Merle Norman Lip Glazes

Very often, we don’t want a lipstick look. We want color and softness on the lip, more than lipgloss, but not the heavier look of lipstick, especially when we’re not wearing much makeup on the rest of the face.

These Lip Glazes are costly but if I’ll use mine (Stolen Kisses) to the end and dig out the last bits.

It’s uncommon that every lipstick in a given line will be so well colored that it will be right for certain Seasons. Usually, there are a few colors that don’t flatter any skin that I can figure out and/or the color is too gray or yellow or off in some way. Not the case with these.

In colours like Pillow Talk for Light Spring, Stolen Kisses for Dark Winter, Darling Clementine for True/Bright Spring, Amber Embrace for True/Dark Autumn, Berry Romantic for True Summer, … a product to be happy you bought.

Merle Norman Lipstick

Really on a MN kick this week. I got some samples, you see. I looked at the Creamy Lipcolor. I was very pleasantly surprised. I wore Sweetheart and Raspberry Crush yesterday.  The product goes on completely comfortably. It reminds somewhat of the excellent Estee Lauder Double Wear line, but less heavy color deposit, I think. I applied it full strength with the lip brush and didn’t feel like I had to tone it down. It barely transferred to tea mugs. By the time I couldn’t feel it any more, I’d look in the mirror, and see a very good amount of stain left and no migration.  Hot Bronze Glace is a nice True/Dark Autumn color. Satin Cinnamon could be great on Soft Summers.

I also wore Ruby and Amber Rose today, of the Age Defying Lipcolor line. It seems to be a step less intense in application and less prolonged in duration that the Creamy Lipcolor. Honestly, if you told me that they were the same formula, I’d believe it. Just pick the color you like best. Raspberry On Ice would be great on the True Winter, Bright Winter, or even as Bright Spring’s cooler choice. I deeply hope that they bring back Tulips To Kiss, a beauty for Light Springs.

There are always those colors that confuse me. Peaches And Gleam, Ruby Guava – first thing I ask myself when I look at a color is “Is it clear?”. How annoying when it’s not obviously muted, but too soft for a clear Season.  It need not always be absolute, but the colour should then be light or dark, and it’s neither. Shrimpton  and Penny Lane appear to be great choices for Soft Autumn, but I wonder if they’ll turn pink because the colors are a bit too cool for their level of softness. (See Why Does Makeup Change Color on Your Face? at 12 Blueprints)

T-blouses at Nygard

These are on sale now. In fact, much of the Nygard lines is on sale and I find myself buying it. The fit is consistently very flattering and extremely comfortable.

The higher the saturation of colors in your body, the more contrast you wear in your color combinations and prints.

I’m a Dark Winter. That’s quite high saturation, so it needs quite high contrast. For explanations of saturation, have a look at What Are Clear And Soft Colours? at 12 Blueprints.

Contrast usually means how far apart your light and dark colors are. Pure black with pure white is the highest, big separation between lightest and darkest. A watercolor composed of 4 shades of medium-darkness soft blues and lilacs is low saturation.

The Sailor Wheel Goddess top below has light neutral off-white as the lightest block and blackened blue as the darkest, so just a bit less than B&W. That respects the level of contrast of the colors in my own coloring, so it balances well with me, without being too dull or too bold.

I want this bag, it’s less than 35$!!! (Python Printed Satchel) , but it belongs to the Soft Seasons in every way.

and this Lilypad Print Tankdress, but it’s one of the best examples of Bright Spring’s clothes I’ve seen.

Just as your house can look disorganized and zany if you just decorate with whatever catches your eye, and that house does not feel restful to be in, so is it true with your body. Some restraint, and respect for the color framework that’s already there, will create an appearance that feels good for others to look at.

Ignoring that looks inexpensive at best. When you get some practice at it, it would feel to you like you’re wearing someone else’s clothes.

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Like Clinique’s Butter Shines or MAC Slimshines, I like the soft feel of this type of product. Gosh Soft’n Shines are a stick gloss, but with a longer duration, less goopy application, and obnoxious overkill shine of many glosses.

If you don’t like greasy, balmy, or sheer lipcolor, these may not be for you, but I like them. They’re soft and natural on their own, and can lessen the heavy lip look of a matte lipstick. I use Paula’s Choice Clear Lipliner to seal the edges of the lips first, and it works just great.

If you find the $15CDN pricetag steep, I’d agree with you. If I’ll use the product to the very end because I love the color and feel, I can get over it on days when I need to buy myself a present.

I very much like the color selection. With Passion Pink (Bright Winter), Perfect Plum (Dark True Summer or True Winter), Barbie (Bright Spring), Sweetheart (the Light Seasons), Soft Touch (the Darks), Mocha (True Autumn), Irony (True Spring), and a few others, well…there’s a good color range. I like color that isn’t trying to cover more than 2 skin tone possibilities, because then it ends up right for nobody. Certain skin shares certain qualities, but it’s pretty narrow.

These are a great way for women who look younger and better in brighter lip colors to get used to their right makeup colors, if they’ve been wearing flesh tones.

They’re also a great way to wear brighter lip color in the daytime without looking like lips-lips-lips.

Jessica Biel’s Haircolor

In the new Revlon Mascara ad, this is beautiful Summer hair. It’s a natural ash brown of medium darkness, pretty well what you see here. The highlights are restrained. It is all too easy to start with a few highlights and end up with one big highlight.  At the beginning, the highlights look too yellow. I especially like the hair when she speaks the last line of the script. The hair is one basic color that works, with a few cool highlights.

Light Summer’s best highlight is a beige, just this side of silver. No yellow unless Nature put it there. Their best base color at maturity is the same as Biel’s here in most cases, perhaps a touch lighter.

The haircolor that most perfects Soft Summer’s skin tone is this same ash brown base, but with a taupe highlight. That is hellish hard to do, the colorists tell me, because it fades. Unless you’re prepared to put a toner on monthly or more, you’ll look like you have bleached out highlights.

However, it’s amazing how much more forgiving just a few strands are. For a woman looking for a Soft Summer browned-ash cool highlight, this has potential. Too much hair has been lightened, but there are shades in here that can be worked with. What if the colorist foiled the medium browns to protect them, and colored the rest of the head closer to the woman’s own color? So, a medium darkness ash-brown, perhaps 1-2 shades lighter than the natural color.

There would be much less of a root issue and a more natural could-have-happened-by-itself  (IMO, the best kind of beauty, the ONLY kind of beauty) appearance.

A huge part of color analysis is knowing what is NOT for you. In this photo, the woman knows to avoid yellow, orange, red, copper, darkness, trendiness, or very contrasting highlights. She’s already way ahead of most. Once the majority of the processed hair is returned to a more natural color, whether the remaining highlight is precisely taupe or not won’t matter.

Exercise Fun Discovery

You cannot tighten your butt unless your tailbone is tucked under. This brings  new understanding to Pilates, stability ball, and ballet type workouts. If you keep your glutes tight every single minute, your tailbone is always positioned to protect your back and work your rear and abs better.

Why else does it matter? Because your glutes are always your brakes. When you slip on ice, your glutes can  hold your body together and prevent a strain. When you jump sideways, it’s the glutes that stop the movement and absorb the shock, not the knees. As soon as you learn to control your lower body range of movement in everyday life (and in exercise) with the glutes, you’ll notice how much better your knees feel.

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Love smart people talking real.

Don’t like a message that sounds like it’s just telling me what it thinks I want to hear.

Macleans  May 10/2010

Every parent should read this brilliant and uncomfortable article about “The Empty Lives Of Teenage Girls”. I know these girls, the binge drinking, the kids who cut themselves. Thankfully, they don’t live at my house, but I could name them. It kills me. I’ve known them since they were 3. My high school kids have had health concerns too because of homework demands. Too easily did I recognize the plasticity of the lives they create for themselves, where 7, 13, and 17 are barely different any more.

Dr. Leonard Sax proposes much to reflect on in this interview. The girls and the boys are using these behaviors for very different reasons. Generally, the high-achieving girls are the most at risk, because of the anxiety they live with. Can you remember the crushing levels of stress in high school that our children live with? I can’t. High school wasn’t easy, socially or academically, but it wasn’t what it is now.

My answer was not to cut out Facebook, the cell phone, and the Junior Prom. It was to tell my kids to get lower grades. If homework isn’t done by 10, it doesn’t get done, that’s bedtime. The school can call me.

I allow planned days off from school gladly. Friends are amazed that I am teaching them to hide from their problems and be lazy. I don’t want them to live in a world of time clocks, me vs. The Boss, of their achievement schedule being decided by someone other than them. If their work is done at the end of the week, let them be innovative and self-determined about where and how. If they can achieve in their sleep, or on an island, they’ve won.

I don’t like to rein in a self-motivated kid and ask them to lower their performance standard, but I equally dislike watching the schools compete on the kids’ backs. They may want to prepare them for university by loading them with course work and forcing them to teach themselves, but Grade 10 isn’t university.

My family doctor made the interesting point that meditation and relaxation may work with adults. Kids do better with a physical outlet that has no competition or goal at the end. They need activity that is pure enjoyment and fun, “sizzlingly hilarious” she called it. Turns out to be hard to find. Even Irish Dance has a recital at the end.

Dr. Sax has a no-nonsense delivery that I appreciate. He isn’t wowed by statistics. He’s been quoted in Macleans previously, discussing boys, in Playtime’s Over and How To Fix Boys. You can disagree with him, but you’ll be challenged, and you’ll interact with your own kids better. As he says, our job as parents is foremost to keep them safe. Not to be their friend. Not to avoid their anger. Not to negotiate incessantly. They cannot make decisions about their safety or well-being. We’re the grownups, but our decisions are not easy ones. I found a lot to help guide me in these 3 articles, and feel more confidence in my instincts and choices.

So, grab this magazine. Worth reading too, so you can be informed at the cocktail party, is the ongoing quest for your attention by the marketers on the sites like Facebook and Google. Google knows what we’re afraid of and has learned, through algorithm, to post ads that we think are relevant (maybe more helpful than the Search results?). Facebook knows a lot more about us. If the advertisers get in, we’ll lose our relaxed time with friends. We’ll have to deflect ads, just like the real world. With 1 in 3 Canadians having an account, the pressure is strong. They’re already squirming their way in.

L’Oreal Telescopic Explosion Mascara

I want to believe that there is a perfect mascara at the drugstore. They’re up against my all-time fave, Estee Lauder Double Wear Zero Smudge, but I just cannot drop $25 for mascara.

I bought Rimmel The Max Volume Flash and found it did next to nothing, about like good ol’ Maybelline Great Wear. I returned it.

There isn’t anything I don’t like about the L’Oreal.

The little sea urchin – spiky ball applicator works really well, extremely so, to apply and separate. It’s not goopy. Others found clumping problems but I really didn’t. I could apply second coats easily. It does not move all day. It comes off easy, very easy, without needing a separate eye makeup remover. It’s $10 or less. It’s not animal-tested. It does not create ridiculously fake looking lashes at all, don’t worry about not being able to control it. Very much worth trying. Sadly, only comes in 2 colors.

Garnier Fructis Style Switch

Love Manipulator but it’s too heavy at times, for fine or very layered hair. I wanted something lighter that smoothes, shines, and separates. I no more believe in high end hair products as being so much better than high end makeup. I look for drugstore stuff and it has to be on sale.

This one is just perfect. A dry finished look. Pleasant mild aloe-ish scent. Requires only a tiny amount of product. No hold to speak of, but certainly smooths hair well, cleans up the ends, and adds good shine. It falls right between John Frieda’s Secret Weapon, a superb hair product in its own right, and Manipulator.

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Talk about freedom from the fight! This is a doozie. Takes big confidence.

Being able to recognize a trend first, then deciding if it’s for you. Most won’t be.

The Soft Seasons and Light Seasons, from 12 Season Colour Analysis, can look great in light flesh-toned lip colours. Some variation of beige-pink lipstick actually looks good, and young, on them.

That’s because the Light Seasons are SUPPOSED to look light, natural, and outdoorsy. That is their special radiance.

The Soft Seasons are ALL ABOUT “no hard lines, no strong contrasting edges or colours”. Their whole essence is about gentle warmth. Makeup that looks that way is consistent with who they already are. There should be no sudden, sharp, bright, bold, or extreme colour shifts. That feels aggressive, quite opposite to these personalities. Flesh and nude lips are in keeping with the soft colour transitions of their natural design, meaning that the colour of their hair/eyes/skin is not very contrasting or different.

On these 2 groups, the “pops of colour” that are often suggested are the reason many of them shy away from cosmetics altogether.

On True Autumn, pale beige lips are flatter than flat, just as pale beige hair is.  It ages these women by 10 years.  (At 17, with the great lip definition of youth and when the depth of the coloring is not fully developed, a sheer bronze lip works.)

On any Winter blend, lips the colour of skin are lifeless. Their dark force is reduced to a big blank. (If they’re 22, they can do an icy pink lip.)

If you’re 52, brighter lips look younger. Not darker, lighter, or deeper. Just more colour. Not clownish, not pinker. Just a bit bolder.

The ground under our feet is always unsteady. We’ve weathered enough of it to keep our ducks lined up despite.

Where do we find the look of vitality, since we can’t fool anyone by wearing their hair?

Stop trying.

Work to be rid of what brings you down inside yourself. For me, it is the arrogance of expecting.

Learn the colours that make you look old. We’re talking 10-15 years difference here.

Show the world your real self. It looks calm and secure, not jittery about the next birthday.

Deflect the marketers. They’re just doing a job. We don’t have to soak up everything they tell us. This is what the young ones cannot do, no matter how terrific the visual f/x.

Keep all the doors and windows open. Think about giving your imagination more rein than it had yesterday. It shows the house stands strong.

Renovate now and again. Add new ideas but don’t hang bling curtains.

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Eyeshadow can often go all over, even when you begin with a pressed powder type. If the brush happens to flick, you have a puff that lands in the inner corner of the eye or some other undesirable spot.

Wet a piece of tissue a bit. Just damp. If you can wring out a drop, it’s way too wet and the eyeshadow will get muddy. The texture should go on exactly the same as without the tissue, just stick to the brush better. I just touch the tissue to a drop of water in the sink.

Run your eyehadow brush over the tissue once or twice first, just enough to barely moisten the bristles. Now pick up the eyeshadow in the pan and the usual way, and apply your eyeshadow as usual.

Eyeshadow goes on with the same colour and consistency but behaves itself. Simple, fast, clean, and precise. Makes a surprising difference.

The idea of applying eyeshadow as wet or dry always seemed messy to me. It’s not real-world advice that I can figure out. How do you wet the stuff? in the pan? on your hand? with the brush, which makes a goopy mess of the container? and then goes on all smeary? does someone have time for this?

Here, the pan stays intact, the application is clean, the product sticks to the brush, and it takes 3 seconds or less. There are no random roaming clouds to mess up the real estate and take 5 extra minutes to clean up.

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Plus, it takes time I don’t want to spend on makeup.

Concealer is painted on with an angled eyeshadow brush, a narrow lipstick brush, or any brush that lets you be exact. That’s because the line where the shadow is and isn’t is very defined.  If you get the concealer on the lighter skin as well as the shadowed skin, as you would with fingertips, the whole effect is dulled, if not reversed.

I use Clinique All About Eyes Light Neutral.

I give it a few minutes to set.

The ongoing debate about which goes on first, the concealer or the foundation?

I say concealer, because

• once they set, the good ones stay in place quite well
• they merge better with foundation to become a blended shade if the foundation goes on after
• I use as little as I can in the places I apply it, and would still apply it to the same places if I were to use it after foundation
• it’s just what I like but the other way works too

I apply foundation with a brush. (see Why You Need A Foudation Brush to learn why I find it so much better than any other method.)

Work around the concealer first.

If you have areas with large pores (chin, sides of nose, forehead between brows, wherever), drive the foundation brush into them end on about 5 times (I use a conical shaped brush for this, the Teint Precision brush from Lise Watier that you can see in 3 Great Makeup Brushes From Lise Watier).Finish with a light upwards slick to blend.

Finally, move quickly with 3-4 airbrushes over the concealer, trying hard to keep it where it is, and blending in the direction of the dark areas, not out onto the lighter skin or you defeat the purpose.

Use your fingertip to gently blend the concealer one last time, with a floating swipe, keeping it on the darker skin.

Let the layer coming next serve to blend the one before. It also keeps the hands off the face, a habit that I find messy and germy.

Eyeliner is done the same way.

• apply the eyeliner all around where there are eyelashes
• then apply the light eyeshadow over the whole lid
• then the medium colour wherever you put it, AND as a layer-line over the bottom eyeliner using a small, flat-ended brush
• then the darker colour, FIRST as a soft layer-line over the top eyeliner till the edges are all blurred, and then however you use it to contour

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© 2007–2010, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

After the last thing is done, a cotton swab, a magnifying mirror, and a soft brush clean up sprinkles and smudges. Everyone does this, right?

A glow is nice but doing it with shimmer, especially in several places, looks real and flattering if you’re under 40 or Bobbi Brown is your permanent house guest.

Try a moisturizer (CeraVe or something a little heavier so it doesn’t soak in too fast).

• do your hands; with what’s left on the fingertips,
• slick your eyebrows up
• tap some in a wide area on your upper cheekbones where the outer eye wrinkles are (stay ½” from the lash margin and don’t come closer to the center than the halfway line through the pupil) (I do this several times a day)
• extend a little down on the upper outer cheek to make a moist glow
• touch the inner corner of the eye for the same glow without frost (you’ve already put concealer here to make this area lighter, but the concealer covers a much wider area if the shadow is wide)
• touch the bow in the upper lip if you like (ditto about the concealer)

Makeup won’t move if you tap, don’t smear, right over the powder.

Lines are eased and the whole face looks believably moist just by applying a bit to key areas.

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I don’t know a single woman over 40 who would go back to 20. But few of us are showing the world our real selves. We got distracted in an over-marketed world and forgot that we’re fine the way we are.

Sigourney Weaver looks easy and real, better now than she ever has. She hasn’t succumbed to the blonde highlights and the injections. It’s so much more relaxing to be around than the supernatural way she used to look. This woman looks intelligent and in control of her world. She also shows off the Autumn Season’ s ability to exactly match hair and eye colour.

Young costumes on older women set up a conflict. To resolve it, the viewer has to work. Who wants more work? They work every time they hear music they don’t like, a light turns red, cell phones with 65 buttons. People are attracted to ease and what feels good.

I used to do dress like my kids. I don’t think it was nervousness about age so much as I liked the clothes. I still like them. Hoodies, nylon pants, workout clothes especially, layered tops, they’re comfortable.

People probably thought : What is she saying about herself? That she can still be fun? Is she trying to look younger… does that mean she worries about looking old?  Am I supposed to think something or notice something? Am I supposed to react to this?

I have realized that it was hard to look at. It felt uncomfortable to people. You can’t go by the compliments. People want to say nice things and they’ll find a reason to. Hearing “your eyeliner is crazy” or “blonde hair looks dull and flat on you” is not likely to happen, even if it should.

I hear hairstylists say that women need lighter hair as they mature. I don’t buy it. Maybe a shade or two lighter to soften the effect on the skin (so Sally Field’s skin is better with a medium-dark brown these days, instead of black-brown), but there are too many yellow chunks and stripes walking around. When the colorist stands back and looks at the head they just worked on, do they just look at the hair or the face that has to wear it? Does anyone else find these stripes jarring or aging?

And this just looks like a bad wig.

We have to police ourselves or lose our credibility. That’s a big price to pay, especially when we can have it so easily. It’s the gift that comes with Over 40. It could be almost automatic.

Give them a reason to keep looking by making it look easy and feel good. Life is so much simpler for everyone when we have nothing to prove. That’s a battle best left to the young.

Cover grey if grey doesn’t feel right but don’t look like you worked too hard to change anything. Aging can be scary, but it can be beautiful and powerful.

Wear makeup that looks believable so people don’t feel forced to react to it. Turquoise eyeliner requires a reaction even if you’re 30. Makeup should be your supporting cast, but never steals center stage.

Tell the world who you really are. Look like you really look.

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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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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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Cool Winter is the equivalent of True Winter. The colors are clear (meaning not grayed or browned; even the gray is sharp and clean) and cooled with blue. There is no warmth in these colors. This is fascinating skin when it wears black because the skin takes on a milky translucency and the flaws seem to vanish.

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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In the case of Clear Spring (Sci\ART’s Bright Spring), the entire palette is brighter and bluer than the other Spring color schemes. Makeup that is too peachy will not work. It will appear pale and too orange. Lip colors need to be more vivid as red-orange and blue-pinks.

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

I get a lot of emails from women who know they’re Winter but don’t know which one. Good on them to know that there are 3 versions of each season. The Clear Winter (Sci\ART’s Bright Winter) is the bridge to Spring. That means that it still respects the deep, clear, dark colors of all Winters, and is predominantly cool, but it is just slightly warmed by yellow.

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.

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Edit June 23/10 – Just a note to be sure everyone knows that this Makeup Model series of articles was posted before I became a Color Analyst. The articles have been very popular, so I leave them up, but the makeup recommendations are not necessarily those I’d make today. For anyone interested in more accurate Season and color advice, do look at 12blueprints.com or join the 12 Blueprints Fan Club on Facebook.

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.

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

Edit June 23/10 – Just a note to be sure everyone knows that this Makeup Model series of articles was posted before I became a Color Analyst. The articles have been very popular, so I leave them up, but the makeup recommendations are not necessarily those I’d make today. For anyone interested in more accurate Season and color advice, do look at 12blueprints.com or join the 12 Blueprints Fan Club on Facebook.

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.