What is this colour season thing and how do I find out which one I am?

[BertieBotts]

I'm a bit scared of S&B so be gentle! I have always just bought clothes that I like rather than trying to work out what goes together, despite having a vague intention to do that several times, I've never really had the budget to buy several "outfits" at once.

Now I have some money available and I have decided to spend some of it on putting together a work "uniform" of sorts, most people in my workplace wear business casual type dress whereas I come in wearing jeans and a hoodie There is no dress code, but I feel like it would make me feel a bit more professional if I dress more professionally, and give me more confidence etc.

So I've been looking up capsule wardrobe type things on Pinterest, which look good and fairly easy to do, but I noticed that of course they all run to a colour scheme and kept coming across mentions of "your season", which I have vaguely heard of but don't really get. I searched colour seasons on Pinterest and there are lots of pictures of celebs but I don't know which ones I compare to because it's hard to judge that sort of thing from a picture, I think??

I know that my skin is very pale because when I got married they had to use the lightest shade of foundation that they had. I have green eyes and light brown hair, that shade sort of between blonde and brown. People always comment when I wear green that it looks good on me, and I like purple, and I have the idea that bright red makes me look a bit washed out, but could be wrong - but other than that I don't really know.

What's your best lip colour?Do you look better in browner shades or pinks re lipstick? When you say green are we talking sea glass,sage,duck egg,lime,olive or emerald?

Truth is beauty has a good online quiz to help narrow it down by working through colours that don't work. From your very brief description you sound like a soft summer.

If you are a soft summer it will be a breeze to pull a capsule wardrobe together.

Shops that do a lot of soft summer stuff-

Mistral
Indigo at Marks and Spencer
Boden has some lavender grey in at the moment and soft pink.
Mint Velvet
White Company
EKO.

A lot of Danish brands have a bias towards a cool,muted palette.

I don't ever wear make up really so I don't know what lipstick shades suit. If I wear very bright reds or pinks then I feel as though I look like a painted doll but I don't know if it's just because I'm not used to it. I wore pale pink lipstick when I got married, but I had a bronze lip gloss as a teenager I liked a lot too.

I would say my eyes are olive. They can be greyish too.

I'll get DH to try the quiz with me since it says you need a friend! Not sure that's a great idea but to have a go

All of the quizzes are coming up summer and pastels too. Aaah! I never ever wear pastels! Mainly because I'm so clumsy I am worried I will spill things on them and stain them, admittedly...

But it's so girly and flowery - really not "me" at all. I am not at all convinced. I will have to try some things on.

Soft summer is a deeper more neutral palette generally. Just pick a few of the more sober neutral tones and build a wardrobe around that. Google sci/art soft summer palette- it's more user friendly.

Also look at soft autumn and see which one works better for you.

Oh now I do like that. And in fact those are the kinds of colours I'd been attracted to recently and then felt like they were a bit too drab.

Also consider what styles you like. I did colour and style consultations with House of Colour (I think!) some years ago. I am deep, warm and soft which are actually colours I am always drawn to. The style thing was interesting. I am a lazy cow basically. I went along thinking that I'd like to be able to wear statement jewellery etc but what I learnt was that it is very hard to fight your natural "style". I'm casual. I don't like being all dollied up lol.

PS sorry to give you more to worry about! I just think that floral, girly stuff doesn't necessarily relate to the colours you are aiming for. Could be more about the style.

Haha, fair enough. Yes I am lazy too. I don't want to spend ages doing my hair and make up, and my clothes choosing usually consists of "Is this stained or crumpled? Am I wearing two things the same colour and looking like a prison inmate? No? Good to go."

I probably wouldn't bother wearing clothes at all if it wasn't cold outside, and was acceptable to wander around in your pyjamas.

You probably have a 'natural' style personality and your colouring sounds muted so maybe avoid high contrast stuff. Black with white for example. Think soft, muted, non-jarring.

I have pale skin, dark hair, dark brown eyes so my contrast is higher against pale skin. Black and white are good in my case.

Do you have any warm tones in your hair, do you have any freckles? Do you look better in gold jewellery or silver?

I don't know what warm tones in hair means.

Silver jewellery definitely.

I have freckles but they aren't very noticeable.

Yes to low contrast stuff.

Warm tones means golds, reds, chestnut, that sort of thing. If I look back at old school photos when I was young, even though my hair was mousy, it always had bits of gold in it. I have green eyes and suit green too, but bright green or apple green, not olive (autumn) or bottle (winter), not sure what green summers can wear. I am a spring.

Ah I see. Yes there are gold tones in it I suppose, especially in the summer months it bleaches out a bit. It's more dark blonde than light brown really, when I was younger it was totally blonde.

If you had to wear a white or cream top, which would look better (or in my case, which would look less awful!)

No idea. As I said, I never wear pale colours because I'd drop food down it and stain it. My wedding dress was white. I'll have a look with a tea towel or something

White is a cool colour (winter/ summer), cream is warm (spring/autumn). I don't like pale colours either! I thought I was summer when I went for colour analysis as I always wore navy and pink. But it wasn't a surprise when diagnosed spring, looking at the colours, as in the dim and distant past, I had worn an apple green dress to a wedding once and also used to have a coral/ apricot coloured top, both which people said really suited me. Just lost my way over the years in a sea of black post babies! Got to 40 and realised black was hideous on me, blue better (but navy still not good).
Having read the summer thread, there are some on there that do have warm tones in their hair, so its not an exact science.

Since you don't know what does or doesn't suit you or if you're warm or cool toned you'd be a good candidate for having your colours done professionally. I recommend House Of Colour if you are in the UK. Costs over a 100 quid but hey, at least you'd know what colours suit you :)

I'm not in the UK. And I don't have £100 to spend on somebody telling me what colours suit me! :) I'm taking it with a bit of a pinch of salt TBH, was just wondering what it's all about really.