JoAnne's Color Transformation

Jen, in your book, you say that eyes with cool orange, yellow and brown are cool… eyes with olive and brown are cool… pink in the skin is cool… I thought all of this made me WARM!

This is a message I received from a lovely woman named JoAnn. She is 50 years old with dark brown hair, soft hazel eyes and fair skin. She had downloaded my ebook “What Colors Look Good On Me?” and did a self color analysis. She was completely spun around on what she thought was her color type. She discovered that she might be COOL and not warm. This was super confusing to her. JoAnn revealed to me that she had been previously draped as a true autumn and a deep autumn. Those weren’t working for her and she personally started to lean toward soft autumn. When she shared her photo with me I typed her as soft and cool. Boy was JoAnn confused! How is it that she was typed as an autumn, but I’m telling her that she is cool. Just in case you don’t know the characteristics of an autumn, they have warm undertones. A true autumn (aka warm autumn) and a deep autumn both wear colors that are from the bright color wheel. They can wear bright tomato red and intense golden yellow. JoAnn felt more akin to soft autumn which is a person with warm undertones and wears colors from the soft color wheel. These are colors that are muted with grey. Even though she leaned toward to soft autumn colors… she tried to make the autumn colors work. First, she sent me photos of her in bright warm colors that she felt were in the autumn color palette. They were more bright and cool vs warm. But still, they weren’t right on her. Then she sent me a photo of her wearing golden yellow and soft green… her autumn colors. Right away I could see that she was not typed correctly. These colors do nothing for her. (sorry, JoAnne) One of the most common mistakes with seasonal color analysis is typing someone with hazel eyes as an autumn or more commonly a soft autumn. People assume that hazel eyes (brown with yellow) means they have warm undertones. And the dark brown hair is further evidence of being an autumn. An autumn is deep and warm. So, let me share with you what I see when I look at her. She has fair skin with a pinkish tone which indicates cool undertones. Her skin is not golden which would indicate warm undertones. Her eyes, although “hazel” are cool. Not warm. Hazel just means a combination of colors… eyes that tend to be brown but have variations in them. But you can have cool hazel eyes or warm hazel eyes. Hazel does not automatically mean warm. JoAnn was leaning towards soft autumn and that’s because she intuitively knew that she looked better in softer more muted colors. She chose Soft Autumn because it was the only autumn that seemed to be working. But it just wasn’t right. People with hazel eyes often are soft. But not always. So, don’t take that as a rule of thumb. She reads Soft, Cool and Deep. Not Bright, Warm and Deep. JoAnn was a bit discouraged because her first reaction was that she had to start over… but she couldn’t deny that the soft cool colors felt better.

I have spent so much $$ on this. A 12blueprints draping, there autumn books and anther soft autumn book because I was trying to make the autumn diagnosis work. Sigh. I knew all along I was soft cool deep, but I gave my authority over to those I perceived to be authorities. I am too old to make these kind of mistakes, but I still do, sometimes. Thank you for helping me trust my own eyes again.

She then sent me this photo of her in soft magenta which is 17A on the color wheel. A cool color. And WOW. Just look at the difference between her in warm colors vs cool colors! She just looks so at home in her cool color. She was “Bowled” over. And here’s what is truly amazing about her transformation. When she wore her Soft, Cool and Deep colors in front of her friends and shared what she learned… this is what they said:

THANK GOD you went to Jen and stopped trying be an autumn!

They all wanted to tell her those colors weren’t working on her, but they didn’t.

I am also really glad I came to you and I am enjoying being soft cool and deep.

You do NOT need to keep guessing and struggling with your colors.

If you are a member of the Color Style Club, you can submit your photo to me to be included in the weekly #ColorStyleMe video where I give you a taste of a professional color analysis. This is a great place to start to get an idea of what colors might look good on you. Full disclaimer: this is not a complete color study and color analysis… but I will give you my thoughts on what coloring I think you have and what colors you should be looking at. You can sign up for the Color Style Club for $1 here. If you sign up and send me your photo before 4:00pm EST today, I will include you in tomorrow’s video! *hugs* Jen Thdoen If you don’t want a quick taste but the real deal… you can sign up for a full online color analysis here.