Refining my personal palette (part 1)

I want to share with you the 'palette refinement' journey I've been on the last several months, but first I want to lay some groundwork that will help provide context.

If you've been a part of the online color community - via Instagram, Facebook or even Reddit - you have likely witnessed at least one person 'changing seasons'. Maybe you have even changed seasons.

Why does this happen so often? Is color analysis inaccurate? How can so many consultants and service providers "get it wrong"?!

In my opinion, there are a couple of factors at play.

1. Each system uses different tools and evaluation methods, and is looking for slightly different results. If you bake a cake with different ingredients than the recipe calls for and use an air fryer instead of a conventional oven, I can almost guarantee your results will be different than the recipe. The same logic can be applied to color analysis. If the tools and methods are different, the outcomes will likely be different as well.

2. People do not fit perfectly into prescriptive little boxes. Just like one diet or exercise routine doesn't work for everyone, one color analysis method doesn't work for everyone. There is a vast range of skin tones, hair colors, eye colors, undertone + overtone combinations, etc. that make up the human population. Color analysis method A might be the best fit for one person, and method B might be the best fit for another.

3. We may want more - or less - from an analysis. Some people are quite happy fitting into a broad seasonal category to have some direction; they use their analysis more as a guide. Other people may be very data driven or analytical and want to know exactly why they fit into a precise subseason. Still others may feel overwhelmed by a large color palette and thrive with a smaller selection of colors to choose from. Some may feel stifled with a small palette. And on, and on. Each of us have unique personalities, styles, skills and budgets that influence how we approach color analysis and weave it into our daily lives.

Once you combine the above with a wide range of training intensities and consultants' skill levels and you are bound to get a lot of mistypings and season switching.

How did I start on this 'refinement' journey?

First, let's do a quick refresher up to this point.

When I was typed a House of Colour burnished/sultry winter back in 2023, I was all in! (PS, if you want to read more about my color journey, click here.) I was having so much fun learning, shopping, and playing with my new colors - I even started my Instagram account!

Over the next year, I watched as many of my "internet friends" had several different color analyses and some of them even made season changes. It was very much a "yay for thee, not for me" moment. I had zero desire to get any additional analyses done, I was quite comfortable with my season/subseasons.

Then, one of my internet friends announced they were training to do color analysis. I reached out to see if she needed "test subjects", which she did, and I offered to be one. I figured because my online presence is anonymous I would be a great candidate since she hadn't seen my face before. So she did a virtual analysis for me and typed me as a True Autumn.

I'M SORRY, WUT.

We had a very long conversation about it, how her system works, what qualifies for a "true" typing vs. something like "soft" or "dark". We both agreed based on the system she was trained in and the methods they utilized, True Autumn was the correct season for me.

However, that didn't change the fact that I felt like my whole identity was crumbling. She even apologized (how sweet!) because she knew it was difficult for me to wrap my head around.

For the first two weeks after our chat, I basically just packed up that information and set it to the side (mentally). I said nothing on my Instagram account and told two people - one internet friend and my sister. After another few weeks, it felt like this little nagging voice in the back of my head... "but what if it's right?" "what if your whole closet is wrong, again?" "why did you get rid of all of your old clothes?" etc. etc. Ignoring the questions wasn't making them go away, so I told myself "what's the harm in just experimenting?"

There were also two theories I had heard floated around the color community that kept gnawing at me. 'Your hair and eye color should be in your color palette, because they are already on your face.' Well guess what, neither of mine were in the HOC Winter palette. The theory made so much sense hypothetically, but I struggled to make sense of how my own eye and hair colors "weren't Winter". They would fit better in an Autumn palette, however...

(continued here)