Many years ago I came across this lady in the markets here in Abu Dhabi, who sold beautiful, colourful dresses (I ended up buying quite a few throughout the years) and was a really lovely, bubbly lady. Turned out she also did colour consultations, something I had always wanted to do, but didn't want to go on my own.
In the beginning of 2020 I managed to convince a friend to come with me, and we were looking at date when... well, Covid happened. Fast forward TWO more years, and it finally happened yesterday!
Linda and I spent over three hours in the House of Colour studio together with the consultant Julie - and we had such a fantastic time!
The idea behind the House of Colour method is that all the colours in the world are split into four 'seasons', see the colour wheel on the photo above. The goal of the analysis is for the consultant to work out which season that works best for you. Everyone is unique in their natural colour combinations, their eye colour, hair colour, skin tone etc; and an analysis determines which of the four colour spectrums you should choose to enhance your natural colours and look "wow" in what your wear. You can read more about colour analysis history here.
We started by putting on a white cape and haircover, to help determine if we were 'warm' or 'cool' in our skintone. Both Linda and I fell in the warm category, which means more yellow based colours, and gold jewellery works better on us.
Then Julie used these coloured drapes in pairs, one from each season in our half of the colour wheel. She put both on top of each other and flicked between them to see which one made your eyes sparkle and your skin glow. It was a really fascinating process, especially to see it done on Linda. It was easier to see on someone else, it became so noticeable so quickly which colour was the best! On myself, I got a bit stuck at first on which colours I personally liked and not, but it turned out it actually was really obvious what difference the right colour made.
So Linda turned out to be an autumn, the olive green, rust and mustard was absolutely stunning on her.
And I apparently was a spring! A bit surprising, I thought I was an autumn too, but there was no doubt! I really shone with these clear, bright colours, like the coral, lime and turquoise.
We also got our make-up done, with the products from the HoC line, already designed to fit in with the four different seasons.
Finally, we got our personal colours graded, to be noted down in our own little personal HoC books. This meant that our colours now got compared to each other, to find the ones that would be our 100% good colours, then the 50% colours etc. A 100% would be a colour we would look fantastic in from top-to-toe, a 50% one that would work on either a top or bottom - and anything less than that, a colour for an accessory for example a belt, a bag or a scarf. All colours from our spectrum, so all good for us, but still - some would be even better than others.
Here I am in bare face, with the right make-up on, and finally in my Spring colours:
You get a little swatch book to keep for yourself which holds 36 swatches of the colours that are in your season. The idea is that you bring that with you to guide you when you go shopping. You can of course choose clothes in other colours as well, in theory a quarter of all the colours in the world fit in your season. You just have to make sure any other colours fit into the kaleidoscope in between the colours in your book.
I found the whole morning extremely uplifting and really fun! But also quite enlightening.
It made me realise why I don't wear some of the clothes in my wardrobe, even though I do like them. Some I bought because I liked the colours, others because they looked good on someone else, a friend, the store model etc. But then when getting dressed, I never end up pick those clothes. Now I know why - they are not in my season!
Of course you are not meant to go home and chuck everything in your wardrobe that doesn't fit your colour spectrum, but at least going forward, I am now more aware. I will also try to be more open-minded and actually go for my colours and see if I have more days feeling 'wow'..!
We ended the session by getting to try on a bunch of clothes, that Julie chose for us, in our colours. Certainly eye-opening, as I wouldn't have gone for those colours myself in the shop, but I ended up falling in love with each and every piece..! It was hard to choose, but in the end I came away with a couple of basic trousers (that was on my shopping list anyway) - and this fabulous dove grey jumpsuit with TWO cascade cardigans to match it, one in shell pink, and the other in this (totally out of my comfort zone) canary yellow! It's a new me!
So it ended up being a bit of a costly morning, ha ha, for both of us, with all the extra shopping + the Colour Analysis session. But, it was worth every dirham! Lots of new knowledge, interesting and useful, AND it was tons of fun! Well recommended!
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