You are so welcome, consider it part of my training !

That’s what I’ll be doing these next couple of months, training, getting a certification, learning a bit more, and wrapping up some old stuff so I can move on.

You know my curiosity is going to get the better of me, and I’ll be looking at those 4-season palettes and makeup in no time… I hope to find an opportunity in the next few weeks and will let you know.

These days I love a soft neutral red lipstick (my idea of a yellowed true red that is a bit mellow, not too bright), but can never find one. I found a way to create the effect by mixing a light sweep of a mauve brown lipstick with a sheer clear plum or burgundy. It looks great with that Pink Truffle Bobbi Brown cream blush we talked about before.

Talk to you soon and go be beautiful in your Summer colors!

I was looking at the list of colors for Soft Summer in the CMB 1991 book and noticed there are no icy colors, compared to the same palette in the CMC book. Rather interesting…

One of the nice things about looking at the 4 palettes in C.J.’s book is that one get’s this nice sense of tonal differences between the seasons. I think this is also a strong point of the SCI\Art 12-palette system, I only wished I could see all their palettes. And I would love to make a side-by-side comparison of SCI\Art and CMC on women of all 12 seasonal types. Wishful thinking…

By the way, I have a feeling SCI\Art’s Soft Summer palette might work well for you. In the book, it sounds very similar to the CMB’s 1991 palette, but it has additional colors (65 in total, vs. 48 in CMB). The full palette list in the back of the CMB book does include some of the colors in the 4-season Summer palette that are not part of CMC’s Soft and Cool Summer palettes (raspberry, blue-red [not in Soft Summer palette], watermelon, deep rose, burgundy, light lemon yellow, cadet blue, periwinkle, medium blue).

The one thing though is that the SCI\Art color books don’t show the color names, which is fine to match colors, but I love to have colors play in my mind, and having a name does help. The makeup colors suggested for each type are also pretty much the same as in the 1991 CMB book. I was also looking on Lora Alexander’s site, her description of Soft Summer colors sounds very much like your best colors.

I would agree that Irenee’s system might work a lot better by working with her in an interactive way. I got my detailed color book that she made for me after we spoke over the phone, while looking at the questionnaire, color ovals, etc., on the website as we went. She does have an intimate knowledge of color that does go outside the box. I was reading in her different materials, she began developing her color system in 1965, and copyrighted her inter-season concept in 1978. One thing to take into account with her palettes is that colors are included to have different functions, and that will also depend on individual characteristics. It is probably also the case with other systems, but perhaps not so explicit.

Kristina, you were asking about my coloring when I was younger. I think I was a bit cooler in my teens and early 20’s. My black hair was shinnier and had a slight blue cast to it. I remember I was a big fan of black patent leather shoes. I am 47 now, no gray hair yet, but my hair is more soft black, and I now prefer soft black accessories also. I may have been a cooler season before, or more likely, I could do Clear Winter even better back then. When I think back about what I used to wear, it was all-out clear winter brightness and high contrast, and I was able to go into the cooler colors of Clear Winter, which now, sometimes I can, and sometimes not so much. My skintone should be close to MAC NC45, and with softer black hair now, I seem to prefer medium contrast these days.

(OK, this is going to be another long one, I tried to list the colors in comparison to CMC’s palettes to have a better sense.)

Really a trip down memory lane and so pleasant to get re-acquainted with Carole Jackson’s book. As we had discussed, it seems that Summer in the 4-season system is a combination of the Summer types in the 12-palette CMB/CMC system (I will focus mainly on Soft and Cool Summer). There are fewer colors (only 30), compared to the 48 in CMB (1991) and the 42 in CMC.

>>>Colors common to the 4-season Summer palette, and to Cools and Softs in CMC:
- Sky blue
- Soft white

>>>Colors common to the 4-season Summer palette, and to all Summers in CMC:
- Powder pink
- Orchid
- Soft fuchsia
- Lavender

>>>Colors in the 4-season palette and in CMC’s Soft palette:
- Cocoa
- Rose-brown
- Charcoal blue-gray
- Grayed navy (same as Light navy?)
- Pastel blue-green (same as Verbena?)

>>>Colors in the 4-season palette and in CMC’s Cool palette:
- Rose beige
- Light (blue) gray
- Rose pink
- Pastel aqua (same as Light aqua?)
- Blue-greens
- Blue-red

Soft Summer colors not included in the 4-season Summer palette (there may be similar colors by a different name, but it is not easy to say for sure):
- Charcoal
- Pewter
- Taupe
- Stone
- Natural beige
- Chocolate
- Sage
- Grey-green
- Turquoise
- Emerald turquoise
- Spruce
- Mint
- Jade
- Teal
- Light periwinkle
- Sapphire
- Soft violet
- Purple
- Damson
- Blush pink
- Claret
- Geranium
- Shell

Cool Summer colors not included in the 4-season Summer palette:
- Taupe
- Pewter
- Medium gray
- Charcoal
- Black
- Dark navy
- Royal blue
- Sapphire
- Bright periwinkle
- Light periwinkle
- Duck egg
- Icy blue
- Icy green
- Teal
- Light teal
- Pine
- Spruce
- Hot pink
- Baby pink
- Cassis
- Purple

Colors common to all Summers in CMC, but not included in the 4-season Summer palette:
- Eau de nil
- Sea green
- Icy gray
- Bluebell
- Icy pink
- Icy violet
- Rose ??
- Amethyst

>>>Colors in the 4-season Summer palette, but not in CMC’s Soft Summer or Cool Summer palettes:
- Raspberry (in Deep and Clear Winter’s palettes)
- Plum (in Deep and Clear Winter’s palettes)
- Mauve
- Deep rose
- Pastel pink (in Light Summer palette, but looks different)
- Burgundy (in Deep Winter palette)
- Watermelon (all the Springs in CMC)
- Light lemon yellow (in Clear palette?)
- Medium blue (but could be the same as Cornflower in Light and Cool palettes?)
- Powder blue (in Deep and Clear Winter’s palettes)
- Periwinkle (in Deep and Clear Winter’s palettes)
- Cadet blue

Kristina, take a look at the colors excluded from the Soft and Cool Summer palettes in the 4-season palette. Are these colors that you want to keep in some capacity (away from face, accents, etc.)? You may choose either the Soft or Cool Summer palettes and add colors from the other palette (and from the 4-season palette) that you think you should keep, but I am inclined to think the 4-season palette at least works for you, and it does include some CMC Clear and Deep Winter colors that we had speculated you might be able to wear. The description of Summer on pages 48-9 of C.J.’s book also has interesting insights that sound so very you.

That 16-palette system is making more and more sense to me…

Consider also the Soft Summer palette in the 1991 CMB book. It could also work (but is it still available??).

The book is here, so I’m going to take a look and will comment later today.

It is getting interesting-er by the minute!

One of the things I noticed is that Irenee’s descriptions of typical skintones for the different types is a bit different from CMB’s and also from SCI\Art’s, which is basically the exact same descriptions as in CMB (1991). I am all interested in skintones these days, so I’ll be studying that a bit more to see if I an understand these differences, or perhaps at close inspection they are not that different.

When I look at CMB’s and CMC’s descriptions under Soft Summer and Cool Summer, it sounds more how I imagined you from your descriptions:
- Soft Summer: slightly pink tone, blushes easily (CMC) — but it also mentions little contrast between eye, hair and skin tone, although I think that could be stretched a bit depending on hair and eye color; ivory, beige (CMB 1991)
- Cool Summer: skin tone has a softness to it and pink undertones (CMC); soft pink, beige, rose beige (CMB 1991)

but then again, the Winter skintone descriptions could also fit, especially Clear Winter:
- Deep Winter: porcelain, olive, black with slight blue tinge (CMC); black, cool brown, olive, cool beige (CMB 1991)
-Clear Winter: porcelain skin with a pink tone to it, cool black skin (CMC); porcelain, ivory, beige, clear olive (CMB 1991)

The other thing that I am thinking is whether your eyes have that clear/bright quality of Clear Winters, although that might not be the deciding factor, and Clear Winter eyes, green/blue/violet/hazel/clear brown, can have a darkness to them. Soft Summer eyes are described as having more of a soft/muted, smoky quality, and to often change color.

You had mentioned that Winter colors were too intense/sharp/dark for your coloring, and that Soft Summer in the CMC book looked a bit too muted/grayed down, and that the Summer colors in Carole Jackson’s book were the ones that seemed right and looked great on you. I still don’t have the 4-season CMB book, but I was looking in the 1991 CMB book, the Soft Summer palette on page 45 is what I imagine your best colors to be like: the medium blues, blue-greens, pinks, roses, reds, that are a bit muted compared to winter colors, but still have an elegant intensity to them, not at all pale or light, or overly muted. The neutrals and base colors also seem to be good ones, especially if you look at the full list in the back of the book. Compare that to the Clear or Deep Winter palettes, and see what you think.

It could be that you are indeed a Winter, or it could be that you were a Winter when you had fewer silver/ash and warm brown strands. It is possible, I think, to sometimes go to a lighter type within the same season, or to a lighter and more muted type in another season when gray hair appears (as we had talked about before, Deep Winter to Soft Summer, Clear Winter to Cool Summer, and possibly other transitions). It is also possible you are still a Winter, perhaps will be a bona fide Summer one day, but for now all you need is to adjust your contrast levels and such when wearing Winter colors.

Thank you so much for your thorough comment!
No, what put me in Winter’s category was my fair skin (I also checked pale skin in Autumn and light porcelain skin in Summer), a slight widow’s peak, dark eyes and dark eyebrows. I checked Autumn’s warm brown hair, since one is supposed to describe the colors one had in one’s “prime”, and curly hair in Summer’s homebase.
The more I think about this, the more confused I seem to get. I mailed Irenee my question above while waiting for your reply, and she wrote back very quickly “Yes, sounds right, send me a picture”. Which I did, but I haven’t heard back after that. (Maybe she’s as confused as I am…)
I didn’t have a single trait in the Balanced Soft category. Not one.It was the only category where I couldn’t tick a single box.
About chroma and clarity I’m afraid I’m much too ignorant in those subjects to make an intelligent comment. What you write sounds logical though. I’m going to have to go through your reply a few times to understand it better.
I’m sorry I’m pressed for time, so I can’t elaborate further. I’ll be back shortly. Be well!

Interesting… in a comment a few days ago, I mentioned you might be able to borrow some Deep and Clear Winter colors, You may remember from the “Letting things be easy” thread, I first thought you were what Irenee calls a neutral-cool Balanced Intense or Clear (a Clear Winter), as your struggles seemed so much like mine. Over time, with additional information, I am (still…) leaning more toward Soft Summer (perhaps mixed with Cool Summer) in the 12-palette system, or simply a Summer in the 4-season system, given your strong preference for the softer, less intense Summer colors, compared to Winter colors.

It is possible that the choices for hair color in the questionnaire immediately put you in the Winter/Balanced-Clear section, while your hair color(s) might be softer than your base color indicates. If this is something that should be corrected for, it might flip back your clear vs. soft results.

I’ll share some of the things I’ve been thinking about regarding my own colors, as some of these seem to affect the way I wear them:

I have little doubt that Clear Winter is where I belong in the 12-palette system, but was still intrigued by my connection to Cool Summer that I mentioned before. Why did I have this feeling of being a bit softer than I imagined a Clear Winter would be? After I did my questionnaire, I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Irenee to go over it again and discuss my best colors. According to her system, I am a “Balanced Intense/Cool-Neutral”, which is the equivalent of Clear Winter in the CMB system. I also had some colors on the “balanced soft” side, and a few others elsewhere. I think this is where individual characteristics come into play, and certain colors that are “ouside” of one’s palette may still have some “chemistry” with one’s personal coloring (I am also trying to learn a bit more about skin overtones and undertones, and how different pigment mixes lead to them being cool, warm or neutral).

We concluded that I did medium contrast best, as opposed to high contrast, and that helped a few things fall into place for me. I thought I ought to do high contrast well, but always preferred medium contrast. I also am not likely to wear the very bright and lighter colors in my palette as my best/near the face colors, but instead, in prints, where they look wonderful in small amounts, or as small accents.

Just as temperature and hue have a neutral point and various degrees of warm and cool, and depth or value also has a medium point between light and dark, so does intensity or chroma, I.e., there is a neutral point between clear and muted, and everything in between. For me, what works are the Clear Winter colors (better than any other palette), with the darker colors (my hair is soft black) and medium clear (or just, just slightly muted) colors being my best ones (for example, emerald green, emerald turquoise and a deep/bright periwinkle). My best contrast is a medium contrast between my dark and my medium-clear colors, or even a low contrast between my dark colors. Very bright and lighter colors are not my best colors, but are the ones I look for in a print, mixed with medium and dark colors. That is my way of doing High contrast, by having all kinds of contrast going on a print. Bright colors as accents in small amounts also work well.

Clears and Softs have as their predominant characteristic chroma or intensity, Clear colors having high chroma, and Soft colors having low chroma. Just as Clears may do high and/or medium contrast, Softs can do low and medium contrast, and perhaps also a medium-high contrast between their more extreme colors, say chocolate and ivory. Again, this is probably where individual characteristics come into play, so that our best color contrasts in clothing mimic the contrast in our personal coloring, and so another Clear Winter will use their colors in a way that is different from mine. In conclusion, my issue with softness was in fact an issue of contrast in color combinations.

Lora Alexander sent me some notes on Clear Winters some time ago, and just now I am appreciating some of the things I glossed over before. It is possible she has more on contrast in her book “Color Revival”, which I hope to read soon, after the few I’m juggling at the moment.

Wow, your career move sounds very exciting. Women, color, new beginnings… Judging from all the help you’ve given me on this blog, I’d say that must be the ultimate career for you, it will fit you perfectly. Again, good luck! I think it’s very brave to do what you’re about to do.
Yes, I agree with your thoughts on Irenee’s concept. Nothing states that you have to be an inter-season. (She stil hasn’t replied, by the way.) I’ll have a look again and see if anything new hits me. Have you gotten your new copy of CMB yet?
I’m thinking a lot about color these days, not only my own but thaat of other persons as well. My youngest daughter for example, she would be a hard nut to crack: very, very pale fair skin with pale rosy cheeks and which tans pretty easily into golden, medium brown hair with lots of ginger and auburn, amber eyes – and black eyebrows and lashes. By first glance one would think some kind of Autumn, but peach doesn’t suit her and she looks great in watermelon, dark rose pink and violets. So I’m thinking some kind of Spring or Summer. My oldest daughter is fairly easy, with her very pale olive skin (cool, no warmth at all), dark brown hair with red and wine highlights, dark green eyes with a sunburst of mahogany. She’d be the perfect Deep, although she has a very soft quality to her look as well… DH on the other hand has rosy skin, silvery salt-and-pepper hair, very dark eyebrows and lashes, and clear blue-green eyes. The typical Clear Winter. Or Cool Winter. Or… Color is truly fascinating – and quite addictive, wouldn’t you say?

I was looking at Irenee’s site just now, and it struck me, her system is probably a 16-palette system also. There is nothing to say that one has to be one of the 12 inter-seasons. One may also simply belong in one of the 4 homebases (seasons), without further complication. It is also quite amazing that she came out with the inter-season or balanced season concept as early as the early eighties.

I think it’s going to be a wonderful Spring and “Summer”!

I believe you are very right at this point to trust your observations, your intuition, your thinking, and that wonderful feeling of being in just the right colors for you. And have some fun dreaming up the wonderful combinations you can create with your favorite colors.

I was browsing through the SCI\Art book, and it seems to me their true seasons are more the equivalent of CMB’s 12-palette Cools (Cool Winter and Cool Summer) and Warms (Warm Spring and Warm Autumn), rather than of the original 4 seasons. It is difficult to assess though, as the book does not show the color palettes, but, instead, an image depicting the overall color feel for a given type, and a listing/description of some of its colors and best combinations. It is all very interesting, and I hope to learn more about the SCI\Art system at some point. I also don’t have Carole Jackson’s book in front of me as I write, it’s been quite a few years since I last saw the 4 seasons in her book.

I would agree with you on the topic of hair and eye color. Actually, for me, it is how the connection with season is presented. I would agree that the draping process seeks to find the colors that will be in harmony with skintone. However, it is also true that a greater percentage of Deeps than of Lights have black or dark brown hair, ditto for Warms vs. Cools having auburn hair, and for Cools vs. Warms having silver or ashy hair. The SCI\Art book has the same descriptions of typical skintone, eye, and natural hair color as the 12-palette 1991 CMB book, which is kind of reassuring, I guess. It also mentions brown as a typical eye color for Soft Summers, which the CMB book does not.

I truly appreciate your kind words. They were especially important to me at this time, as I am contemplating a career change, there is a certain non-profit organization here I would like to work with…

http://www.agreenertea.com/the-season-naming-systems/

What I started to think, as you did too, was what to do about the people who have connections within their own season, say for example, a number of characteristics from the different Summer types–what are they? If it is too cumbersome to add all sorts of additional categories and combinations to the 12-palette system, might they be better represented by the original 4-season system–as you suggest, a 16-palette system?

It seems the original system was ditched too much in a hurry, but there must be a reason why people continue to find it useful. If you ever do the draping with CMB in Sweden, you could perhaps try to focus also on the colors in the original book to test this for yourself. The description certainly seems to fit you better than any one of the Summer types in CMC.