Weekender Find your personal color

Color types help stylize makeup, fashion

By Chung Ah-young

Mountains and streets transform into colorful flowery surroundings with the onset of spring. It’s the season of coming back to life and waking up to a palette of bright colors and cheerful hues. This is quite vivid in women’s makeup and clothes. So have you ever thought about your personal colors that perfectly suit your image?

Personal colors refer to a specific color group determined for a person by considering three important factors — their skin, eyes and hair — to help them look their best in makeup and fashion. Some people even use their personal colors to decorate their home.

“Personal colors were first introduced some 15 to 20 years ago in Korea but it was not widely known. Just a handful of politicians and CEOs received color consulting at a high cost in the past. But these days more and more young people are getting interested in personal colors because they want to look better using better makeup and fashion,” Hyun Jung-kyun, president of Coloz, a personal coloring consulting company, said in an interview with The Korea Times.

He opened the online company on April 20 last year to popularize personal coloring and the first anniversary is being celebrated with more than 14,000 members using the free service.

“The website (www.coloz.co.kr) offers various consultations and tips for accessories, clothing and makeup according to the online users’ personal color grouping that can be matched through a self-check questionaire.

There are basically four color types that reflect the seasons — spring, summer, fall and winter. The winter and summer types have a cool coloring with ash tones in the hair, grey-blue eyes and pinkish undertones in the complexion. The spring and autumn types are drawn to warm colors with reddish hair or brown eyes and golden or yellowish undertones in the complexion.

For example, singer Lee Hyo-ri is a fall color type with a calm and sophisticated image which suits deeper, richer colors such as salmon pink and tomato red, as well as animal patterns.

In contrast, actress Kim Hye-soo is a winter color type and has a stronger, more urbane image, which matches clear and bold colors such as wine red, emerald green, royal blue or other icy colors.

A spring color type is actress Lee Yeon-hee with a lively and cute image. She looks best in bright and warm colors such as peach, pink, orange, bright green and pansy purple.

With a friendly and graceful image, actress Han Ga-in is a summer color type. Han glows when she wears pearl colors, lavender purple and pastel blue.

To determine the right color type, skin tone is the most important factor. But if either the hair color or eye coloring are more noticeable, they should be considered first before the color of one’s skin.

Your complexion is also crucial. Is it warm or cool? Warm complexions have yellow, peach or red undertones while cool complexions have pink, violet or blue undertones.

If you have a complexion with pink, violet or blue undertones, your fashion and makeup colors should have similar undertones. Colors with undertones that are warm or yellowish will be less attractive or clash with your complexion.

People with warm undertones such as yellow, peach or red — look best in those similar colors. They should avoid colors that have cool or blue undertones when choosing makeup or clothing.

Knowing a little about warm and cool colors can generally help people figure out their personal colors easily. Warm colors in fashion items include ivory, yellow green, bright orange, red-orange and dark brown while cool colors are pure white, blue, green, bright pink, burgundy and black.

If a certain color creates shadows on your face or if it reflects color, avoid it in your clothes and makeup.

To select the best colors, you should analyze your skin tone without makeup. Place a white towel around your shoulders and change towels with different colors until they match your complexion.

“The main aim of our website and business is to promote personal colors as much as possible to the wider public. Coloz is a combination of the word ‘color’ and ‘Oz’ that hopes to magically upgrade people’s images by helping them wear the right colors. I believe color has the power to change people,” said Hyun.

He emphasized that after knowing one’s personal colors, people can shop more quickly and effectively by knowing which colors to choose for whatever products.

“When we enter a cosmetic store, a salesperson usually recommends the bestselling products that are popular or trendy colors to any and all customers. But that’s wrong. Everyone cannot suit the same trendy colors as we have different skin tones and complexions. I think the marketing strategy should use personal colors or at least separate warm and cool tones for individuals,” he said.

Jo Eun-ju, a consultant of Coloz, said that the right colors add clarity or glow to the skin and make skin imperfections or wrinkles less noticeable. Meanwhile, the wrong colors can appear to drain color from the skin, leaving it sallow and unhealthy looking.

“Consequently it is very important to know what type of color fits your skin, hair and eye color to appear more attractive,” she said.

“In many cases, after receiving the color analysis, the result is quite opposite to what we have thought about ourselves. But don’t worry. If the result is the opposite to the colors of your fashion items or accessories, you don’t have to throw everything away. Instead, you can highlight with the best colors in a brooch or scarf, which can be placed closest to your face,” she said.

“At least if we know whether we suit warm or cool types, we can easily pick colors that match us very well. If fashion marketing people have the indications of warm or cool tones on their products, consumers can easily select the products that best fit them,” said Jo.

She said the common mistake for many Koreans is to think black, gray and white are easy colors that everyone can wear. “However, such a mismatch can make people look sick or pale and haggard. A simple color check can improve your image,” she said.

The online check is quick and easy. A consultation from an expert at the office is also available and it takes some 15 to 20 minutes. The consulting fees range from 60,000 won to 150,000 won.

Hyun said that the company has held 16 “Color Talk” events and lectures regularly to its members, as well as offers tips for personal colors and how to use them in daily clothing choices.

It has been a year of raising awareness of color types and he said that in the future the company will extend its services to Asian countries such as China and Japan where the people have similar skin tones.