lately and I think it looks forced. I see her better in orange, tawnies, copper colors. Likely some sort of Autumn. With the dark neutral brown hair below, her skin looks washed out and the creases from nose to corners of mouth become noticeable.

Sophia Loren? She can have quite lion-colored hair and bronze lips, so she’s Deep, but it’s probably Autumn.

Anne Hathaway? Blacker hair and redder lips work fine. If ever skin had a lack of warmth, that would be it. She is surely Winter, the incarnation of Miss Snow White. Is she Deep Winter, or cooler yet as Clear Winter or Cool Winter? Probably Cool Winter, because I don’t see much compliment from warmed reds, but who knows without drapes.

Katie Holmes? I can see auburn hair or wine hair but not orange hair. She can wear rust and tomato red as well as the cool dark colors, so probably a Deep Winter.

Colors

Lips: NARS Dolce Vita Sheer Lipstick and lipgloss are good cool coral colors; the gloss is gorgeous in texture and durability, as are all NARS glosses.

Now you need a plum-violet color: Mary Kay Berry Kiss is about as blue-pink as you can go, but this is a nice one (bluer, pinker, and brighter than the picture below). If it seems too pink, try Whipped Berries, warmed up just a little but so slightly foggier and darker, for darker women.

Mary Kay Amber Suede appears more orange and it goes on very dark and pigmented. If you blot if well and apply a gloss over top, the color left behind is quite lovely, again for darker women.

L to R, Whipped Berries, Amber Suede, Garnet Frost, Berry Kiss

Are you looking at these thinking “I thought she said she doesn’t like dark lips?”. I am. The thing is, once you find a color of makeup that repeats a color already in your face (a concept we’ll come back to often) or body, it’s amazing how heavily you can apply it. You can literally pack it on and it looks real because you already have the color in you. Maybe I’ve made this point too obviously, but you see, herein lies the strength of color analysis. It will identify the colors that were used to paint YOU.

So what is your “color-within” lip, your neutral, since those above are all pinkish : MAC Slimshine in Scant will be close. It contains some brown, as this season needs since it’s the bridge between Autumn and Winter.

Much as I believe in neutral makeup, I think all 3 women up there look a little flat with lips the same color as their face. I need to come up with a new term. Neutral means neither warm nor cool, a medium tone type of beige or brown or gray. Many would call the lips in those photos neutral. When I say neutral, I extend the definition to include “any color already in your face is your neutral”.

However, I’m realizing that’s confusing and seems contradictory. Nude just means “like you have nothing on”. Maybe the word I need is Natural. That seems to work. I’m thinking as I type so it’s coming out stream-of-consciousness here. I’ll clarify in a separate post because I just thought of it now.OK, shut up, Christine, and get on with it.

If you still think these are dark, mix them with a clear gloss or a lighter lip color like Estee Lauder Elizabeth Pink.

Good ol’ Clinique Black Honey lip gloss that you see in every magazine suits this group nicely.

Body Shop 05 (I believe the color is Strawberry) can work as a bright.

Blush: Your color-within “natural” blush : take a close look at MAC Breath of Plum. If it’s too pink, look at Lancome Aplum, my favorite. It is cool, red-violet as all Winters need, and doesn’t seem too blue or brown. It just fades into the skin, just as a Natural colour will.

If you want to put a little more on it, Clinique Berry Delight is a good cool coral to go with Dolce Vita lipstick or gloss (don’t buy Dolce Vita blush, it’s too dusty red-brown; NARS Amour is a better contender – Winter is a season of color clarity, not dullness).

Another red-violet blush to go with the lips above : Mary Kay Bold Berry ; Clinique Breathless Berry is cooler than Berry Delight but not as cool as Bold Berry.

Eyeliner: Clarins Waterproof eyeliner in 03 Grey, a sparkly dark grey; Annabelle Kohl Eyeliner in 77 Charcoal, terribly smudgy but great color so powder over it.

Winter is the only group that can wear black eyeliner if the depth of their coloring supports it. If not, the darkest grey or black-coffee brown are darker colors that appear less hard.

Eyeshadow: Clinique Totally Neutral ; MaryKay makes Charcoal eye shadow, a lovely matte midtone dove grey for the cooler women. Paula’s Choice Charcoal is also a beautiful matte grey-brown, more brown than the MaryKay, a fantastic shade for those who are close to Deep Autumn but need the coolness of Winter.

Your natural color : Merle Norman Mink.

Eye hilite : Paula’s Choice Beige. ( Note that Paula’s Choice is selling off her eyeshadows for $4 or less. These are great products, perfectly matte, all available as samples. You will never find a better beauty deal anywhere.)

Within each season, there can be great variety of hair, eye, and skin tone so these color suggestions are generalities. I’m a Deep Winter. Once I get my hair color adjusted, I’ll show you how it looks. Just changing the makeup has made a big difference. Good thing I buy my clothes at Value Village or we’d be living on a raft.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Makeup Model : Deep Winter. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Hollywood makes you look older, fatter, or sicker by using your wrong colors. Are you doing that to yourself?

The 3 groups that need this most are:

-       Teens for the incredible confidence building and power to resist peer and media pressure. By 15 years old, they’ve settled into their color scheme. Colors may deepen but season is unlikely to change. It helps guide them in buying makeup, keeps them away from deep hair mistakes, and allows to feel that they are unique and special.

-       Women over 40. This is a time when we need help with our looks and we can use an emotional confidence boost. Once you know your season and can make choices with confidence, you have a new power. You see yourself sharp and in focus on the outside, like the real you just stepped out of the haze you used to live in.

-       Men, men, men.

It goes like this

So, here’s what happens when you come to my house for a Color Analysis. Plan on 3 hours. If we get too tired and can’t get it the first day, you may have to come back at no extra cost. Want to stay for hair and makeup? I hope so. Matching women to makeup is what I live for. Count on another hour.

We’ll go into the color studio. Maybe it should be called “color cell” because the only speck of color will be your face. You won’t wear any makeup and neither will I. Our hair and clothes will be covered. We’ll make no assumptions about season from hair or eye color that we can’t prove with the drapes.

Bear with me, I’m about to digress. I’m reading a most fabulous book entitled How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, MD. If you work in any medicine-related field, as a nurse, as a veterinarian, as a psychiatrist, anything, you MUST READ this book. It describes the mental pitfalls in our human thinking patterns that lead us into mistakes in diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Groopman explains a common situation he calls “diagnosis momentum”, in which you become convinced of something and set about proving it to yourself, ignoring evidence to the contrary. Color analysis is so much like medicine, it’s bizarre. It’s a search based on a process of elimination along a logic tree. As an analyst, it’s too easy to get trapped in a spiral of “season momentum”. You make a decision about a season too soon, feel committed to it, and lose your impartial perspective.

When I enter an examination room to see a puppy with diarrhea, and the last 3 pups I saw had diarrhea because of worms, I might be inclined to rush the process and decide this must be the same thing. I’d miss the fact that this one ate a remote control and a bikini and a used condom and half the old rug that was stored in the shed. So we begin by believing you could be any of the 12 seasons with equal odds.

In the beginning, the process seems to be focused on finding and highlighting your every flaw. You’ll feel like we keep harping on wrinkles or red noses or acne scars or a long face. That’s because wrong color seems to uncover your worst feature and point to it relentlessly. My son warned his father when it was Dad’s turn that “Mommy be’s rude to you”.

 Along the way, we’ll discover the absolute worst that color can make you look and the absolute best. Those will be our reference points. We’ll try some things. We’ll be unsure, we’ll go back to the beginning and start all over again. Maybe you’ll be easy and obvious and fast but you probably won’t.  You’ll want to leave. You’ll wonder why you’re paying good money to someone to dwell on your faults so repetitively, flaws you didn’t even know you had.

The commentary will begin to shift as we find the colors that make your face look beautifully defined instead of doughy. Your eyes will be clearer and your teeth whiter. You’ll start hearing the word “younger” being used. Once you’re over 40, male or female, that seems to be a pivot point.

We’ll think about what the colors that make you look fabulous have in common. That process of elimination will guide us to your season.

This is not subjective. Very real things will happen that you will see with your own eyes on your own face.

We’ll know we’re done when your skin is calm, you are neither wearing the color and nor is it wearing you. Your eye color will seem 10 times stronger.

If you’re a Winter, your eyes will dance and snap as only Winter eyes can. Repeat that with earrings that move and sparkle.

Autumn’s eyes glow like the embers they were intended to be. Glowing warm makeup repeats the effect.

Spring’s eyes are happy and bright. The color is remarkable in its liveliness and clarity. We’ll look at makeup colors that are clear and lit from within. That is the special radiance of Spring.

Summer eyes appear to have the endless depth of water and sky. The color, often blue, goes on and on. Like Winter, the complexion can often be deceivingly yellow till the right colors clear it. Because the coloring is so delicate, it’s imperative for Summer to get the hair color right. The entire look should flow from color to color, like a June garden.

Every season has a distinctive melody. Your personal color scheme, your eye pattern, your character, they already hear it. Stick to the tune in your decoration and the people around you will be in awe of your personal choreography. Internally, you’ll begin to feel an alignment with who you came here to be.

We’ll talk about your best makeup.

Hair is a piece of clothing you never take off. It can’t clash with your own color scheme or it detracts from the power of the final picture. So, we’ll look at your most perfect hair color.

I’ll give you your swatch booklet because it contains all your clothes/makeup/hair colors. Shopping will be fun and sure and foolproof.

And we’ll be done.

I apologize about the driveway. I just really want to work out of my house.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Composition Of A Color Analysis. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Soft Summer and Soft Autumn can be similar. You could be Jennifer Aniston or Amanda Bynes, respectively (or, these women give the impression of these Seasons). In the wrong colors, you can look blah. Hair is neither light or dark. Skin is neither either.  You can get lost in medium-ness. Getting your colors right is what takes you from medium everything to fabulosity.

These two seasons hold hands to straddle a neutral line very closely. Both have some warmth, but the Autumn season has more. Many Soft Summer women color their brown hair to look warmer when they would look better in a more neutral brown or cooler brown.

If Cool Summer, coolest of all, has enough blue to be look best in lilac-pink,

and Light Summer is so fair that cotton-candy-pink is most appealing,

you’re the next level of warmth.

You are still defined by what is predominantly Summer, so coolness, lightness (but that’s also deepening now), and muted haziness. It’s that color so many companies create in a blush and call it Desert Rose.

Lipstick:  Bobbi Brown Italian Rose ; Laura Mercier Gilded Garden collection Hibiscus (English Rose might work too but appears brown enough to be more Soft Autumn), swatched here by the wonderful karlasugar that I’ve introduced before. This woman is saving us time and money, and teaching about color by comparison.

Blush: Dior English Rose ;  NARS Deep Throat.

Eyeliner: MAC Technakohl Earthline ;  EsteeLauder Automatic Eye Pencil Duo Walnut.

Eyeshadow: Dior Flirty Brown; MAC Malt, Quarry, Copperplate; Just looking for Suede Brown here. Get an idea of the shades from karlasugar’s most amazing MAC eyeshadow swatch post. Vote for her with the Best Blog About Stuff button on her site. 

Eye hilite : MAC Vapor, which you can see at MAC’s eyeshadow page or at karlasugar (last box in the MAC eyeshadow article).

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Makeup Model : Soft Summer. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

 If Autumn is the season of sunset colors, this group is scorched earth and ripe fruit.  Deep Autumn makes those colors so warm that they glow, making them seem almost metallic, like copper and bronze and gold. By making use of the right colors, this season can look astounding. Winter does look vivid, but it’s cool drama where this is hot and exciting.

I’m not fond of dark lips or very colorful lips.  Colors that already appear in the face are what work in makeup . They have to be comfortable and believable, especially on women who wear little or no makeup. For Deep Autumn, the colors already in the body’s color design are quite deep. Pale washed out lips just flatten the whole affect. A natural mouth on Julia Roberts would be the only thing you would see on Heather Locklear.

I’m also not big on frost on any mature face  – but sometimes shimmer is your friend. Autumn needs intensity in makeup to match intensity in coloring. If you don’t use “color intensity” then use “finish intensity” with metallic lipsticks. Nobody has brown lips but a bronzed orange lip color will work well on this season, and go nicely with the allover toasted luminous warmth. Where Spring is sunlit and bright, Autumn is has a brown gleam that metallic meshes with well.

Lora at Pretty Your World writes the best site online to figure out your own colors. Not everyone will be able to do it, only because some people are complicated. If it were easy, why would there be color analysts? At PYW, you’ll see that this season is the Autumn/Winter hybrid. Some Deep Autumns can pull off “warm black” quite well because of that.

Color Ideas

 Lips: Revlon Sheer Colorstay Bronze;  MAC Honey Flower but while you’re at the MAC counter, try on Coconutty, Strength, Shag, and Touch. The makeup artists are good at choosing the best on you. So are your kids. They might not know why but they know what looks good ; Clinique Bronze Star, one of my favorites.

Find brown alone too flat?  In lipstick and in blush, you’re looking for a brown-red-orange blend. Warm Autumn is looking for brown-orange. Soft Autumn is looking for brown-peach. Some Deep Autumn women have quite fair skin though the overall amount of color spice is intense. JLo wears deeper foundation than Julia Roberts but the overall depth and intensity of the color package is less, making JLo a Warm Autumn. Because we’re now moving towards Winter, we’re starting to lose the orange in favor of cooler browns and reds. 

Try mixing in Mocha or Jist. Have fun looking at the choices at MAC’s beautiful (and much improved) site and notice that you can choose the finish you like in the boxes above the color checkerboard.

Blush: NARS Lovejoy, Madly, Taos. A good color swatch page is here at NARS, though the colors are stronger IRL (in real life) than on my monitor. 

“The Next Best Thing To Going Shopping Yourself” and my new favorite blog is by Karlasugar. NARS themselves don’t do as good a job as she does of showing their products. The professionalism and quality of the job she did in her NARS Blush Recap is a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

MAC Mineralize Duo in Intenso might be good too, but be critical of the amount of shine.

Eyeliner: black/brown, there are many. It needs to  still be obviously browner than blacker.

Eyes: Cargo Dark Neutral palette. KarlaSugar yet again, has done an outstanding job of showing the 3 Cargo Neutral palettes. For comparison and learning, this is the best you could ask for.

All Autumns should know that MAC Woodwinked eyeshadow is a perfect antique gold accent for eyes. Because it’s very shiny, you wouldn’t cover your whole eyelid, but a spot of it right above the upper lashline, over the center of the iris, followed by your usual neutrals, adds some great dimension. It also does the very cool trick of  picking up the amber colors in your eye. It’s often sold out but a beauty if you can get it.

Eye hilite : MAC Shroom or Brule. Although I avoid animal-test companies, I have to say that Elizabeth Arden Sungold eyeshadow is a gorgeous hilite for Warm Autumn and Deep Autumn. It doesn’t go on too yellow or too shiny but lights up Autumn eyes and skin perfectly.

 Don’t buy what you can’t try.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

…officially takes over the No. 1 spot as Favorite Foundation.

… is a gel, not a cream, so it is easy to disperse a minute amount over a whole face.

… can easily build to more-than-medium coverage. Adding another layer or two over sun spots and veins can cover them nicely without needing to hunt down a suitable concealer in a different shade than you’d wear under your eyes or around your nose.

… lasts. And lasts. And lasts. It doesn’t look tired after 8 hours the way a lot of  makeup can.

… makes skin look very smooth ( not even-colored, but even-surfaced with no bumps or craters). My kids noticed which is saying a lot because they’ve seen much makeup over the years.

… comes in MAC’s usual very good colors, but never settle for less than a perfect match. I wear NW 20. The colors seem a little deeper than usual if you’re used to MAC’s skin color schemes.

… is a great choice if you notice and object to the “weight” of foundation. Studio Sculpt really has none. Don’t buy Studio Fix by accident or you’ll think I’ve lost my mind.

… is a great choice if you’re thinking about trying foundation but don’t want a masky look and if concealer just seems too fussy. Use this as a fusion, only where you have shadows or discolorations. It gives you good time to blend and is light enough to get the job done with fingers.

… greatly reduces the tendency of foundation to be too heavy and so accentuate the age of the skin around the eyes.  Who needs that? This is the strongest positive point for me. So many foundations look horrible on the skin under the eye, and worse if you use a concealer as well, that you can hardly put any product here. I’d almost buy it for this alone.

… dries fairly matte but not completely. Still need a little powder but fewer powder touchups.

… comes in a soft plastic gravity-fed tube which I so prefer over bottles. I wish they’d made the plastic opaque. I’d have a better feeling about the color staying true.

… really can disappear into skin if the color is right. I keep reading reviews where the woman is showing pictures of it on her hand, which is funny-peculiar till you’ve tried it yourself. What fascinates everyone is that you really can’t see where the makeup begins and ends. It absolutely looks more like skin than any foundation I’ve seen.

 This foundation is good at its job, which is to even skin tone and color. If you’re not used to the effect, you’ll think all your features just disappeared. That’s because they used to stand out to you by the contrast of the shadows around them.

If you’re hoping to wear anything more than the sheerest tinted moisturizer and wear no other makeup, it’s not going to work. Your face will be too uni-color without  a little lip gloss, an eyeliner, and a bit of blush or bronzer. Not complicated. Not especially time-consuming. Big looks payoff. Just need to go into it with realistic expectations. If you don’t want to wear any other makeup, just something to smooth your skin, this is not it. The coverage is too good.

Of all the good and great things that foundation does, I had yet to meet the one that I could say made skin look younger. This is the closest so far.

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The palest pinkest women.  A friend of mine sees a dermatologist who refers to her coloring as “you pasty white chicks”. That’s got to be Light Summer.

Remember Cool Summer’s gray-silver-ash brown hair? This season is light blond to white blond. The blond is not overly golden and certainly not red. The hair could also be light brown. As with Cool Summer, the keyword is ash. That’s means greyish-brown, kind of like the taupe of hair color. A Light Summer in warm brown hair is killing off what little color she has in her complexion.

But NOT platinum, like on Christina Aguilera. Platinum is too harsh, almost metallic in its lightness, though a few thin streaks could work among other light blond colors. All-platinum might work on some Winters but Summer wouldn’t go beyond a very pale blond. A child would might be flaxen or almost white, but not silvery/metallic.

This is an easy season to makeup. Just stay pink and light.

Reese looks great, better than the too-yellow-gold hair she often wears. She looks young and shines with an inner energy and light. Her eyes don’t look pale or faded. Her lipcolor is dark for the softness of her color scheme so my eye is continuously distracted by it. There is often a tendency for these women to wear vibrant colors because they feel it might bring color to the face, or the marketing industry told them a “pop” of color was in, but their coloring is easily overwhelmed. 

The most difficult makeup choice this group has to make is with bronzer/contour. You can struggle at the makeup counter with all the too-yellow-for-you bronzers, and that includes the light and golden ones most of the time.

Or you can go the drugstore, look at Almay and Revlon, or any other non-animal-tested choices, and pick a powder a little darker than your skin. Beige. Not peach. Just the next shade deeper than what would be a match. Call it a day.

Oh, no wait. They’ve packaged their powders so that you can’t see them. How clever.  Is this why we all end up at MAC and Sephora eventually?

MAC always has some of the best options for recreating skin’s real life colors, at a decent price point, with colors you can test. Their Select Sheer Pressed Powder is nice to use for its sheerness. Many of the shades have a peachiness that can work well as a bronzer for many seasons. This group, who just can’t take very yellow pigments, and certainly not orange, don’t want to end up with an overly colorful face. You should stick with pressed powders that are skin-tone beige. Remember though that this group also represents the Summer/Spring fusion with Summer coolness predominant. A slight hint of peach may be worth trying on those of you who can wear a few of Spring’s yellower shades.

MAC Mineralize Skinfinish/Natural offers some terrific choices. It’s still sheer, not sparkly, and comes in good skin colors. These products can be a tad glowy ( which is the last thing you want from the contour that’s supposed to recede things not make them more noticeable), but it’s not so extreme as to get in the way. For light skin tones, the Mediums to Medium-Dark and beyond are brilliant. 

Not sure of your season? Pretty Your World is loaded with information and tips to help you. 

Look at these shades

Lipstick : Clinique Glosswear Kissy Fit ;  Bobbi Brown Bright Pink gloss; Revlon MineralGlaze Gloss in Continuous Pink and Eternal Blossom (Infinite Rose ? Nope, that’s for Cool Summer)

Blush: Clinique Iced Lotus; NARS Mata Hari

Eyeliner: Clarins Waterproof Gris/Grey 03 ; MAC Technakohl Earthline

Eyes: Bobbi Brown Tan ; MAC Omega ; you need a grey and a brown that look like this,

Eye hilite : Bobbi Brown Ivory or Shell ; MAC Yogurt

These are guidelines to get your eye looking at the right colors. They won’t be different next year even if the ad campaigns say they will. Try the products first to hit your own bull’s eye.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Autumn colors are deeper than Spring to be sure. But they’re not darkened by adding gray(as Summer is) or black (because that’s Winter).

These are browner colors. They toasty and golden, coppered, and bronzed. The degree depends on which Autumn. If you could distill Autumn down to one color, it would be brown, which would include the variations of gold and orange.

Soft Autumn is not as deep and warm as the other 2 Autumns. They’re quietly warm like in the picture above. Their toned-down richness makes them closer to neutral. This means that they’re easily confused with Soft Summer, who also have a subdued strength in their coloring. Soft Summer is neutral too but is more cool than warm.

This season is so soft, in fact, that it approaches neutral but just lingers on the warm side of the line. Like who? Drew Barrymore. She can be a cool blonde but she looks better warmed up a little more. Lindsay Lohan, on the other hand, cannot be blonde nearly as well as red because her coloring is too committed to Autumn’s warmth.

Can you see how good it can be when you get it right? There’s no contest. Color Analysis works.

Lips: Clinique LongLast Glosswear Sunset ; Almay Ideal Gloss in Bronze Shimmer; Clinique Glow Bronze lipstick.

Blush: MAC Trace Gold. Don’t just fluff this color on. Apply it with feeling (meaning a firm stroke of the brush) to really get the color, not just the shimmer.

All Autumns should know that they can transform their many too-pink blush mistakes to a great burnished shade with Trace Gold. It works best for the Soft Autumns who wear warm pink better than the other Autumns. 

Eyeliner: Clinique Chocolate Lustre.

Eyes: Cargo Warm Neutral Palette ; MAC Era.

Cargo Warm Neutral palette.

Eye hilite : MAC Shroom. This is an all-purpose under brow eye color. It would suit all the seasons, certainly all the warm ones. Paula’s  Choice Beige is another completely versatile under brow hiliter for all the seasons, at a fraction of the price, and is really perfect because it has no shine.

The disclaimer : Don’t buy it if you don’t try it. These are color guidelines to give you a sense of what you should be looking at.

The colors are getting warmer now, but there’s some heat on the way and things are going to get a whole lot hotter.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Makeup Model : Soft Autumn. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.