If You Are Blonde…..You Can’t Be X

Bernice Kentner was a genius when she designed her color system. She recognized that in each seasonal category was an individual with blonde, brown, red and brunette hair. With the advent of Color Me Beautiful and several other color systems, somehow hair and eye color were the guide posts. 

Bright red hair means you are a Spring. 

Mousey hair (it is NOT when wearing the correct color palette), Summer. 

Brunette equaled Winter. 

Warm brown hair placed you in Autumn. 

And, what if you are not Caucasian? One of my BIGGEST beefs is with Suzanne Caygill’s book. Not ONE of the models in the photos is anything other than various shades of white. Women of any ethnicity can fall into any seasonal category. I recall fairly recently seeing a beautiful African American woman draped as a Light Summer and she looks glorious!!! (You can see her photo on Instagram Moon Over Star)

Where many well-meaning color analysts drop the ball is by making a snap judgment-you can’t be a certain seasonal category due to your hair and eye color. Then, it’s a case of choosing warm or cool and going from there. This hair color “rule” has misled many women down the wrong pathway, and the myth just persists. 

In the Facebook color analysis world-there was a blog post made by a respected educator that True Winter blondes don’t really exist, at least not in the author’s neck of the woods. However, I’ve seen in photos one of the 12blueprints analysts IS, and she’s stunning!! 

Many beige haired women and men are Bright Springs or Bright Winters, though many analysts would place them in a Summer category that would ultimately “dumb down” their coloring. 

Redheads can end up in any seasonal category from Soft and Dark Autumn to True Summer or Bright Winter! Two really great places you can see variety are on Instagram at Moon Over Star and on the web at Cate Linden.com (Click on Menu, then Color Services and PCA Client Gallery.) 

Here is an absolute truth: How your skin tone reacts to color is king! Once that happens, your eye and hair color automatically look better-and so do you, as a whole. And, that’s the whole point. 

Another fantastic color analysis system is House of Colour. They also acknowledge that hair color is of lesser importance than how your skin tone reacts to color. The resulting photos as shown on Instagram on House of Colour this beautifully. 

In an upcoming article, I will talk about custom color analysis, and how my feelings about it have changed. 

See you soon! 

-Tina