The winter colours thread part 2...

[QueenCadbury]

Are you a winter colouring? If so come and join us for chat about clothes/make up following on from here.

Someone (littlepigus I think) suggested this blog and here is today's post, a HOC review

MissScatterbrain I don't remember recommending it but I read too many beauty blogs

I have dark brown hair, pale skin and dark hazel (leaning towards the brown) eyes. Honestly I don't tend to wear eyeshadow, but would wear thick grey eyeliner and it looks fine. Winters need lots of contrast, you're purposely not trying to 'match' your features. Matching makeup to eyes is quite outdated anyway, contrasting makeup is much more effective in bringing out your features. For example, emerald green eyeliner looks wonderful with brown eyes.

Generally I wear lots of black mascara, some blusher and a bright lipstick. Sometimes some sharp flicky eyeliner, either a thin line or a thick one.

Also keep eyeliner to the upper lids only - looks so much more modern.

Eyeliner on my upper lids closes them (every makeup sales assistant agrees). I can only wear it on the lower and about a third in from the outer corner.

I meant I wore dark brown clothes, not eyeshadow, sorry! I like navy or charcoal liner - emerald sounds good too!

escargot I've been inspired to dig out some of my brighter lipsticks - have you tried a sheer bright colour e.g. No.7 Sheer Temptation in Smoulder (red)? There's also a bright/deep pink - not sure what it's called.
I find these great for evening but you do need to reapply often, but that seems to be the case with all the sheer lipsticks or glosses I've tried.

I know I might be controversial here but CMB Deep Winters can wear very dark cool browns. CMB Deep Winters can wear the darkest colours of a Deep Autumn. Might be worth breaking the rules a little (IMO colours are there to be a guide and it's not an exact science). I am a Bright Winter with a neutral skintone so will wear the odd warmer colour as long as it is only a tiny bit warm and very bright. Sounds like you may have a neutral skintone too. I wear both gold and silver jewellery btw.

Oh and Revlon balm stains (the chubby stick type) are great and really do leave a stain - Lovesick (cool bright pink, quite magenta on me) lasts all day, I just top up for moisture.

LittleBabyPigsus do you mean a shade like plain chocolate, really dark? I've always thought I could wear that shade of brown but not anything too red.

I'd agree with that LittleBabyPigsus. I can get away with very dark bitter chocolate. It's not my best colour but still works. Some bright winter palettes that you see on Pinterest have a bright reddish burnt orange called persimmon that strangly doesn't look awful too.

Sorry, deep winter not bright winter. here it has persimmon and coffee.

Yes, a really dark bitter chocolate. Similarly I can wear a tomato red lipstick (only a tiny tiny bit orange or yellow, more red than persimmon) eg Maybelline Color Vivids in Neon Red or MAC Lady Bug.

Interesting. I don't have swatches so not sure if the sheer red lipstick I have is the right kind of red. I remembered there was a really scary looking red blusher Clarins made in the 80's that really suited me so just tried a bit of the sheer red lipstick on my cheeks (well blended not stripes!) and it looks great. Was feeling that my current pink was a bit muted (got it from No. 7 on one of their offers and it was the brightest shade they did) - seems I was right.

In bitter choc I look okay as opposed to awful compared to other Autumn colours but still I don't look great compared with indigo, black or charcoal. Tomato red looks terrible on me. I feel that if I am spending money, I prefer to get something I know will make me look great rather than okay so will avoid brown.

There was a FB page showing all the four navy blues from each season and it was interesting how when put together, you can see how different these are from each other...

NYX and Sleek both do red blushers. Agree that they can be surprisingly flattering.

Ahh MissScatterbrain but is your skintone definitely cool? It's probably why. I look better in black just because it's hard to find a brown sharp enough if that makes sense - having a neutral skintone, the sharpness/clearness of a colour is more of an issue for me than the warmth or coolness iyswim.

I am a sultry/deep winter and my skintone is supposed to be cool...mole is one of my best colours actually but hardly ever wear it as its so hard to find in the shops.

My friend is a proper traditional winter - really pale skin, dark hair, dark eyes, etc, and she looks amazing in royal blue and so on. And she wears a very dark bitter chocolate brown jumper and looks fine. Pairs it with green jeans and it is an autumn palette but looks fine on her - but looks quite casual in a way it might not on someone else.

I have a grey scarf with bits of mustard in - looks fine. But a mustard cardigan makes me look ill. Some dustier grey blues look fine on me too, even though they are more summery colours.

I think it is all such a change for me that I'm working with the rules for now, but I think they are definitely a guide and that everyone is different, and an amazing shape top in a slightly wrong shade of navy is not going to be a bad buy in all circumstances.

I'm absolutely loving the advice on colour combos in the HoC workbook you get, btw. I revisited them today and they are so useful. I would never think of burgundy with ice pink but I can see it would work.

Yes - I think the only shade of navy I really couldn't wear at all is a summer navy, I have some leeway with the others. Marine navy doesn't look navy to me at all, it's just a dark teal

The 12 blueprints lady describes deep (aka sultry) winters as winters with a spoonful of dark chocolate, which sounds interesting to me.

Here is the FB page showing the four different navy blues

MissScatterbrain- most of us sultry winters are more neutral toned than cool. The 12 blueprints describe us as being next to deep autumns, who also lean to neutral but are at the warmer end of it, while sultry deep are cooler neutrals, if that makes sense.

yes it does make sense KB

kb that does make sense!

miss I'm sultry and I can't wear mole

I'm starting to think this whole colours thing might be causing me more stress than just wearing orange would

Thanks for the make-up tips x

Not all sub seasons look good in the same way although there will be many similarities. For example, I look amazing in 100% black but other sultry winters can't do that much black. The sub seasons are a guide as to the type of winter colours would look good on you (i.e sultry = dark and deep colours in the palette).

I think HoC's rating system is brilliant as it really helps me choose the best possible colours for me esp if buying investment pieces.

However it does not mean you must use your own ratings religiously - I tend to avoid pink as I am not keen on it even though I know I look good in some pinks.

Back to earlier point about navy print shirts, I found this from Crew Clothing - and this also - not cheap but nice and 100% cotton.

Face- I'd say the navy in the crew shirt looks more like an autumn navy than a winter navy, after looking at the navy swatches MissScatterbrain linked to above.