HoC Spring reSprung

[Aquelven]

Hi Springs.
New thread, hopefully, with the following link to our old one....

Early Spring

Hi guys, just popping by swiftly, saw the post on the Autumn thread. Am off to bed (33 weeks pregnant - post 9pm is rock'n'roll for me right now) but will stop by in the morning and attempt to untangle a little bit if I can

Oh, Joycey!!!
Not you as well???

I can understand the lipstick though, some of the bright ones are enough to scare the horses. I prefer a soft peachy pink.

What were your ** colours as an Autumn, Joycey?

Thank you, Hopefully, for responding to our plea.

Thank you Hopefully. I think I've opened a can of worms or a bag of frogs or something! It's all gone a bit hazy here in Springland.

Thank you hopefully! Hope you slept well... (and are still asleep actually!!). I was in bed before 10 and I have no excuse at all!

Okie dokie, have read back and will do what I can to help.

Of course, mostly what I'm going to say is that everyone uses different systems etc etc, but hopefully I can nail it a little more than than.

First things first - similarities between Kettlewell Spring and Winter:
When you had your colours done, if it was HoC, your consultant will have talked to you about toning in with your palette, not matching and only having 36 colours for the rest of time. However, there are colours that tone with your palette that won't be as good on you as the exact matches (I'm thinking here of taking the blues a notch cooler and brighter, since that's the example given - they would tone in well with most Spring colours, but wouldn't be as good on most Springs as the perfect Spring blues). On a blue spring it's not beyond the realms of possibility that they'll still be better than the warm end of the spectrum. I have the same thing as a blue autumn - I'm better in a forest green/navy/grey that is slightly darker than my swatches than I am in the very warm coral/peach end of the palette (this is partly a clothing personality thing too, but I'm not getting into that!). However, the palette that those colours needs to tone with for the Blue Spring to look their best is still a Spring palette - the Winter pinks and greens and acid yellow and ice colours will be far far too stark, even though a handful of blues/greys might be ok. So if you are Spring you are still a Spring, and if you are a Winter you are still a Winter, but inevitably there is a point where those seasons meet (both the brightest clearest colours) and some colours will be ok on both seasons. That is normal and fine and allows our colours to work in real life.

Joycey and Fooogle, with your change in diagnosis:
Yes, not all systems are the same - I know for a fact that one of the CMB Spring palettes has plenty of what I would call very definitely autumn colours in it - far too muted for what I would call a Spring - and one has what I would call Winter blues and greens it - too cool for the vast majority of Springs. I don't know the history of how CMB divide up their colours though, so I can't speak for the thinking behind it.

Saying that, when you have your analysis done I think the most important thing is not that the consultant is telling you one thing or another and you are just going along with it, but that you (and if not you, the other people in your class) are able to 'see' it and agree that the analysis is correct. The information is no use to you after the class if you can't recreate it at home, after all. I always spend a good chunk of time at the tail end of the class discussing how to use the palettes, toning in etc, dividing up one's wardrobe, getting a practice shopping trip in asap to try to recreate the effect we have had in the studio with the right colours etc etc etc. It may be that you 'see' it with HoC, it may be that you 'see' it with CMB, but you should be confident in your set of colours - if you've lost confidence to the point you're seeking a re-analysis, it perhaps won't be a huge shock to find you're a different season (Fooogle I know this isn't what happened to you exactly, but we've discussed this at length by PM so hopefully you're feeling a bit better about it anyway).

I don't necessarily thinking that seeing lots of different consultants is a good solution if you're confident with where you've been put - each company (HoC/CMB/Sci/Art) uses a slightly different system with slightly different swatch books and drapes. The key thing is to start to see it yourself, feel confident that you look good in your colours, and concentrate on recreating that look when you are shopping.

FWIW, I have been analysed (differently) by two different companies, and HoC was the one where I felt confident in the analysis, confident in the analyst herself, and could 'see' it. The other one was much more of a 'you are this, here's your lipsticks, bye bye' sort of approach, and although I didn't necessarily disagree, I didn't feel I had the tools and skills to actually apply using my swatch book IRL. So I have some experience of a change of diagnosis! I also get the odd clients who has experienced the same.

Hope that that helps, just ask if there are more questions, I'll check back later on!

Gosh, that was long. And {disclaimer} obviously just my interpretation of the situation.

That makes sense. I am CMB clear and warm. I can wear a few of the winter colours but def not the bluey reds like claret and raspberry. I wouldnt be seen dead in any yellow though. Best colours for me are peach, coral, emerald green, turquoise, royal blue...all very bright a la cbeebies

It could just be that some of the background theory in color analysis is plain wrong. That's why there are so many different systems; that's why the systems have been revised many times; that's why there are quite a few misclassified people.

If you think about the science of classification, most human characteristics are normally distributed. Few of us are very short or extremely tall - most of us are average height. This is why you would expect to find very few people who are very cool-toned and very few people who are really warm toned. Most people would be somewhere in the middle.

Now if you artificially impose categories on the continuous distribution, you introduce classification error. Let's say you classify by height and create three categories, 'short', 'average' and 'tall'. The tallest person in the 'short' category is closer to the shortest person in the 'average' category than the shortest person in the 'short' category. The more categories you have, the more alike the class members are. This is why a 16-class system is able to group together people who are more alike than a 4-class system. If the classification rule is simple and objective - say height - it's relatively easy for different raters to correctly classify people so that they end up with similar groups. In psychology, this is called interrater reliability. However, when the classification rules are complex and subjective, misclassification by different raters is really common and it's easy to end up in a situation where different raters disagree. Very quickly you end up in a situation where classification by expert is no more accurate than a coin toss, because different experts disagree so much.

I've never understood what is the key classification principle in color analysis. Some say it's skintone - others also assess eye and hair color. Classifying by skintone would be simple if skin tone followed one distribution (say from pure black from bright white, with shades of gray in-between). If we follow a cool-warm distribution, you'd end up with the majority being neither cool nor warm. If you artificially cut the skintone distribution in two classes, 'cool' and 'warm', you end up potentially misclassifying everyone who is actually somewhere in the middle of the distribution, neither cool nor warm. In some systems, there seem to be other distributions - light-dark and clear-muted - but how on earth do you accurately measure, operationalize and categorize them?

In psychology, theories that classified people into types were popular until psychologists understood the underlying difficulties. It sound like skintone is a complex trait that is quite difficult to classify - think how hard it is to find a perfect foundation match! It is certainly not organized just around one simple distribution, because we talk about undertones. That's why the basic underlying theory may be wrong.

However, even if the basic underlying logic in color analysis is flawed, different analysts could still be able to arrive to a reliably similar conclusions. But if the rules are fuzzy and there is a large subjective element (you have to 'feel' your colors), this is almost impossible. That's why there is so much disagreement between different raters.

The way psychologists deal with interrater reliability is that a number of different raters independently assess the same person and then results are formally compared. You can calculate a coefficient to reflect how much expert consensus differs from a pure guess. Do color analysts do this a lot during their training?

If not, it is only to be expected that that expert opinions and judgments will vary a lot and many clients will be misclassified even within the same system. And that's why people who get their colors done several times can end up with a different result each time.

Sorry about the long and theory-heavy rant... But being classified 'Spring' or 'Summer' may actually not be more informative than being classified 'Aquarius' or 'Pisces'

Frugal I agree entirely that essentially what we are doing is classifying people who fall along a spectrum (i.e. some of my clients have very warm or very cool skin tone, some have scarcely warm or cool - I have yet to meet someone who doesn't have even the teeniest tiniest bias one way or the other), but I believe I am also able to identify those people (heck, I'm one of those people!) and discuss with them how this affects the colours they wear, and where it means they can 'cheat', as it were, in terms of drawing some colours that might strictly fall into another palette. Colour analysis is always going to be a balance between what is ideal within a studio environment, where we can identify near perfect colours, and what is achievable in real life. I have to say, I disagree entirely that it's as much use as being classified aquarius or pisces - I never ask my clients to 'feel' their colours, I ask them to see something in front of them that is visual and measurable.

Yes Hopefully you classify people along a spectrum but which spectrum? And how do you make sure that different HoC consultants make similar judgments? This is only possible if the cutoff points are very clear. (And people who have gotten retested have collected empirical evidence that expert disagreement is common, ie, the underlying theory is murky and/or the decision system is unreliable.)

In a way, astrology is more reliable than color analysis. (The validity of both is questionable.) Almost anyone can arrive to similar conclusions about what star sign they are because the cutoffs are very clear. This appears not to be the case for color analysis

I confess I've been a sheep, never fully bothering to think this through. The more I think about it, the less I believe in it

In terms of which spectrum, Frugal, we effectively analyse our clients along two intersecting ones (warm/cool and muted/bright). We 'mark' them at one point along the first, then along the second. We are trained to ensure we make similar judgements (in the same way any group of people in a similar profession, from tube drivers to doctors, are trained to make similar judgements while utilising their own skills and intelligence).

I'm not saying that all systems are the same, but I have to say that the more I research, the fewer differences I see between what I class as 'good' systems (I consider Sci/Art, a couple of independents I have come across and HoC to be good systems). I think more often than not, the training system is the unreliable factor - training levels vary HUGELY across the different companies, and there are companies that offer only 3-4 days of colour training before sending their consultants out as 'experts'. Personally, I think that is what pushes the systems into disrepute, not the systems themselves, which all operate on broadly similar processes.

Of course, there are inevitably differences between different systems as they have been developed in slightly different ways, but broadly speaking we are looking at similar processes, with plenty of parallels - I truly believe that the human side of it is where there is room for problems, and I honestly think that differing training standards account for a large swathe of the problems.

Now this is getting interesting.
Thank you Frugal for your input. You've both raised some very interesting points.

Just picking up on one of your practical points, Hopefully I was intrigued by your remark on being able to cheat somewhat. This wasn't touched on at all on my day, you seem to give a more thorough explanation of how to actually use the swatches. Just for my own interest, which colours would a Blue Spring be able to draw in from other seasons? Would it just be the blues? And if it means we are more neutral would it be winter or summer that would be the closest other season to look for those colours in?
I can see that it would be useful, by giving more colours to consider, when the very warmest oranges/ yellows appear quite draining.

It would depend on the type of Spring Aque, and I would only deal with it if I had someone whose palette put them hard up against one end of their season (even among blue springs, there are variations, iykwim - as Frugal says, it's a spectrum). So if I had a very blue blue spring I might talk about being able to push the pink/blue/grey end of the palette, as long as the brightness and lightness stays (i.e. don't fall into summer pinks). If I had a really really golden spring I might talk about pushing some of the yellows/golds and maybe the greens. It really does depend on the individual client, what colours they ** in, how much information they are 'ready' for (some know nothing when they come for their colours day, some have researched for months and have a good idea how the process works and that there are different types of seasons. It's easy to overwhelm a client with too much detail if it's all new on the day). It's hard to say there's a one size fits all solution.

Oh, and if you think of blue spring leaning towards another season, it is generally winter (although again, slightly depends on the type of spring - I have had a client who was a relatively soft blue spring and wasn't particularly leaning towards winter, iykwim). I think calling them flow seasons isn't always helpful as again it depends on the client - I would much rather a client left my class knowing how to identify a good colour on themselves and felt able to make those calls based on their own skin tone. It takes time and practice, but it is possible to get there. The colour analysis is really a starting point for a colour 'journey' (sorry for getting a bit woo) and everybody finds their own way along it and deals with it in different ways.

Oh, and sorry for the millions of posts, but I just wanted to add that I'm not just giving you the party line here - I had a complete meltdown about my own colours not long before I trained and phoned my own consultant in a state about two particular colours that didn't fall in my palette at all but I thought looked good on me - sure enough, when we sat down and went through it, they toned perfectly well with my palette, made my skin tone look like velvet, and fulfilled the descriptive words for my season (on the first page of the skinny book you get along with your swatch book with HoC). It took me a long time to kind of work through it all and come full circle and realise that colour analysis is just the beginning of the process, and it can be as complex or as simple as it needs to be.

Please don't apologise for your millions of posts. You are being a real help & were very grateful for you taking the time.

Totally agree with Aquelven. Thank you Hopefully!

always happy to try to help

My final input, then I'll shut up.

The cool/warm color division traditional division of the color wheel and still used in painting, decorating and graphic design. (There is some perceptual psychological theory too that states that we tend to perceive cool colors as distant and warm colors as close to us.) But it's historic and has little to do with how modern color creation systems are organized. If you use Photoshop, you will not need a 'cool-warm' dial to define colors. The light wavelength theory is not behind it either. (Blue stars are the hot ones; red stars are cool.)

I'm sure it's easy to find people how are extremely cool-toned or extremely warm-toned, but how is this relevant to the rest of us? If you are somewhere in the middle, like most of us are, and the classification system dichotomizes people into cool vs. warm, you could fall either way depending on the exact cut-off point used. It's really arbitrary and only relevant if you are in the extremes of the distribution. (About as relevant as classifying medium-height people as 'short' or 'tall'.) Also, painters, designers and makeup artists love to mix cools and warms to create depth and contrasts - why are we not allowed to mix warm and cool when we are dressing?

And what if our natural tones are conflicting? Let's use the color wheel. The arbitrary cut-off between cool and warm is somewhere along it, although different people seem to disagree exactly where (this is why classifying people accurately along cool-warm is tricky - there is no generally accepted cutoff). What if your skin tone is slightly on the warm side of the cutoff but your eye color is slightly on the warm side of the cutoff and your natural hair color is warmer still? (No one fully understands the genetics of skin, hair and eye color, but it's certain that it is a process influenced by multiple genes that are not organized along a cool-warm divide, because they probably didn't see a HoC analyst before they coded some proteins.)

If you adhere to the principle of analogy and aim to build a color harmony solely based on your cool skintone, the logical conclusion is that you will have to gouge out your eyes wear blue mascara wear cool-toned contact lenses and tint your hair cool and ashy. Otherwise your cool-toned wardrobe will clash with your hair and eyes.

Hopefully you are a genuinely lovely person and I'm sure you are able to help a lot of people, but I just think that the system is trying to oversimplify a really complex issue.

Sorry, my message does not make much sense

Meant to say 'The traditional cool/warm division of the color wheel is still used in painting, decorating and graphic design...' and to discuss a person whose skintone is cool but eyes and hair warm.

So Frugal have you given up on colour analysis? I'm intrigued to know. Once I start thinking too much about it, it makes my brain get into an all mighty tangle as there are contradictions to some aspects.

I know there are a lot of variables on a human, although with greater or lesser surface areas...skin, hair, eyes... I wonder if some of the harmony is created by a bit of disharmony which makes the illusive eye 'popping' thing go on no need to gauge them out...

I 'trained' as an artist if that's something you can be taught though would say I'm lapsed now! (kids/career prospects etc...) I am quite keen on the idea of contrasts and rule breaking (as you said, not having to always wear cool or whatever) though I also think it is interesting to have some rules to break i.e. know what goes well together so you can break the harmony knowingly rather than just throw everything together and seeing what happens. I think that takes quite a lot of confidence and a very good eye?
Sorry if I'm missing the point Frugal; I'm not as eloquent as you.

Hopefully, thanks so much for your time popping over here.

Surely colour analysis is just a guide.

We all have powers of perception and I think most of us can tell if colours suit us or not. I found my colour analysis reinforced my view about the colours I was already wearing. And it kind of justified why there were some things (a lovely top in a bluey-berry colour) which I never really felt comfortable.

I agree Eustacia - it reinforced the colours I knew suited me and made me understand why I loom like death in muted colours.

The style day did this even more so - I cannot do casual (jeans, tshirts etc) - I'm a Classic Ingenue so no wonder.

Now I'm very happy with what I wear and feel much better than pre analysis.

It is after all a guide and you can choose to follow it strictly or loosely or not at all. Do what makes you feel comfortable.

I personally love it and would feel bereft if re rated to another season!

I agree Eustacia , I found too that it clicked into place why I was always drawn more to some colours & that I'd been basically right in which ones suited me, turquoises & blues had always been my favourite colours. I'd read up about the system before I went & according to what I'd read, plus just looking in the mirror, I'd drawn the what I thought obvious conclusion that I was cool, so either winter or summer. To look at me you see nothing warm, pale skin very white blonde hair, so much so that my DM always said that if I'd had pink eyes I'd be an albino bunny. My eyes too are more cool than warm though turquoise not blue. Yet I'd never felt happy in some of the colours that are striking in the winter/summer palettes. The burgundies, fuchsias, plums etc made me look & feel positively ill. But then so did the russets, oranges, bright golds in the warm palettes. I think that was what convinced me to go get a HoC assessment really as I'd retreated into black, the fashionistas holy grail we are urged into in the magazines, even though I could see that even that did me no real favours.
The blues, turquoises, purples in the warmer spring tones during the draping were a bit of a lightbulb moment for me, especially with the reaction of the other two ladies on the day( who had just been diagnosed as summer & autumn & I'd really seen it with them) I was really, really shocked to have the spring red as one of my ** colours as I'd always felt red overwhelmed my pale colouring.