RSSMakeup Model : Cool Summer
March 7, 2009
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.
Your coloring is very cool. Once you resist the temptation to follow the crowd with golden hair, and allow your hair to have its natural silvery-gray-blond color, you will never look better. These women seem few and far between in the real world, maybe because so many are choosing the wrong, warm hair color.
You look horrible in golden brown, but nobody can carry off a muted fuchsia better than you can. You look terrific in blues and soft blue-purple colors.
Your lip and cheek colors comes from the dusty pink-purple colors found in lilacs.
You’re not particularly pale. Your coloring is of a medium intensity in hair and eye color and the two blend together. This is a gorgeous season, with pink veering to blue, and greys that are almost silver. Your most flattering eye makeup is mushroom brown and blue-type greys.
Look at how much better Farrah Fawcett looks in grey-blond (ash) hair. The very yellow hair doesn’t bring out the flush in her skin and lips nearly as well.
Linda Evans looks great in grey-blond hair and will look great in silvery grey hair, as Paul Newman did.
The makeup reminds me of these shades,
Denise Richards cannot pull off yellow hair
but Paris Hilton, a Light Spring, was made for it.
Looks at this makeup next time you’re shopping.
Lipstick: Clinique Glosswear Stellar Plum.
Blush: Bobbi Brown Soft Pink; NARS Outlaw.
Eyeliner: Clinique Quickliner Smoky Taupe; Estee Lauder Automatic Eye Pencil Duo Plum Grey.
Eyes: Bobbi Brown Slate and Heather ; MAC Scene.
Eye hilite : Bobbi Brown Shell.
Mascara: Dark Charcoal.
Here’s another Cool Summer. The grayer the hair gets, the better the skin looks.
For those of you uncertain about what Cool Summer means, you can learn more about Color Analysis and figure out your own season at Pretty Your World.
Comments
18 Responses to “Makeup Model : Cool Summer”
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Hallo Christine,
your analysis of the cool summer type is extremely interesting to me because I was once diagnosed to be a cool summer myself. But I must admit I am also confused. I don’t have grey hair, nor ash blonde hair. But I constantly have to fight against colors making me look grey. I was convinced I was some sort of winter because I have light olive skin color and I thought that I needed bright contrasts and clear colors to avoid the “greying” effect. My hair is ash brown not very dark and I was a mousy blonde as a child. I was complimented when wearing pure white and that is why I thought I was a winter, but I have a tendency to wear lots of lavender. The wrong shade of lavender however easily brings out my dark circles under eyes. Grey on the other end is good in every shades for me, which makes me think I might actually be a cool summer.
What I wanted to ask you is: apart from the very fair ash blonde models that you referred to here, can you figure darker haired people with a grayish olive fair skin being cool summers?
Thank you very much for your help!
Hi, Spirilla,
The problem with trying to use hair and eye colour to figure out your coloring or season is that there is just too much variability among human beings. Within any season, maybe Winter most of all, hair and eyes can be any colour. Skin colour is very misleading because there are overtones and undertones and the exact shade of skin doesn’t matter so much. What really matters is how the skin RESPONDS to the colour you wear.
I understand that we have learned to take hair and eye colour into account. It seems intuitive to do so because they are such noticeable blocks of color. But believe me when I tell you that it is ALL and ONLY about how your SKIN reacts to colour. Your hair and eyes will work automatically (unless you fooled with your hair colour and mismatched it to your skin).
Skin reaction is a hard thing for people to see in themselves and most people don’t have access to the shades of each colour that are used in PCA. The drapes are not really colours you might wear. They are designed to cause a colour reaction in the skin.
Because you have had so much difficulty finding a pattern in the colours that work and don’t work for you, you are probably not a pure season. If you are one of the blends between 2 seasons, and if you are close to the halfway point between 2 seasons, you can be hard to sort out. But it CAN be done!
I would love to help you. Lora at http://www.prettyyourworld.com is very very good at looking at photos, as many as you possibly can send, and guiding people to their season. It’s a great option for people who can’t be PCA’d in person.
Thank you very much for answering me. I had been thinking of consulting Lora, but actually my “cool summer” diagnosis was reached by means of photos and I don’t think I trust the photos anymore for color analysis.
The problem with them is that the digital photos veer colors quite consistently, which is obvious to anyone taking photos of flowers. But then, also different monitors display colors in different ways, this difference might be subtle but in my opinion interfeeres too heavily with the final result of a color analysis.
I agree with the point you make though and will try to go on looking for what complements my skintone properly, without taking in much consideration hair and eye colors. It’s a difficult struggle though, because I have to avoid powdered tones on one side and overimposing vivid colors on the other. What’s left is a fine trail of cool colors, both muted and clear, with some high contrasting neutrals that work well.
The more people I analyze, the more makeup I see that may apply to these groups. As a way of cataloging it, and maybe being useful to someone, I’ll add it as a comment to this post.
The Cool Summer is known to me as the True Summer.
In no particular order,
-Clinique – lip – Water Violet
– eye – Quickliner Smoky Brown and Slate
- Lancome – Provocative lip
– eye – Optic and Mocchacino
– eyeliner – Gris Fume – limited, but good if you can find it, a blue-toned soft grey for the lighter women
- EL – blush – Fresh Plum
- for darker women, Annabelle lip 010 Plum Passion
- worth a try, Jane Romantic Rose lip
Got all the above stuff and it really does look great. The charcoal mascara was the hardest to find but Lancome has it – my eyes immediately cleared up and the whites became white like never before.
I need some lipstick suggestions – the stellar plum gloss is fine – but I need a REAL lipstick too – medium intensity in our range. Any suggestions?
Hey, Searcy,
I’m glad you bought makeup you really like! True Summer is perhaps the hardest season to buy makeup for. The cool colours are too blue and look bruised. Everything else is too browned or peached.
Glad you asked about Cool Summer. Tomorrow’s article is about a new lipstick that I find ravishing and wonderful. It’s Maybelline’s Color Sensational. True Summer women range from very fair to quite dark. I don’t know which you are, but I’ll name a few in this line that might work :
Pink Quartz, Madison Mauve, Pink Wink, Pink Me Up, Born With It if you like light, perhaps On The Mauve (bit grey) and Plaza Pink (touch warm). I recently looked at Jane Lipkick in Romantic Rose and liked it.
In blush, Revlon Wine With Everything might work on a True Summer, though haven’t tested it.
L’Oreal has a few True Summer pink-mauves, like Saucy Mauve.
Good luck!
To try:
Lancome Photogenic foundation in Bisque 2.
For the “almost-Winter” Summer, look at these dark ash shades,
http://myvintagevogue.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Loretta_Young.68154233_large.jpg
and the one here entitled Delightful Jaclyn
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.libreopinion.com/members/charliesangels/JaclynSmithBreckShampoo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.libreopinion.com/members/charliesangels/jaclyn_gallery.html&usg=__ly-k09j6IAFBiUxWHTm6a4RB_YA=&h=311&w=225&sz=12&hl=en&start=43&sig2=J4z4ZmRrPIIyuF1EqO3K-A&um=1&tbnid=dUP4WFwvxZYVoM:&tbnh=117&tbnw=85&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djaclyn%2Bsmith%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D40%26um%3D1&ei=SujgSpDrBqbGNciS2IoK
I have a feeling that I might be this kind of dark almost winter cool summer and I wonder if this is the season that looks good in greyed muted subdued shades.
How can I detect whether I’m a summer or a winter? Draping myself in black would perhaps sort things out?
Aurelia,
These are very difficult if the person is quite dark. Often, there is some ability to wear black. For me, I find Winter’s blackened-royal blue and very strong green more telling than black. They are too powerful and overwhelm the person completely. I also look at the pattern in the eyes to see if there’s any Winter. For the women I’ve seen, regardless of how dark the hair, they have a Summer eye pattern.
If you’re a Summer, you would wear the same shades as any Summer. They are greyed relative to other colours, but they are not all Queen Mother dusty cornflower blues. There are some shockingly pretty roses and blues in there. These women can wear black, but the trick is in the way they wear it. If the fabric is soft or sheer, with a rose or blue large colour block like a shell top or scarf, and some delicate details, like lacy silver jewelry, black is quite ok (though dark grey is better). This woman is often like Jaclyn Smith. She does seem dark, but she lacks the hard dark dramatic edge of Kate Jackson. She is also feminine, with large round eyes, soft spoken, soothing manner, and doesn’t look good at all when hair is darkened (nor can they do highlights, though; too much Winter-ness for that).
In the Sci\ART system, there is no separate Season for the Winter-ish Summers. They look fabulous in the darker colours of the True Summer palette, but it’s still True Summer. Other analysis companies make a separate Season provision for this group. They certainly have a different look than the lighter, more traditional True Summers, but the skin tone which is what we care about most, responds to colours in much the same way.
Having always been an uncomfortable winter, I have discovered that i am a winterish summer and I am loving the softer colours!
My challenge is hair colour: At age 37, the top and temples of my hair are over 50% grey – I noticed my first grey hairs at age 15. I colour my hair an ashy brown but find that it fades to a more yellowy brown and that I become self conscious about my roots after about 2 weeks. Hairdressers solution is highlights to soften the contrast of the re growth, but highlights are also often yellowish and wash my skin out. Is there any solution to softening the obvious regrowth? I am tempted to just let nature do its thing and go grey.
Jane,
If there ever was a Season that looked great in grey, it’s True Summer. Like Paul Newman, they were made for it. If you’re not ready to do grey, try a greyer ash. Transitions are always difficult because you have to keep adjusting what you’re used to.
Can you see this page?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chatham-ON/12-Blueprints-Colour-Analysis/156368781974?ref=nf
Scroll down to Jaclyn Smith’s picture on the wall post. Nice grey-brown, no weird complicated multicolour effects. Yellow in the hair certainly does throw a lot of red flush into most True Summer’s face, unless Nature designed you that way.
Though some Summers can do highlights quite well, I have yet to see it flatter darker haired summers.
Thanks so much for your input, Christine!
If I were to go grey, would my makeup and clothing colours need to be adjusted at all to account for the lighter hair?
Jane,
This is one of those questions, and there are many in PCA, that will depend on the person. The tendency is to cool and soften a touch with age, though for many people, that still means the same season. A True Summer can’t get any cooler or softer.
You might choose more greys from your palette. Repeating the hair colour is one of the most successful clothing guidelines, especially for big items like coats and shoes. Your makeup may also become grayer. If your grey hair is less dark than your previous colour, you might also move towards the lighter colours, but still in your original palette.
Can someone be a True Summer without a deeper, more medium-toned complexion?
Ashley,
Sure. In women, the complexion is often incredibly fair. What are you thinking about here?
I think my little sister is a one; she looks very, very muted and is most definitely cool; but her skin is quite light, and I had read that Cool Summers are more medium in depth.