I am, by training, an accountant. Logical, sceptical, my brain loves structure and proof. So when a friend first suggested Colour Analysis to me, I thought it was quite frankly a waste of money. I assumed it was someone telling you to put a bit of lipstick on and call it a transformation. I didn’t expect there to be any science in it.
There is, as it turns out, rather a lot. Starting with the Bauhaus School of Art, leading to the film industry, where it was noticed that the same person could look glowing and healthy in one colour and slightly off in another, depending on nothing more than the colour itself. That observation led research into skin undertones, and the discovery that we each carry either more yellow or more blue beneath the surface of our skin. I have a warm, muted undertone, which makes me what we’d call an Autumn. My elder daughter is cool and bright, a Winter, my younger is Autumn like me. We analysed my grandson at six months old. He’s a Winter too.
Once you know your palette, something magical happens. Every colour within it has been chosen because it works in harmony with the others, so instead of standing in front of your wardrobe trying to remember which jumper goes with which trousers, you can simply pick three things and trust that they’ll sit well together. It removes so much decision-making (and let’s face it, we make a LOT of decisions every day) and means you need fewer clothes. Whether you actually end up with fewer is a different point!
Colour also speaks, whether we mean it to or not. Blue reads as trustworthy and calm. Red is the colour that reaches the brain fastest, tied right back to old instincts around alertness, which is exactly why I tend to reach for it when I want to be remembered in a room. Green carries associations with nature. Yellow lifts a mood before you speak. This is information, and once you understand what your own colours are doing for you, you start using them on purpose rather than by accident.
Our experiences shape who we are, but we can choose who we become. Colour is one of the most immediate, practical ways to make that choice visible, before you’ve even opened your mouth.