Why would this subject need to be addressed?
Some analysts are putting clients in seasons that are too light or bright for them thinking they are clearing their client’s complexion. But if it isn’t the client’s correct season, their appearance will pay the price by creating other negative optical effects.
I have seen clients draped as a True Spring, Bright Spring, or Light Spring season because the analyst interpreted the light effects as clearing the complexion. We’ve seen Bright Winters told they were Bright Springs and Light Summers being draped as Light Springs, etc. Yes, they may have needed a little of the lightness or brightness that the Spring season’s influence has to offer, but their personal tone was not warm enough to handle being a warm or warm neutral.
Until I started writing this series of articles, I thought I knew what “clearing the complexion” meant during the draping process. I’ve said it to clients and students many times. But having to explain it made me realize that I haven’t been totally certain about its definition.
Let’s look at what some of the pioneers of color analysis have said about the subject.
Bernice Kentner – Color Me A Season
“Right color clarifies the complexion. Wrong colors make your complexion look pale, sallow, or muddy.”
Kathryn Kalisz – Sci\ART
In Kathryn’s training manual, she writes that when we see optical effects of harmonizing colors, “there is a smoothing of the complexion.” But she doesn’t say what that really is. She also says that when we see optical effects of opposing colors, “the complexion can appear grayish, dull, sallow or muddy.”
Ok, gray skin definitely doesn’t sound good. So clearing the complexion of gray, dull, sallow, or muddy-looking skin makes sense.
Even though the definition of clearing the complexion has been somewhat obscure, and not even agreed upon, analysts have been doing it all along by determining which drape is better of the two being compared. It’s not just which drape makes the client look prettiest, it is about perfecting their skin, making the skin look firm and tight, and defining their facial features, and more.
Let’s say a client has acne or Rosacea. Understandably, that person wants to make it less noticeable. In reality, the client does have redness. That is why it is important for the analyst to study a client’s face in the neutral gray cape and cap – to determine how much redness is normal. The goal is to not intensify the redness, but not to totally erase it either. If an analyst puts on a drape color that is too light for the client, it can lighten the face and seem to erase the redness. But the price being paid is that all you can see are the client’s eyes. The bottom half of their face seems to disappear and blend with the drape. Who wants to look at half a face?
In my opinion, clearing of the complexion really only happens when we are comparing two drapes. One drape will have a negative effect on the skin, the better one will clear the negative effect. What these effects are varies with each client. We are not clearing the complexion of imperfections that are native to the face.
When a person is wearing one of their best colors, a viewer’s gaze will go directly to their eyes, which bypasses the imperfections. The right color drape is in harmony with the redness, or imperfections, so it won’t magnify it. We see the person, not the redness. This is as it should be.
If an analyst can’t explain to you why she is choosing one drape over another, other than you look young, perky, and bright, she isn’t really reading the drapes for all the information they contain to come to an accurate result.
Note: An upcoming article is titled, “What’s in a Drape?” I will discuss many of the optical effects that occur during a draping and how analysts use that information to base their decisions to determine a seasonal tone.
Thanks for the great article Terry! I wonder if you could address the question of the neutral colors in the different seasons (i.e. NOT the neutral seasons, but the neutral colors that each seasons has like grays, navies, taupes etc.). Do these neutral colors also clear the skin? Do they flatter just as much as the “color-colors”? Because I personally do not find this to be true in my case.
Hi, Willow. The neutral colors should look as good as the colors and react the same way. They shouldn’t bring out imperfections or redness, etc., as they have the same Hue, Value, and Chroma parameters as the rest of the colors in the palette. Because each person is different, people will wear their colors different from someone else in the same palette. That could mean that Beige #1 looks great on you and Beige #2 looks good; whereas, Beige #2 may be their better color. This is to be expected.
If you are having trouble with more than a couple of your neutrals, I might question the season or the garment. Make sure you “harmonize” your clothing with the entire palette, not just matching to a specific color on the color fan. When you see a color in a larger medium than the color fans, oftentimes it isn’t the color you expected. Just like when you are choosing a color to paint your walls at home. The small paint chip looks great until you get it on the wall. Then it can be darker, brighter, etc., because it is on a larger surface and you get the full impact of the color.
If the human eye can differentiate 1 Million colors (really more like 2 Million), and divide that by 12 seasons, you have 87,000 colors you can wear. You can’t carry that size color fan in your purse. So you have to know how to harmonize to find them.
Here is Christine Scaman’s instructions for harmonizing the palettes:
http://12blueprints.com/getting-more-from-your-12-tone-swatch-book
Great post, Terry. I had not been draped prior to seeing you, but like everyone else had tried to determine my season by posting photos online. I lived as a True Spring for several months and thought it good because it cleared my complexion. Well, it erased flaws, but it also removed the color from my face and made my skin shiny (and not in the dewy glow kind of way.)
Hi Terry, I find what you’re saying really interesting and am grateful for the nuts and bolts approach. I don’t have enough knowledge of the subject to say anything particularly useful, but something I’ve wondered about is the designation of “bright” for the “clear” seasons. Do you think it could lead people astray? They see a face turn snowball white next to the brightness of the drapes and think, look at that brightness! It seems to me that the word “clear” is an important indication of the quality of the persons skin/hair/eyes that is already there and surely easier to notice in the grey smock, than “brightness”. However, I could be barking up the wrong tree here as I’m looking to the pre-drape appearance of the person to give some indication of season. It does get tricky discussing this stuff!
A good question about words.
But first, you can’t necessarily see a person’s clarity, darkness, lightness, softness, mutedness, etc., just by looking at them. Unless you see someone in the right environment and compare two drapes, you don’t know much. You can suspect sometimes. I had a client who came in and she seemed like a possible Dark Winter or Dark Autumn. She was Dark Winter. Then I saw a woman who looked like she might be a Light Summer. Not until the draping began did we realize she was Dark Autumn. I never saw it coming…and I’ve been doing this for over 20 years.
In my opinion, people get very caught up in words. I’ve had some people ask me what Dark Winters should wear in the Summer because their colors are “dark.” Well, only one-third of the colors on the color fans are dark. The rest are medium, bright, and light. Dark doesn’t mean every color a DW wears is dark. It describes the placement on the Munsell color chart.
Now to address Clear and Bright. For the two warm seasons, Autumn and Spring, the Autumn colors are Muted; the Spring colors are Clear. So True Spring is Clear and fully warm. Bright refers to Chroma – both Winter and Spring are highly saturated (bright) = Bright Winter and Bright Spring. Light refers to Value – both Spring and Summer are light (not dark) = Light Spring and Light Summer. The colors for all five of these Spring and Spring influenced seasons have clarity vs. the mutedness you find in the Autumn influenced colors.
Once you understand what the names mean, you can see that the Sci\ART system recognizes clarity. Kathryn Kalisz decided to use other terms to describe the seasons. A rose by any other name….
Thank you. That’s very clear and I appreciate it.
I just love this series of posts. I’m learning so much. My analysis did not progress according to the order of drapes which you’ve already described, despite being carried out by someone trained by Kathryn Kalisz. The effect you describe of the eyes being visible and the bottom half of the face disappearing is exactly what I noticed once I started wearing colours from the palette given to me. My face looked blobby and lacking in definition. I am sure after reading this and thinking back to all that transpired that precedence was being given to the eyes, and to this impression of clearing the skin. It sounds as if one shouldn’t be clearing the skin at all, but rather not tinting it, not adversely effecting it.
Bingo!
Nice article, Terry! You really can’t write these fast enough. People need this understanding.
Terry, I am particularly interested in this article because I am someone who has been draped by 4 different sic/art analysts with 4 different results, and 2 online analyses with 2 more results. I think this confusion about clearing the skin is the primary reason or an uncertainty about what “perfecting” the skin means. My question is this: is the correct tone supposed to “improve” or “add to” the person’s appearance? Should a person’s coloring be heightened? I can see an effect that each of the seasons chosen for me offers a type of improvement, but there is something detrimental as well. For example, tones that are too warm or light seem to erase dark circles under my eyes with either yellow or lightening of them – but then my skin, teeth, and eyes look yellow or light also. I’ve lost the sense of what “perfected” skin looks like. Any thoughts you have would be helpful.
It is so disheartening to hear that someone has undergone so many PCA’s with different results. I don’t know what more I can say that I didn’t in this article about what we are looking for. Once we have the right heat (warm, cool, or neutral), the right value (dark or light), and the right chroma (bright or soft), the colors in that palette should provide the positive effects needed to look your best. There are 12 seasonal tones. It sounds like no one has found the right one for you. It’s there, I assure you!
Many months after my initial draping (as BW) I went back to my analyst for a re-drape. She had acquired the luxe drapes in the interim, and that was the reason for my re-drape – to see me in those – but we re-visited the “almost but not quite” seasons in the process.
Both TW and DW had negative effects on my complexion: TW added cold shadows, while DW aged me. Most interesting to me was the difference TW, DW, and BW made in the architecture of my face. In DW my face flattened out, seemed broader and less focused. TW had the opposite effect, heightening the planes of my face as though my nose had grown like Pinocchio, pulling my eyes closer together! It was the oddest thing. I had lived as a CMB Winter since the mid-80s, and had accepted as true that my eyes were slightly closer together than “normal” – now I realize that the colors were exaggerating that illusion.
BSp was, unsurprisingly, too warm. I could handle the lime drape that determines between BW and BSp, but it did enter the room ahead of me.
Excellent to notice the differences just between the Winters. These are the things analysts should be looking for during a draping.
I have to clarify: my analyst, Sharon Forsythe, pointed this out to me at first as we compared BW/DW. I was startled to see how TW did the opposite!
I am just catching up with this series of posts, which are fascinating and so informative. I have had three PCAs, one of which was Sci\Art, and I don’t think any were right, although I think each revealed some measure of truth. My question is about drapes reflecting. During the PCAs I could see when a drape completely tinted my skin, and I know that is not desirable, but what about when drapes reflect under the chin? I had thought there wasn’t supposed to be any reflection at all, but I see a lot of photos online of people draped correctly (apparently) and the color does reflect under the chin. Is it ok to reflect if the color isn’t affecting the skin of the face itself in a negative way?
Good question…one that all of our students ask as well. In the right colors, there should be only minimal color reflection under the chin, if any. It seems that yellows and blues are the worst culprits for this. If the color’s reflection is very strong; and, especially if it starts looking like a beard, it isn’t the best color for sure.
Thanks for this response. I certainly wouldn’t want to look bearded! I have been draped as a True Autumn, Light Spring and True Summer, in that order. I suspect my real season might be Light Summer, which splits the difference between the latter two (Autumn was back when there were only 4 seasons). I do get a bit of reflection under my chin when draping myself with palette-matched fabrics, but I don’t notice it once I have on make-up, or when wearing normal clothing that isn’t right under my chin.
hi Terry,
did you get around to posting about the optical effects that happen during a draping “Whats in a drape”
i dont see it here. I especially would love to see pictures of the reflection that is ok under a chin and what is boarding on beardy 🙂
thanks
Sandra
Hi, Sandra. I have it as a draft, but not completed. I will work on this article and publish in the near future. Thank you for reminding me.
Maybe she meant “even” the skin tone? Because what causes a redness -or a mudiness or whatever you call the negative effect- (or intensifies it) that wasn’t there before also won’t “even” the skin tone. I saw a case where the person’s chin definition kinda disappeared and they (the drapes) weren’t balancing her eye/hair values also BUT those drapes were in fact smoothing her skin tone while the others were greatly increasing under eye circles, pimples and other stuff. You know you just need to pick one season in this case… and the choice isn’t hard.