Breaking Down My At Home Drapes…

The worst of all the drapes was that bright, shiny white. That says no to BW to me.

The true black drape was a toss-up for most people, myself included. Some thought it was okay, some didn’t like it (found shadows thrown on my face, etc.) much. Does this say I can handle some depth? I don’t know. I’m not sure that I can, once other darker colors roll through. I feel that darkness is definitely not TMIT, that’s for sure. And to some degree, I feel like it drags me down. || The softer black on the red/black ombre was an immediate no, oddly because I thought it might be better than the above true black.

No one liked the charcoal pashmina, saying I should go warmer than that. Odd that so much of what I have is way too cool for me…

The brown lakeshore bliss pashmina…up in the air again on that one. A few people said they could see something they liked about it, or thought it was okay (but not great), but couldn’t figure out what. I don’t think it’s bad; nor do I think it’s great on me. It can work. Is it again a case of too cool? I don’t know.

The teal paisley pashmina was considered also too cool by most, although one person said out of what I had posted, she liked it best. One person said it was draining, and I agree.

True red? “Not the best. Too bright (two people). Yellow on the face.” The softer red seemed to be getting there, but still considered too cool.

The dark brown side of my tan/brown ombre scarf. Want to say no but not sure why. Probably too cool again. The light brown side was immediate no all around.

…am I warmer than I thought? Hmmn.

The muted gray/blue/cream scarf was generally considered blah by everyone. Not bad, but not WOW.

Cream 2in1 considered “nice”, “not bad”, and “better than white”. Hmmn.

Avocado 2in1 was a tossup for some. One said lots of shadows (and I agree) making it bad. Another said not bad, but not great and probably too cool, again. I’m more to agreeing just not good, period.

Surprisingly, the teal 2in1 had a better reception, even having a few people say they actually liked it. I still wonder if it’s too cool? One said my skin looked even toned, but not washed out. I think I looked even toned, but a tad greenish here.

Everyone hated orange, which is fine, because so do I! Lol

The light pink side of the light pink/dark pink ombre was considered too light, too cool, and too icy on me. One person said “This makes ur skin look sickly almost. Like it gives it an ashy greenish Yellow tone that isn’t really there.” …eww.

The darker pink side of the last scarf was better, according to most, but still not quite there. On the right track. Still too cool, said someone. Even I said “feel like SSu is a little too cool for me; I think I do need some warmth, but it’s not TMIT. Maybe SA like Lou-Lou suggested?” Later on, I went back to SSu and stuck with it for a while, but now I’m doubting it again and thinking I really need to go warmer. Hmmn.

No one liked the taupe 2in1, which is fine because neither do I. I see shadows, uneven skin, bags under my eyes, and odd colors on my face. Yuck.

Navy and muted pinks NYBs were considered too cool again, or in the case of the pink, just plain no. Funny that later, I did the muted pink one with full face SSu and people thought it was fabulous on. Goes to show you can’t trust makeup. It only worked WITH the full face makeup on.

The light gray scarf with the shiny silver threads was called “not bad”.

The SUNNY YELLOW one was where things started getting weird (and confusing for me. Lol). I got a TON of comments on this one. First said she liked something about it, though there was a little bit of reflection around the chin (agreed on the reflection). Much better than bright, and muted seems to be more my direction. One solid YES and several more not bads and I like it but don’t know why. Some said pretty good. Someone took the same picture and muted it out just a tad to a buttercup/goldenrod typed yellow, and it was VERY nice, IMO. Two people said TA COLORS are CLOSE but not quite. One said check out spring (I SHOULD check out True Spring in this case, though I can’t imagine that I’m pure warm, that just doesn’t make sense! o.O). One said “My first, off the cuff guess was a bright spring, but I think Tabitha‘s skin is more ‘sombre’ and also there’s the mauve aspect …” …now, regarding mauve, I don’t know if that’s quite right. I think it needs to be a little more peachy mauvey to be correct, now that I’m looking more objectively about things. I do agree that my skin is more SOMBRE than bright spring, and all the bright stuff looked godawful on me. Warm spring was linked as a picture…and I kind of like it. o.O again. …and then all of a sudden, Lou-Lou said that the more she looked at me, the more she saw cool tones with olive, and the conversation just swung way away from the colors and into the composition of my skin. Yes, I sure am olive (blame the Portuguese and Italian on that), but I can’t decide if cool or warm. I think neutral leaning warm now, since trying SSu this whole time and finding it too cool and a bit too brown/autumny. Someone at this point even linked to a True Autumn (dunno…I’ve had so many people say they love shiny silver on me, even though I CAN do gold, too). And this was me: “I find anything peachy or coral to make me look feverish, and anything brown to look muddy.” Still holds true, in regards blush. And I said this, too: “On Truth Is Beauty, I’m reading their article on SSu. This statement feels VERY much like me: “As a Soft Summer, your very worst colors are bright.” I think about that royal blue in the album (awful), the lime green (ugh!) and that super yellow (if anyone’s ever done the buttercup buttercup game as a child, that’s how I felt!). I feel like bright is the WORST I can do, period…which is making me think leaning Soft one way or the other (or maybe the Deep Softs…) makes a loooooot of sense!” True that my WORST colors are bright. I think second worst are dark, because of this: “I actually feel really good and very much myself in lighter colors generally (over darker, which feel like I’m being weighed down emotionally, thus making me feel like DA wasn’t an entirely good fit).”

Moving on to bright yellow, and it was AWFUL. HORRID. Bright really is the worst I can do.

Lime green was also horrid, awful, and vomit-inducing. I looked entirely green and pale, and pretty much looked like I was about to puke the entire time. NO to brights!

Someone did like Richard’s burgundy shirt (though one said maybe too cool). I find it pales me out and overwhelms me to some degree. More “here’s burgundy” and less “here’s me”.

The dark greenish gray was immediate and all around no.

Royal blue: too cool, too bright. And as far as I’m concerned, also too SHINY.

The Irish green shirt was said to be something likeable by several people. Lou-Lou said green reflection, shadows, and ashy, and I agree with her.

The muted green was meh all around.

~*~*~*~*~

Soooo. What is all of this telling me?

NO BRIGHTNESS. This is my number one worst thing overall.
WHITE WAS THE WORST OVERALL DRAPE. No to BW/TW.
Black was not great but also not awful.
Most everything I have is too cool. This says to me, go warmer.
Darkness is a tossup. Some say yes. I say passable, but feel more medium at best.
There was a lightness level that looked too light…but I wonder if it looked too light because it was TOO COOL, or because it was actually too light.
Some softness seemed good. Also some warmth. Though I did get quite a few comments about TA or True Spring, so maybe I should look at those.

Okay. So NO TO THE BELOW:

NO BRIGHT WINTER
NO BRIGHT SPRING
I’M NOT TRULY COOL, SO…
NO TRUE SUMMER OR TRUE WINTER.
NO DARK AUTUMN OR DARK WINTER (FELT TOO HEAVY/HARSH).

……….

So this leaves the possibilities of:

LIGHT SPRING
LIGHT SUMMER
SOFT AUTUMN
SOFT SUMMER
TRUE SPRING
TRUE AUTUMN

……….

And of those, I’ve almost entirely ruled out Soft Summer because it is bland on me, slightly graying, a tad too cool, a tad too brown, and I have to wear full face makeup with it to make it work.

So narrowing it down further still, these are what I have to work with:

LIGHT SPRING
LIGHT SUMMER
SOFT AUTUMN
TRUE SPRING
TRUE AUTUMN

……….

It may be possible that I’m warm after all. I’m going to look at these above and see if they fit. I’m especially going to pay attention to the makeup (lipstick/gloss) recommendations, because that was a tip off for me with SSu. I feel that I should be able to wear literally JUST some lipstick/gloss without putting anything else on my face (foundation, concealer, blush, etc.) to “pull” a look together.

Laying Sci-art to Rest.

Well. Yesterday, I finally sat down and posted a whole bunch of real life drapings for the Figure My Season Facebook group, and the results were fairly well unanimous. What’s my MIT? Darkness and some warmth.

Ladies and gentleman, I’m Dark Autumn.

Which I kind of have been thinking for quite some time anyway, so!

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get myself a fan, and then I can start shopping for fabrics to make stuff with!

The funniest part about all of this is that I’ve always felt for sure that black is so bad on me. In fact, there was quite a lengthy discussion about the black and what it was doing to me. It turns out that everyone else thinks it’s really not so bad at all, and that I can handle that kind of darkness. Some even said they saw some skin clearing, too, though it was generally said that black is not The Best on me. A very dark almost-black or a softer black would undoubtedly be well. So how about that?

Burgundy was well liked, as well as, surprisingly, this medium sunny yellow. The yellow wasn’t perfect, but was nice on my skin. It did cast something of a shadow on the sides of my face, though, so the yellow color wasn’t just so, but there was something to like about it (so sayeth multiple people). I think it would do well were it a little browner and taken into the goldenrod territory. So now, I’ll be on the lookout for goldenrod-colored things as well! Pure white was an absolute, unanimous NO, which I guessed myself because I look very sickly in white. No one at all liked the charcoal gray, but I think if it were warmer (gunmetal?) I would like it a lot.

Dark brown, if warmed up some, was liked. I would like it too, but it’s so hard to find warmed up browns that aren’t TOO warm! The light browns/taupes were not well liked in general, because I needed more darkness than that. Cream was great, which is what I expected as I like it very well myself. The avocado green 2-in-1 was liked, though I saw some reflection under the chin, as well as the teal one. Which is awesome because I picked out both of those after having determined initially that I was Dark Autumn, and shopped them online using the palette (above) which I have saved on my computer! 🙂

It’s odd that almost all of the scarves I own are cooler, or at least far too cool for me. That was the general concensus: “This is far too cool, that is far too cool”…although there were a couple of instances where something was too warm, namely the rust/orange scarf I have. I’ve always kept those colors far away from my face, though, so no harm there. Up close both were dastardly, although I will say that all of the commentary about it was dead set against the orange. Which I knew all along. Orange is BAD on me. BAD. …AND the reason why I didn’t think for pretty much forever that I was an Autumn at all, because I could not wear orange well. Of course, I was imagining pumpkins and the like, which are for a True Warm Autumn. No, I am not that. I do have some neutral, too, and lean darker. But I’m told I ought to go a lot warmer than what I have been doing. Almost everyone commented on how they would like to see me in warmer recs, just to see what it would do. Alas, I don’t have much and draped literally everything I had to work with.

I was extremely gratified that everyone else saw that Brights were too bright for me. The true red was a definite no, as were the royal blue and the lime. Between the three it was easy to rule out Bright Winter and Bright Spring altogether. Which is good, because I hate both! I almost had a panic attack when I was doing the digital drapings in GIMP and was told by Buffy that she liked the Brights the best. That, I’m afraid, may have been a case of “I like the colors that look well on ME, not you”…just like I did when she was posting up what everyone else thought SHE was. I said I thought she was Dark Autumn. She turned out to be Bright Spring.

The teal paisley pashmina wasn’t entirely liked, however there WAS something about it to like. Going warmer was suggested, as it looked a touch too cool.

LOTS and LOTS of comments of this or that are ALMOST good, but a bit– or WAAAAAY!– too cool.

I need to work on my eye some to make sure I buy the right things.

Next order of business is to try and get myself a fan! If I can somehow manage to make one from this palette out of paint chips, I will SO do that! Otherwise, I’m afraid the palette strip will have to wait till tax time next year.

Sci-art AHA! moment

I’ve been really struggling with sci-art and traditional color theory. I’ve posted photos with photoshopped drapes on facebook groups and got varying results and opinions from people. Some say Bright Winter (ha, no!) or Soft Autumn (sure, if you get rid of about half the colors…) and some have even claimed me for a Bright Spring (even more no!). A couple have suggested Dark/Deep Winter, and it felt kind of like the closest to what I could get.

For myself personally, I vacillate between Dark Winter and Soft Summer Deep, meaning that I want only the darkest of the Soft Summer colors, but I can take a little more contrast than Summer gives me. I think that when all things are said and done, Zyla’s Soft Winter type will be a good match. Why?

• Pale, sallow skin with dark hair and eyes equals a winter type.
• Winters, I’m told, tend to have pale, pale low-contrast lips unless they put some color on them.
• Bright colors and highly saturated colors overwhelm me. Think anything royal and I disappear.
• Light colors tend to wash me out.
• Colors with too much warmth (ie: yellows and oranges) make me look physically sick to my stomach.
• I cannot wear true black or true white (True Winter colors), but I can easily handle white slightly grayed and “old, faded black tee-shirt” black well.
• My skin likes darker, muted colors the most, ie: navy, burgundy, plum, forest green, charcoal. All of these are best when a touch of gray is added to desaturate them.

I saw an article today when reading on the 12Blueprints site: http://12blueprints.com/pam-is-a-dark-winter/

I can’t post the photos on here because of copyright, but you can click the link and see it just fine.

…and that was kind of my AHA! moment. My coloring is SOOOO similar to this girl’s. My hair and skin tones are almost exactly the same. The only difference is my eyes are mossy green hazel while hers are more straight brown. Still…this is as close as it gets in 12 seasons, I think.

I’m going to spend some time delving deeper into the Dark Winter category on Pinterest and the like now. I still suspect I’m a bit softer than Dark Winter, but I cannot confirm if I’m Soft Winter until I get Zyla’s book, which should be sometime between now and a couple weeks hence.

But yey! I almost kinda sorta figured some of this out.

Off to pin! 🙂