If you shop with a colour palette, how obsessively do you try to colour match?

[Terramirabilis]

This is probably a bit of a navel-gazing question but...

After lots of research and thinking, I am gradually rebuilding my wardrobe around a colour palette and taking a great deal of care over having the right items. But I find myself getting really fixated on trying to find the perfect match to the right shade of my colours.

Should I actually bother or, in fact, will it be fine as long as they're reasonably similar? If you have e.g. grey in your palette, do you have a specific shade of grey you look for or do you count any grey as being acceptable?

I find if you hold it up to your face you can tell immediately if its not acceptable as one of your colours.

The right shade makes a real difference to me e.g. dark grey is good but light grey isn't and don't get me started on navy.

I try to match but sometimes if it just tones (rather than clashes) then I can see it's right. Sometimes it's easier to see if it tones by comparing it to a different colour in the same palette, rather than the one i'm trying to match it with.

The only exception is if it's a neutral colour that I'm going to wear on my bottom half, e.g. Navy trousers. Life's too short to look for the 'right' navy.

What's the palette?

Life's too short to look for colours that suit you?

You're joking, right?

Only navy. Good navy is like unicorn poo

Yeah that's true. It's like yellow - there's a shade out there that suits me but I've not seen it since I was 22.

I haven't had my colours done so I don't mean one of those swatch books. I just chose mid-grey, camel, dark crimson (sort of a red-toned burgundy rather than an oxblood colour), cornflower blue and ivory.

You just randomly chose colours to limit your wardrobe to? Are they your favourite colours?

When I first had my colours done I tried to match quite closely but gradually I got my eye in and trusted my judgement. Sometimes now I double check something, but mostly I don't use it. The other check is if you know you have the 'right' shade on, hold the new item next to it and you can see if it's right.

I've just picked colours I like and enjoy wearing for my wardrobe. I don't worry too much about matching exactly, it all kind of flows though. I don't really see the point of having my colours done, I've got a pretty good idea of what suits me.

Not randomly exactly. I chose camel and grey as neutrals that are pretty much always going to be widely available and are flattering to my skintone. I don't like black, for example, as I think it's too dour for me.

Then I chose two accent colours. I love burgundy so I had to have that and I look better in blue than most other colours so I chose a version of that. And then ivory is the best version of white for me.

I looked on the Vivienne Files website for ideas.

I don't use swatches either and I've never had my colours done as I seem to be able to see what suits me. I tend to choose a lot of plums, greens and dark greys but I would say I can wear most colours - apart from black or white - providing the shade is right.