My Sci Art Personal Colour Analysis

Yesterday was the day for my colour analysis with Nikki Bogardus of www.mycolorrx.com. I was reasonably sure I wasn't one of the true seasons, and I was not-so-secretly dreading being one of the Autumns my mother dressed me as when I was a child - I'm pretty sure that's her season, and now I know it isn't mine.

I was comfortable with Nikki right from the start. She's a huge personality in a delicate and sparky package, but then I'm no shrinking violet either. Interestingly we seemed to mirror a lot of our body language - expansive, lots of arm movements. Not a very loud voice (to me, anyway) but a very clear voice - precise. It's not a voice you'd ever have to ask to repeat itself to hear what she said, and that's me too. She felt familiar, even down to the style of clothing - slim trousers, a clean shirt, a neat v-neck pullover.

You sit in a room with bright lights shining on your face, no makeup, and your hair and clothes covered in a grey cape and cap. You can see the physical effects of the colour on your face, and sometimes it is painful. We started with the True season drapes. Brown was terrible - remember this lipstick? Now imagine that as a block of colour under my chin. Black was okay, although a little harsh. Silver was good, and gold wasn't completely awful either.

The reds come next to determine cool, warm or neutral. Neutral was the clear winner. We could take them quite bright and dark too...

Then the real work begins - comparing drapes against each other to zero in on the right season. Too dark dulled my skin, too soft made it grey, too light was insipid... but then we started moving towards better colours for me. No colour was too much in brightness. The shiniest sapphire blue looked comfortable...poppy red, bright violet, bright green, even icy yellow and peach - bring it.

After about an hour, we arrived at Bright Winter. It felt comfortable. It explains why I mute lipsticks; why colours that look pretty on other people look like nothing or muddy on me, and why a nude lip on me is literally corpse-like. I'd started suspecting I was a Bright just by a process of eliminating colours that don't work on me in lipsticks, and I bought a Bright Winter colour to try that seemed to work really well for me (the Dior Addict lipstick 865 Collection in this post). I still didn't completely believe that I was a Bright until I saw it with my own eyes, because to me I look so 'medium'. As Nikki said when I remarked on this afterwards, Bright Winter is quite medium - it's neutral in hue and value (it's lighter than the other winters because of the spring influence.) The only axis it isn't medium on is chroma, or saturation; and my contrast - hair/eyes/skin is quite high. My eyes and hair are both brightly pigmented against a fairer skin.

I loved the reveal drapes. There wasn't a single one I wouldn't wear, although the icy peach and the greens scared me before Nikki draped them on me. My love of blue is explained - Bright Winter has a lot of gorgeous blues right through the turquoise to indigo spectrums. The Bright Winter silver drape is the colour of the evening dress that even my Autumn mother thought looked good on me for a sixth form dance.

If I could magically chose to be any season, it'd be Soft Summer. I love the gentle elegance of the colouring and the palette, and I like the idea of the soft but determined personality. It's testament to the process and to Nikki that I know that isn't home for me, and why, and I love my Bright Winter colours. I am a special snowflake ;)

Here are a couple of photos taken after the draping and makeup, with some Bright Winter drapes.

Honestly, I can't recommend this enough to anyone who is interested in colour/style. You can get more details from the My Color RX website www.mycolorrx.com - Nikki is based in the US and visits the UK regularly.