Very few have heard of the term Colorimetry (color analysis). The truth and despite the fact that there is few diffusion it is pretty antique. Since the XVII century, the famous Isaac Newton performed studies about color, but it wasn’t until 1905 that Albert Munsell would create the Color Tree based on: tone, value, saturation.This brilliant discovery has worked as inspiration during centuries for painters, sculptors, and architects.
A color thing
Throughout history and now a days there is a lot of image advisors who use it.
In the early 80´s Carole Jackson revolutionized the world with the book “Color me Beautiful” that was bestseller in that decade and had a strong influence on fashion.
Later on, it would lose its boom as some brands of clothes and make up would be worried of not being able to make all the colors they wanted to impose on the seasons and they tried to rebut the theory.
The system created by Carole Jackson, was based in the 4 seasons: Winter, Summer, Autumn and Spring and classified the people according to their physical color characteristics, tone and saturation in one of the seasons.
But, what is the color analysis? Some people may ask themselves when they go out they give the impression that they are sick or tired? Or to the contrary why they look younger or radiant? This effect that is perceived by others has a direct relation with the use of the correct color, a situation that is ignored by most people and that in general has a positive or negative effect, in a few words: Coincidence.
Each person is different
The analysis of Color or Colorimetry analyze a person through its color of hair, skin and eyes and classifies it as a season. Every season has a pallet of compatible colors that will enhance each person and will be combined with her or his appropriate natural tone.
Human beings have in their body chemistry different substances: hemoglobin that gives the red color, melanin that gives the color brown and carotene grants the yellow color. The greater or fewer amount of chemicals in the body provides a unique color that could be light, dark, warm or cold. What happens is that many people try to go against their nature of their harmony and they produce a counter effect.
The evolution of the analysis of color has led to today having 16 color season, in which humans can be classified, that is to say that there are 4 types of Winter, Summer, Autumn and Spring that vary according to the intensity, saturation and temperature of each one of them.
How to discover the season? Generally the dark people tend to be either Winter or Autumn and the light ones tend to be Spring or Summer. The warm people are either Autumn or spring and the cold people are Winter or Summer.
Now a days the system is being widely used around the world by image consultants for their clients who want to portray a better image around what they do. Coco Chanel, a historic fashion icon, said: “the best color in the world is one that suits you”. She was right, it was her who popularized the use of the color black and she was perfect as a “cold Winter”, season which suits her very well according to experts, but she looks very bad in other season that are soft and light.
In the end
Contrary to popular wisdom that blonde people should wear black, according to the colorimetry it is an erroneous concept, a blonde is warm or spring, they should wear bright and vivid colors. Dark and intense people should wear strong and dark colors, very pale and soft people should avoid using black and use pastel colors.
Warm people or red heads should use colors of the earth in broad aspects, nevertheless in each color pallet you can find almost every color, the difference is the saturation of each one. For example that is from the season winter could use cobalt blue, summer could use blue sky, autumn ultramarine blue and royal blue for spring.
The colorimetry is applied the same in Men as in Women and it well known that many celebrities or political characters use it to generate a better impact on their audience. The colorimetry can’t pretend to fit right into a specific pallet, but it does help to use the appropriate colors and avoids that people become victims of fashion or season colors that are not appropriate for everyone and who wouldn’t want to look better using the appropriate colors?
