Soft Mosaic is a color and style blog for those who are soft in coloring or admire soft colors. The world is full of different color combinations that create different patterns and color schemes. Let nature and the world around us inspire our eye for fashion.
Have you ever thought to wear the colors that you are in clothing, makeup, accessories? You would have to look at the skin color, eye color and hair color. If you ever bought makeup at a retail counter you might know something about warm foundation and cool foundation or you might know that you either tan or burn in the sun. This information really can only tell us so much and is minuscule in the overall complexity of actually knowing what colors are your best colors in clothing, makeup, and accessories.
Just as there are 4 seasons, people are grouped into 4 parent categories: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Spring and Autumn are warm, the difference is Spring has clearer coloring and Autumn has a heavier muted coloring. Summer and Winter are cool however Summer is muted in coloring and Winter is clearer in coloring. There is the true center of each season: True Spring (warm and clear), True Summer (cool and muted), True Autumn (warm and muted), and True Winter (cool and clear). Then there are the neutral seasons (neutral meaning on the cusps of warm and cool) however one remains dominant in temperature. There is also the darker category to each season (Bright Spring, Soft Summer, Dark Autumn, and Dark Winter) and the lighter side to each season (Light Spring, Light Summer, Soft Autumn, and Bright Winter. Soft Autumn and Soft Summer are the softest and most muted of the seasons. Color Analysis is complex. This might not make much sense if you are new to color analysis.
My Personal Coloring and Professional Color Palettes as a Case Study:
I was recently analyzed by Lora Alexander in the new Color Breeze System Color Analysis-Analyzed as Sunlit Soft Summer. It includes the extended Soft Seasons for Soft Summer and Soft Autumn. Lora explained to me that the Sunlit Soft Summer is a Summer flowing into a Spring and is a tad bit clearer and warmer then the Dusty Soft Summer (more muted) or Cool Summer. A Sunlit Summer often has some Spring like looks to her like a starburst in the eye or something warmer or brighter about her but not enough to be a Spring and not light and bright enough to be a Light Summer. If you were to look at a Sunlit Soft Summer as a child, their hair might be highly variable in ash (cool) and golden (warm) color threaded through it-a dimensional look impossible to recreate with hair dye. This is why the Sunlit Soft Summer can play up warm and coolness and even add some clearer or muted colors to their palette in intricate combinations in makeup, hair (highlights), and clothing. This also makes a lot of sense because when I was analyzed by Rachel (12 blueprints) she said that I was the lighter side of Soft Summer (depicted in picture above).
Natural colors are beautiful and we need to stick to or only slightly enhance what nature gave us. Sometimes we can stray far from our natural look with hair dyes or makeup/clothing that is not harmonious…here we loose are natural blueprint. We must go back to when we were a child, however we can cool down a bit with age. Some people have an innate eye for harmonization while we all benefit from training our eyes. I hope my blog will help you start to train your eyes for the Soft Seasons. I chose to have this blog dedicated to the Soft Seasons, mainly because I am a Soft season and I also find them to be fascinating. We have Soft Summer, Soft Spring, Soft Autumn, and Soft Winter seasons that are a part of the 16 season system. Not everyone follows the 16 seasons system and so they subscribe to just 12 seasons with Soft Autumn and Soft Summer. The point of my blog is not to argue those points but simply to just explore the beauty of being a soft season.
Color alliance uses the draping method and a computer software program to determine a clients best colors. My first analyst from Color Alliance had a difficult time deciding between Summer and Autumn because Soft Summer is the Summer-Autumn flow. Here was a palette based off of my coloring. The analyst chose Summer because it appeared to her slightly better. My colors are mostly comparable to Soft Summer. You can see the skin, hair, and eyes swatch with the gum shaped cut in them. The hair does appear warmer brown, again this trick of warm in the cool Soft Summer.
Here is the beautiful Soft Summer palette from my sci-art/12 blueprints analysis. Sci-art uses strictly the draping method of colored fabrics on a person. I had two by Heather Noakes and Rachel Nachmias. Both analysts saw something a little different in my season for me, but that was preference. Heather saw darker colors cleared my skin but Rachel saw that the lightest colors looked the most lively on me and gave me the best glow both two very true perspectives. In this type of analysis hair is pulled back from the face and is covered up. The skin is the main focus and the colors should pour out of the persons eyes when they are in the correct color.
Here is my custom Zyla palette. This analyst looks for overall harmonization and includes your hair so if hair is dyed it changes your palette. A palette like this has true potential for a person of a season that is blended because they might be able to be warmer or cooler in some colors then others or more or less saturated as well. This concept gives the freedom for such a mixture. Zyla saw me with clarity but still some softness, and warm and cooler combinations which ties into Lora Alexander’s theory of the Soft Summer light who seems to be a tad clearer and warmer in the Soft Summer season.
This is my Kathy palette, she uses a very similar technique to Zyla focusing on overall harmonization including hair.
*I do not own the Sunlit Soft Summer palette from Lora Alexander’s ColorBreeze System yet, so I will have to add that image to this post at a later time.
Sometimes the world is full of a lot of bright colors and we need to adjust our focus. Here is a Soft Summer eye, which happens to be mine. Here again you can see the play of warm and cool, and you can see my eye is not clear but muted (however has some slight clarity to it, that of a Soft Summer on the lighter side of the palette.
My hair seems brown in some light and in other light seems dark blonde. It also has many ash and neutral-warm tones mixed in. When we dye our hair we get a flat color. Natural hair like a Soft Summer’s is in my opinion impossible to recreate. If one must dye their hair I’d recommend just to highlight it but soft highlights and nothing too contrasting from the base color. Soft Summer’s are rich and dimensional and not represented by a flat or saturated hair dye job.
While painting this canvas, I toned every paint color with gray. Can you tell? If I put this painting against a bright wall it would be overpowered. Against a grayed wall, this painting glows.
Thank you for Reading! I hope this post opened your mind about our natural coloring. I look forward to sharing a generous amount of ideas with you!
~Soft Mosaic
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