I got a personal color consultation and it’s going to change my life

Have you heard of personal color? I have been obsessed with the concept ever since first heard about it on Japanese fashion/beauty blogs—it's an analysis of your skin, hair, and eye colors to identify what colors look best on you. This was something I was super interested in because I struggled with figuring out what colors look good on me. So I rarely wear color and live in a pretty neutral (think super dark black/white/grays) wardrobe with smatterings of stripes, denim, and a few fall-looking colors (more on that later).

But I recently got a color consult from Lindsey at Created Colorful, got my mind blown, and my closet is about to get a lot more exciting as a result. 2020 was a year of self-discovery, the painful emotional kind, so I'm glad to kick off 2021 with a more fun version of self-analysis, like a visual enneagram (and you know I love that shit).

What's a personal color palette?

Ok, let's get the lay the land for a bit first. Personal color theory takes cues from the four seasons and divides you into 12 or 16 color categories (depending on the school of thought it's either 3 or 4 subtypes per season). At the most basic level you're either blue-based (cool) or yellow-based (warm), which is terminology you probably have heard of when shopping for foundation. The seasons roughly divide you into a soft warm (Spring), soft cool (Summer), deep warm (Autumn), and deep cool (Winter). It then breaks down into the degrees of how muted, vivid, dark, or cool/warm the colors are in your specific palette subtype.

My obsession with personal color begins

You might be saying at this point, sure that's all interesting but knowing what colors look good on you should be pretty simple and seemingly intuitive, right? Well, maybe. But if you're like me, you might've been confused about what colors look good on you, and "tests" like "does gold or silver look good on you?" are really useless. Growing up I always thought that I was an Autumn, gravitating towards the olive greens and the mustard yellows of the "fall leaves" thinking that looked best on me, partly because I liked those colors—and apps like Cladwell and every American self-diagnosis puts me there since my hair and eyes are dark. But as I got deeper into it, researching the Japanese books and blogs, I self-diagnosed and got confused between Spring and Summer—the books included color sheets that you put up against your face to see whether they're flattering, as well as a checklist on your features so you could identify your season. But oftentimes the characteristics for Spring and Summer were pretty even, with a slight advantage on Spring, yet when I checked the color sheets the Spring one made me look really dull. So did that mean I was Summer? Uncertain of what to do, I kind of just kept my Autumn colors in the closet since they were also colors I liked.

Thinking I needed a professional (and in my old age "hire professionals" has been my mantra), for the past 5 or so years have been looking into getting a color consult from someone in Japan with no avail because no one really offered an online option and definitely not balling enough to fly myself out for this. Traditionally this process really required you to be in person because they drape different colored fabrics to analyze what colors look good (kind of like those color sheets from the book). I figured that no one in the states did this because I found zero English resources, and even if they did let's be honest a white person is just going to assume that I'm yellow-based like Cladwell. Even Sephora with their color match "technology" matched me with foundation that was way too yellow, so I had little faith. Then one day, Instagram serendipity happened.

Finding the one

A maker that I follow (just an unrelated plug for Avryn Co. here, she's a mama who makes these adorable key/wallet wristlets that I'm thinking about getting for myself and would make a great gift!) casually mentioned in her stories that she got a color consult from Created Colorful. At that point, I was more just intrigued that someone did this in the states. I mean, as gorgeous and adorable of a redhead Lindsey was, I figured that she's not going to really be able to identify me correctly either. Then I read some of her highlights and in one she specifically spoke about WOC, and one of her past clients who posted about color consults constantly was Asian. Then I saw that she opened her consults on the first of each month. This was the night of March 31. A textbook hook, line, and sinker. I booked a consult the next morning.

The result

I'll do a more detailed review later, but let's get to the good part.

The self-diagnosis really only looks at the four seasons and never broke it down to the subtypes (since that requires more in-depth analysis), which explained why the Spring/Summer thing confused me. When looking at just the four seasons the descriptions and color sheets are pretty much the stereotypes of that season, and did not take into consideration the nuances within. Turns out my specific type is Clear Spring, which puts me at a brighter and more neutral end of Spring, which totally makes sense that the super warm true Spring colors made me look dull, but I wasn’t rocking the super muted true Summer palette. Here’s the cheat sheet:

It just blew my mind because I own zero of these colors. I never even try these colors in the store because they felt too bold, but then the green reminded me that there was one time a couple years ago I tried this sack dress at Aritzia that I still regret not getting, and it was in that shamrock green color. I remember that I was super surprised it looked good on me. The signs were out there, I've just been missing it!

So now, we get to start having some fun... but no, that doesn’t mean I’m going to just throw away all my neutral clothes and start a whole new wardrobe with these bright spring crayon colors, even if I had the money to do that (and wouldn't that be nice!) Since I moved earlier this year, I started the process of curating my closet, and will continue to work on creating a wardrobee that I 100% want to wear—no more saying “I have nothing to wear,” I only want all-star pieces that all look good together.

Capsule wardrobes and mindful fashion is all the rage, and I think it's a much more pragmatic approach to clothes. And in that process, I want to add some new pieces that will act as an accent and will be introducing these newly discovered colors into stuff like tops and accessories near my face (thinking some fun silk scarves) to brighten my features, which these colors are designed to do.

So if you’re like me trying to cull your closet, are confused about what looks good on you, or just looking for a super fun Mother’s Day gift—a consult with Lindsey totally fits the bill. She opens up a limited slot for consultations on the first of the month and they book up in minutes because she’s that amazing, as well as offer on-demand slots at a slightly higher rate. If you do end up getting it yourself, please let me know what palette you are! I’m going to keep documenting my journey and findings with color on my IG stories so if this stuff interests you, follow along!