Let’s look at a color wheel.  There are three primary colors on a color wheel:  True Red, Blue and Yellow.  You can not mix any colors to make a primary color. 

                                                

As you begin to mix the primary colors together you get secondary and tertiary colors.   The secondary colors are green (equal parts yellow and blue) orange (equal parts yellow and red) and violet (equal parts red and blue). The tertiary colors are red–orange, red–violet, yellow–orange, yellow–green, blue–violet and blue–green.

Warm and Cool Colors

The first basic way we can categorized colors is by dividing them as  “warm” or “cool”.   We can consider the true primary colors along with true green (equal parts blue and yellow) as neutrals or swing colors in this discussion, t
hey by themselves are neither warm nor cool.

What colors do you think of when you think about things that are physically hot or warm?  Think about the sun, fire, a red hot burner on a stove or the desert.  These colors in general have a lot of yellow to them.  When we look at the color wheel, the “warm” colors are colors that are mixed  with yellow.  On our basic color wheel they are orange, red-orange, yellow -orange and yellow-green.  These colors convey sort of  earthy warmth.

                                 

Just the same,  the colors that we tend to associate with being cold or cool, with things like ice, snow and water, are blue based colors.  On our color wheel they are violet, red-violet, blue-violet, and blue-green.  These colors convey a sort of cool conservative classic quality.

                                

Which Colors are Warm and Which are Cool?<
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So by the very definition, virtually any color can be warm or cool, simply by adding a little yellow or a little blue to it.  You can have warm grays and cool grays, warm navy’s and cool navy’s,  even warm violets and cool violets.  Warm “pinks” (salmon) and cool pinks. So when someone tells me they can’t wear… green for example… I have to guess that they just have not found the right green for them yet.

How Do Warm and Cool Colors Apply to Me?

Our skin, hair and eye colors cause us to be predominately warm or cool in coloring.  Our coloring is based on three pigments we have in our skin: 

• Melanin (blue/brown)
• Carotene (yellow)
• Hemoglobin (red/pink)

So depending on your ratios of these three pigments you would be predominately warm or cool.  Any skin tone from light to dark could be warm or cool. 

Now here is where it gets a bit complicated for people to understand.  We want to compliment the under tones of your  skin, not necessarily the surface colors.

•  A sallow or olive skinned person may appear yellow on the surface, but have cool blue undertones. Warm colors placed against their skin may cause them to look jaundiced and unhealthy. 
• Some one with  very milky skin may appear cool because of their lack of color,  but their undertones are warm and cool colors placed against their skin may make them look pale or chalky.

Am I Warm or Cool?

This is extremely difficult, to nearly impossible to do online.  To truly determine, you would need a professional to drape you in colors, but I can give some guide lines to help you analyze your own coloring.

And before I go any further I should mention that we are talking about your NATURAL coloring,  NOT the color you die your hair, or the color of your contact lenses etc.  Just changing your hair color will not put you in the category you want to be in, it just confuses the matter.

Warm  Coloring 

• Hair—golden, honey, and auburn tones
• Skin—often milky complexion, may have golden freckles
• Eyes—brown, dark brown, green

Warm  colors worn on someone with warm coloring will cause a lift to their face and eyes and a brighter appearance. Cool colors will wash or fade their skin and cause white areas and  drag in their nose, mouth chin & jaw line.

 

Cool Coloring

• Hair—ash tones, no gold tones
• Skin — often olive or sallow complexions
• Eyes  —  blue, hazel, violet, gray

Warm colors on someone who is predominately cool in nature  will give a sallow or faded appearance with dark areas around the nose, chin or jaw line giving  an aged, unhealthy appearance.  Cool colors add lift  to the face with focus on the eyes, giving a brightened, younger and healthier appearance.

What Next?

Obviously we can not group the entire world into only two categories of color.  Next time we will break it down a little further by the four seasons, and then we will fling some fun and flow into the mix.  See you then!

 

~Lori