Sunny Greetings!
My family and I are traveling to Texas and I’m taking a much-needed vacation for this week and next. I’ll be back with the regular newsletter after our trip (and maybe even a slightly improved format). For this week, I used a Google study tool called NotebookLM that takes the information for my color articles to create this quick educational Q&A podcast simulation explaining the difference between biologically correct color analysis and outdated eye-hair-harmony color analyses. This is meant to be a fun way to make studying and learning new things more engaging and fun.
Enjoy the segment!
Please let me know if you enjoyed this “podcast” format.
Here is the site content on which the “podcast” chat was based:
The New Color Analysis: Why You Should Care And What You Should Wear
1. Light Penetration
When light hits your skin, it doesn't just stop at the surface. Instead, it penetrates through the outer layers. This is possible because, on a molecular level, there is space between our skin molecules, allowing light to pass through.
We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.
— Ernest Hemingway
2. Interaction with Molecules
As light penetrates the skin, it interacts with various molecules such as melanin (the pigment that gives skin its color), collagen, and blood vessels. Here’s how these interactions work:
Melanin: Melanin absorbs certain wavelengths of light. The amount and type of melanin in your skin determine your skin tone and how light is absorbed. More melanin means more light is absorbed, affecting the skin's color. Interestingly, more melanin did not mean a more warm/yellow skin undertone. The proportion of cool to warm undertones in our 16,000 in-person sessions was about 20/80 warm to cool respectively irrespective of complexion or race.
Collagen: Ah, that thing we keep trying to shove into our skincare/diet/smoothies/supplements! Collagen fibers scatter light, improving the skin’s overall appearance. Healthy collagen levels help reflect light more evenly, making the skin look smooth and youthful.
Blood Vessels: Hemoglobin in blood vessels also absorbs light, especially in the red and blue wavelengths. This interaction gives the skin a natural, healthy flush.
3. Reflection and Refraction
Reflection: Some of the light that hits the skin is reflected back. This is what gives the skin its visible appearance. The quality and quantity of light reflected can make the skin look more radiant or dull.
Refraction: As light passes through different layers of the skin, it bends (refracts). This bending is influenced by the density and arrangement of skin molecules. Refraction can enhance the glow and luminosity of the skin.
4. Scattering
Light scattering occurs when light hits tiny particles within the skin and spreads out in different directions. This scattering helps to create an even skin tone and can hide minor imperfections by diffusing light across the surface.
5. Color Perception
The combined effects of absorption, reflection, refraction, and scattering determine the color we perceive. For example, if your skin reflects more red wavelengths, it will appear rosier.
6. Importance of Undertones
The interaction of light with your skin's undertones (cool or warm) also plays a crucial role. Cool undertones (with more blue or pink) reflect light differently from how warm undertones (with more yellow or gold) do, which is why understanding your undertone is essential for choosing the right colors in clothing and makeup (more about that in Part 2).
Practical Application
Skin Care: Using exfoliants (link to my favorite budget-friendly, gentle exfoliant on Amazon) and products that promote collagen can enhance how light interacts with your skin, making it look more luminous and healthy.
Makeup: Choosing the right foundation and colors that complement your undertones can enhance the natural interaction of light with your skin, making you look more vibrant.
Clothing: Wearing colors that complement your skin’s natural undertones can enhance your overall appearance by optimizing how light interacts with your skin.
So you see, light interacts with the molecules of your facial skin through absorption, reflection, refraction, and scattering. These interactions are influenced by the molecular composition and arrangement of your skin, determining how your skin looks and how colors appear on you. Understanding these principles can help you make better choices in skincare, makeup, and fashion.
This information lays some groundwork on the way light interacts with our own skin coloration and especially with what we call the undertone. No factor (eyes, hair, freckles, personality, taste in makeup and clothing, color philosophies, psychology, etc.) can trump undertone.
As you saw in those healthy babies above and what you probably see in the little kids in your life, when our skin is young, it’s easy for us to glow. Next week, I will illustrate a few principles of how we unwittingly age ourselves simply by the colors we choose to wear next to our faces.
Be sure to turn on your notifications if you have the Substack app or simply be looking for my emails in your inbox on Tuesdays to continue to explore the fundamental importance of how the colors we wear next to our faces affect how our facial skin appears. I’m talking about serious anti-aging principles here. For those of you who have been with The Image Architect for years, this is all just a review, but we need you too since Substack is a whole new world. Be sure to add your comments and chats. Let’s start a color-wearing revolution!
Another big thank you to paid supporters and founding members! I appreciate you. As we work to establish this Substack community, features such as chat and commenting are going to remain free to all until we have enough people who want a more private place to discuss things. Later, I might need to change some things to provide a space that will be behind a paywall for privacy reasons to protect everyone. I’m still trying to strategize all of this and also how to get more and more of the former content (i.e. PDFs or older articles) to everyone who wants to know more about the work of The Image Architect. Also, I’m working on being able to provide foundation again.
If you haven’t become a paid subscriber yet, please consider doing so, as you will truly be helping to re-launch this fun mission of bringing inspiration and education to make wardrobe choices that reveal a more healthy, vibrant, and youthful look. You know, to make the world a better place and everything!
In this part, we will talk about how the colors we wear next to our faces affect the way light behaves, changes, and is perceived by others.
But first, a little story about my adventures with color analysis phone apps. I realize we can all be suckers for those VERY confident claims made by people who invest thousands (I MEAN THOUSANDS) of dollars in developing apps or systems that promise to make things into super simple, one-size-fits-all hacks or cheats. It’s like our very own “EASY” button. Well, it’s no different for apps that purport to tell us what colors and styles to wear. Seems legitimate, right?
So, as I stated, I tried some out, and let me tell you, their recommendations were far from flattering. When I wear the wrong colors, it ages me and makes me look tired! I come alive in royal blue, crisp amethyst, or juicy plum. But, with their color recommendations from the autumn season of avocado green, dusty teal, rust brown, and the like, I was truly disappointed.
I was also, once again, disappointed in the fact that color analysis and image consulting have not evolved much at all for decades. They use “matchy” AI color coordination (they call it harmonizing) voodoo and tell you one of the myriad color seasons. They ask a few questions about your lifestyle and personality and send you to a bunch of affiliate retail sites to buy clothes that will never look good on you because the approach is flawed from the very foundation: they use superficial coloring rather than undertone as the deciding factor in their recommendations.
“Well, when you put it that way, I don’t think it sounds too good!” you might say. The problem is that they don’t put it that way. The fashion industry is great at getting people to buy things. I’ve shied away from recommending things for a really long time because, personally, it takes me much time and effort to find pieces to add to my wardrobe that I absolutely LOVE. So, I have no idea what YOU would absolutely LOVE. I scout high and low for just the right colors and styles that flatter my own skin and body because I know the rules for my face and shape. Plus, I have a wardrobe that reflects my personality and lifestyle. I feel like clothing is such a personal choice. The messages I AM trying to convey are simple though: 1. If you wear the wrong colors next to your face, it can age, discolor, and cast shadows on the look of your skin. 2. DRESS UP! Please don’t spend your life in drab colors and unflattering styles. You can look and feel so lovely every single day. WHY NOT DO IT?
I have never met another stylist who was more personally empowering than my mentor, Sandy Dumont. I took over her life’s work, The Image Architect, in 2019. Because of COVID and the rapid changes in lifestyles and fashions in the past few years, I rebranded to create more holistic content. I am more centered on lifestyle, wellness, empowerment through education, and yes, on the way light/color affects us. For clothing and wardrobes, I write about becoming less emotional and more technical about finding pieces that truly flatter us. I want to help people find those pieces they want to hang on to long-term rather than constantly having to “run on the trendmill” (article coming on that too, soon!)
The themes that I discuss aren’t viral fashion tips on what to buy today, so you can do it all over again in a few weeks, or cult pieces by luxury designers so we can relieve our FOMO (believe me, you can find plenty of material on that out there). I believe it’s important to spread the message that the colors most people are probably wearing right now are very likely not in line with their undertone. In addition, I know the results of those in-person technical color analysis sessions. They show that no matter our tan shade, race, personality, eye color, hair color, or other factors, undertone is the factor that is most important to consider. This is because light and colors interact with our facial coloring. Clashing colors, such as when our skin is cool and we wear a warm-toned shirt next to the face, can do funny things to our facial skin.
Ironically, the app in question was able to discern that I do have cool undertones. However, because the algorithm did not use undertone as the primary factor in the color palette and clothing recommendation, it was a waste. I spent money, thinking I would get valid clothing recommendations, only to be sent to a page to spend more money to buy unflattering things I neither want nor need.
That's not the “EASY” button I need in life. The saddest part of all? The reviews in the App Store are very favorable. It never fails to amaze me how many people buy into the false harmony, color matching, and “this feels so harmonious” BS theories about what colors we should wear. It doesn’t help that most people are told that we need to match our eyes (which literally does nothing to help us look better) and hair color (which was also probably chosen based on trends or “the heart”).
"In nature, light creates the color. In the picture, color creates the light."
~Hans Hofmann
A Word About The 16,000 In-Person Color Analysis Sessions
After testing over 16,000 clients and doing much research, we can attest to these things:
80%+ of the human population, regardless of nationality, race, gender, mood, personality, geography, or any other factor, were found to have COOL undertones.
Undertone is the sole factor in determining the colors that make facial skin look good (i.e. luminous, smooth, radiant)
If your skin doesn’t look good, it doesn’t matter if your clothes, hair, and eyes are all vibing/coordinating with the most amazing harmony ever. You’ll still have consequences and often look older, more washed out, and depending on the color, possibly even less healthy (i.e. yellowish, pale).
Do you still think that hair and eye color should be used? Maybe personality traits?
None of the superficial factors will ever change how colors next to your face interact with the look of your face due to the fact our skin is a collection of molecules that interact with light to make us look a certain way.
Let’s bring up our friend with the orange and blue shirts again.
Ok, let’s break down what’s happening here. What do you see in the left picture with the orange shirt? If you relax your eyes and look at the whole picture from a zoomed-out perspective, you can see that your eyes begin to harmonize the face and shirt for you. Do you get that effect?
Some people (stylists and color analysts too) think the orange shirt looks more harmonious. They would type this person in the Autumn category like the app did me. The problem is obvious if you know how this all works. You see, colors don’t just stay put when they’re next to things. The reason the shirt might appear to be harmonizing with the face is that our eyes are trying to compensate for the clash.
They do this by casting an orange tinge on certain parts of the face (cheeks, nose, hairline). Do you see it? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a yellow or orange tinge on my face. Also, because the woman’s undertones are cool, this warm/orange tinge causes clashing on the face, thereby distorting the light that would otherwise be reflected.
Try this technical color analysis party trick as a demonstration: Here are three colors. In the middle is a red color that will demonstrate how colors affect the colors next to them. If you use a piece of white paper to completely cover the orange square to the left, the red takes on a cool-toned, cherry-red tone. On the other hand, if you use that piece of paper to cover the purple square to the right, the red immediately harmonizes with the orange and becomes a warm-toned, tomato-red.
If that wasn’t bad enough, however, because this orange is a very saturated shade, our eyes compensate for it by casting a strong dose of the color opposite it on the color wheel (based on the spectrum of colors) onto the face to tame it (beauty’s in the eyes of the beholder, right?)
Here is another trick we have likely all seen before: The American flag optical illusion is an experiment that uses optical chemistry and neurological confusion to create an image of the American flag. The illusion works by causing your eyes to see the opposite colors of green and orange, which are red and blue. You know colors cause us to see the colors opposite themselves on the color wheel to create balance because when you look away from the flag, you’re still seeing it for a bit. This is because different visual receptors are stimulated, and the information from all of the different color receptors is not in balance.
Cover one eye, then stare at the center of the flag for one minute. Keeping the other eye closed, quickly look at a white background (like a white wall or if your screen is white next to the flag here). What do you see? You should see a red, white, and blue US flag. This happens because your eye reverses the colors in afterimages to mitigate retinal fatigue. Try it for yourself if you like, and let me know if it works for you.
Here’s a bonus one. Same idea as before, or try it with both eyes. Stare at the black dot on the red pitcher for a minute, and then shift to the dot on the left. Now you’re seeing the same pitcher but in a different color. What color is opposite red?
Let’s bring that all home by circling back to our friend in the orange and blue shirts: Our eyes try to compensate for colors by casting opposite colors to mitigate retinal fatigue. The color opposite orange on the color wheel is blue. And what does blue do? It’s often considered an optic whitener. (Same idea as using purple shampoos to mitigate yellowing hair, etc.) Blue literally bleaches us, making us look more pale. But our eyes don’t care. They’re done reconciling the orange shirt, and these are the results: less even skin tone with orangey spots, an overall washed-out appearance because of the blue hue cast by our own eyes to tame the overall strong orange color (and thereby mitigate retinal fatigue), and less luminous glow because there is so much going on to compensate for the clashing colors. I’m out of breath just re-reading all those bad results, but alas, that’s the length of sentence it takes to tell the bad news.
About the blue shirt, though: Since this woman has cool undertones (defined by bluish/pinkish tones in the skin), she does not clash with the blue shirt on the right. In fact, when our eyes cast the color opposite of blue onto the whole of her face, they’re casting a nice, flattering rosy color that makes her face look healthier and more radiant. Not everyone likes this vibrant blue (or any such bright color), but technically, this color does LESS to take away the luminosity of her skin. The orange gets in the way of light and the blue enables the light to flow more readily. The blue is a clear winner for this woman’s undertones, and therefore, regardless of the eye or hair color, she generally looks better in it.
So, you see, your eyes play tricks on you!
Color Coordination: Use your personal color palette to create outfits that enhance your natural features. Be sure to read these two articles for some foundational knowledge of how color can transform your look.
It’s not hard to shop for the right colors. They’re broken up into Cool and Warm. There’s no such thing as a neutral color, except as a general term in that navy, beige, greys, charcoal, black, brown, and white are generally regarded as neutrals and can therefore be the foundation for a wardrobe. Even these “neutrals” can have warm shades or cool shades. Take, for example, plain white vs. ivory or beige vs tan. Cool-undertone individuals would do well to wear plain white and beige, while those with warm undertones should choose ivory and tan simply because of the way these colors interact with their skin tones.
The Image Architect Rules of Color:
Color Rule 1: When your garments blend with your skin, there is no focal point. Only a mass of flat, monotonous color. The eye is compelled to wander, and it is more difficult to keep the attention of others focused on your face. If you make presentations to others, you’ll have greater difficulty getting your point across.
Amateurs may admire a painting without a focal point, but in reality, it will be difficult to call the picture to mind afterward. The same is true when it comes to people. Whether you’re applying for a job or making an important presentation, you want to be remembered! When you “match” your contrast factors (light skin and hair, for example) by wearing pale garments, you fade into your garments, like Mary above (left). This is what is suggested by many other style philosophies, and it’s a mistake.
Amateurs call the “matching” of skin and garment colors harmony. However, there is usually monotony rather than harmony, and the face disappears into the myriad of matched tones, creating the infamous false harmony. The bottom line: There is good pale and bad pale.
Color Rule 2: On a dark background, light colors advance and pop, while dark colors recede or stay put. So, if you have dark skin, you will blend into drab dark colors such as olive green or brown. Your face will pop in clear bright colors. Dark colors weaken the appearance of surrounding colors; thus, pastels are made to appear so pale that they cause dark skin to look darker than it actually is. Black causes pale skin to pop, but also to look even paler. When it comes to skin, this means that darker skin tones will blend into dark or drab colors such as eggplant, teal, and olive green.
Nevertheless, autumn colors are often recommended for women of color because of their brown eyes and dark brown hair. It’s all about contrast. The face doesn’t pop unless there’s contrast.
Lena is a beautiful woman, but her beauty is diminished by the brown garment. She literally blends into her garment. Fuchsia is far more flattering than brown or other drab shades. For dark skin, bright colors such as fuchsia, shocking pink, peacock blue, and lemon yellow create a dynamic contrast and look especially good because they also give the skin a beautiful luminescent quality.
Color Rule 3: When surrounded by grey-toned or muted colors, adjacent colors will appear duller than when surrounded by clear or bright colors. Assume, for a moment, that the two identical pink squares below represent the faces of two different women. Which woman looks more energetic and dynamic? Which one looks happier? Which one looks older?
It’s hard to believe that the two pink squares are identical in color, but they are. If you don’t believe it, cover the bottom two squares of slate blue with a white piece of white paper. The pink “face” will suddenly look brighter. Drab colors make the skin look drab.
Darker skins don’t fare any better.
After decades of research among a myriad of more than 25 different cultures and nationalities, my predecessor, Sandy, concluded that very few people wear muted colors successfully. The muted colors of autumn are particularly unkind in the mirror. However, it is undetected by the untrained eye.
I hope this gives you some food for thought. Next time, I will cover how to create a flattering silhouette with the principles of color and line/shape, and then we will evaluate some fashions against the given principles so we can learn to judge for ourselves whether something will make us look and feel great or not.
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