Beauty 101 – What Season Are You?

  Have you ever heard someone say "I am an autumn" or "I am a spring", after which you think – did they actually just refer to themselves as a season??? In case you were wondering… No, they’re not crazy! It’s just their way of explaining that they look best in the colors associated with a given season.

For the most part, regardless of your race, nationality, or age, people generally have skin complexions that fall into one of these two categories – cool or warm. So how do you figure out which season you are? And why is it beneficial to know in the first place?
There is no doubt we all want to dress, feel, and look our best, so by knowing what colors look best with your coloring will enhance your features in a big way. By the same token, wearing colors that don’t suit you can actually make you appear sick, even if you’re perfectly healthy. So, it’s important to take some caution when defining your style, whether it is in the color of shirt you wear down to the eye shadow that you use.
  As a first step in helping you decide which colors agree best with your cool or warm complexion, try the following tests in natural light (i.e., not under fluorescent lights):

a) Vein test: If the veins in your arm appear blue, you’re probably cool toned. On the other hand, if they appear more green/olive in color, then you’re probably warm toned.

b) Towel test: First, wash off your makeup. Wrap up your hair in a pure white towel, and then again in a yellow towel. Which one looked best next to your skin? It is usually the case that one of the two towels will enhance your features while the other … not so much. If the white towel looked better, you’re probably cool toned. Likewise, if the yellow towel looked better, you’re probably warm toned.

Cool toned? Warm toned? Still not sure?  Try comparing your skin coloring to the charts below, using your natural hair and eye colors.

   Cool Toned
"Winter & Spring”

--> Skin Color
- Very dark brown or black
- Brown with pink undertones
- Reddish or blue undertones
- Pale with no color or with faint pink undertones
- Brown or bronze when you tan
Hair Color
Hair color is often; ash blonde, light brown, dark brown, or black. If you dye your hair, maybe consider a rich shade of brown, you can even pull off reds! Think cool reds like burgundy or bordeaux. For highlighting, wheat, honey, taupe or ash blondes tones often look best. Generally it's best to avoid gold, yellow, copper red, and bronze tones.
Eye Color
Eye colors ranging from light blue, grey, dark brown, to almost black are generally found on people with cool tones
What looks best?

Your foundation should have blue or rosy undertones. Clothes in jewel tones like blues, violets, and emerald green probably look amazing on you as well as pastel colors

     Warm Toned
"Summer & Fall"
Skin Tone

Very dark brown with golden undertones
Medium with golden undertones
Pale with peach or gold undertones
Golden Brown when tanned

Hair Color Often is golden or reddish brown (think chestnut), golden, honey blonde, red, strawberry blonde. If you dye your hair, try rich hair colors like dark golden brown, chestnut, mahogany, or auburn. For highlighting, red, cinnamon, or copper tones look best. Most warm complexions should avoid platinum, and jet black hair (anything with blue or silver undertones). If your skin has any red tones in it, you should try more neutral tones like beige, honey brown, and coffee colors.
Eye Color
Eyes are usually amber, golden brown, hazel, or green color black are generally found on people with cool tones.
What Looks Best?
Your foundation should have yellow or gold undertones, along with peach colored blushes. Earth tones in olive greens, dark browns, and rust colors probably look amazing on you.
        Neutral Complexion  
   Some people are blessed to have a neutral skin tone. This person can change their hair color from copper red to platinum blonde and have both look great. They can get away with wearing cool colors such as blue, purple and cotton candy pink as well warm colors like brown, green and gold. An example of someone with a neutral complexion would be  blue eyes and red hair, or black hair and hazel eyes.

Keep in mind that your you're own person and not a chart, so if you like a shirt that's not technically your coloring then screw the rules and wear it! What matters most is that you wear what makes you feel the most comfortable and confident, these guidelines can most definitely help in that category but they are by no means rules set in stone :)