Beauty

[feline groovy]

Coral would be kind of a cooler-toned peach, and it flatters everyone.

[Quinny]

I always tend to gravitate towards warmer colors when I shop for clothing. I had a Lancome representative tell me that I was a cool tone because of the color of the veins on the inside of my wrist. My hair is a darker brown now than its normal ashy brown tone.

Some women appear very much to me to have more yellow or pink to their skin, but I think there are those that are just kind of beige, like me. My sister is very olive toned, the shades she wears vary with whatever outfit she wears, but I have never thought she looked less than wonderful.

I don't know if I buy into the whole cool/warm thing. I can't see taking a huge group of Caucasian women and dividing them into only two groups.

All I have to go on is the less than helpful assistance I've received at a few cosmetic counters.

[Harpa]

On 8/13/2014 Quinny said:

I always tend to gravitate towards warmer colors when I shop for clothing. I had a Lancome representative tell me that I was a cool tone because of the color of the veins on the inside of my wrist. My hair is a darker brown now than its normal ashy brown tone.

Some women appear very much to me to have more yellow or pink to their skin, but I think there are those that are just kind of beige, like me. My sister is very olive toned, the shades she wears vary with whatever outfit she wears, but I have never thought she looked less than wonderful.

I don't know if I buy into the whole cool/warm thing. I can't see taking a huge group of Caucasian women and dividing them into only two groups.

All I have to go on is the less than helpful assistance I've received at a few cosmetic counters.

It sounds, though, that you may be on the warm side, in spite of how someone analyzed you. If those shades you mentioned do not look right somehow, and the warmer tones do, then that should reiterate the color theory -- warm/cool.

There are degrees of the warm/cool....you could put them into 4 principal palettes: winter, spring, summer, autumn

color theory

Scroll down for colors of the different tones that are complimentary:

clothing

[cassiem]

Quinny, from your last post, it sounds like you might be a neutral. Neutral doesn't mean you have to stick with neutral colors, but rather that your coloring is between warm and cool, some elements of both. I'm a true neutral and don't look good in colors that are too warm or too cool, but can wear both warm and cool colors. I say forget what someone told you about your color tones and just choose things that look good on you.

[Perkup]

Why not go to a Clinique or Estee Lauder counter and enlist their help in finding what looks good on you. Many of the cosmetic sales people are trained in this. One of my girls got some real help from a Clinique specialist.

[Quinny]

Harpa, thank you for your info. I read further on the site you provided and got a much better understanding of color theory. I don't know if I completely understand it all yet, but I saved all of the info. and will go through again. I appreciate your time and interest on my question.

[Harpa]

You're welcome, Quinny! I'm glad the information is there on-line.

I had read Color Me Beautiful a long time ago. While I know what colors/shades look best on me, I've done my share of experimenting with color cosmetics over the years! My bottom line is that different shades do look more flattering, and sometimes you're out there searching like Sherlock Holmes trying to find them!

[forest4thetrees]

Quinny,

May I also suggest in addition to the Lori Alexander site previously recommended to you, http://www.colourmebeautiful.co.uk/home, which gives a great pictorial on makeup and clothing colors for each type. To actually "see" the shade that is being described made a world of difference to help me understand what I was supposed to try to find at my local counter. I bought Lori's book on Amazon and it does help (a lot!) but before finding the uk website, when I was in the store I was a pushover for each brand's counter clerks to declare their own shades as being "mine," even though just looking at it I knew that the particular shade of pink was going to be absolutely horrible on me. Once I could see the shades suggested on the uk website I could go on line to different makeup brand webpages and compare the shade I was thinking about trying against what they had available -- without influence by a salesperson. Made it a lot easier for me to then walk up to my local makeup counter and ask for specific shades to compare in person. Remember that a seller is only marketing --- each calendar season a brand starts a new campaign; otherwise they'd always have the same shades all year and why buy another "sparking pink" when you already have three!!). For instance, isn't 2014 "the year of purple"?? (Trust me--not my shade!!)

Good luck!