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TBF Project:Blog
Posted by Dain, Wednesday, September 12, 2007 3:12 AM (Eastern)
There are two ways to use these terms. One is for coloring (people's faces), and the other, for colors (products and shades).
I'll start with colors, first, because it's a lot less complicated.
Neutral can mean any number of things. In simple color theory, it is the absence of color, so as such only apply to white and black and that which is in between, grey.
When it comes to colors, warm and cool are strictly divided according to the color wheel: red and yellow and orange are warm, while blue and green and purple hold dominion over cool. The truth of this should be self-evident, if you only look:
But this is only if we are speaking of pure colors, without any mixing to contaminate the neat and tidy schematic. In truth, colors in makeup kits, as in nature, are much more complicated than that. For example, green can be described as warm, cool, or neutral according to its undertone, in which case warm, cool, and neutral are not absolute but relative. This is to say, a limey olive, which has more yellow than blue, like the example on the left, is a relatively warm green. In the middle, we have a mint that might be considered neutral, because it is balanced between yellow and blue, though it is a bit on the cool side. And on the right, is a cool green, with plenty of blue, known as teal.
From this point forward, I will use warm, cool, and neutral in its relative definition, as undertones, because coloring is all about relativity.
You see, the whole warm/cool/neutral divide has puzzled me my entire life. Even now, when I can review a product with dead accuracy according to scent, ingredient, texture, color, and lifestyle, I can't make sense of the dizzying permutations.
For example, I am Asian. As such, I have golden skin, and should wear warm tones. Wrong. I couldn't wear brown or peach at gunpoint, but excel with pinks and purples. And yet my friend Cathy, who's a bit darker but otherwise similarly colored, would look clownish in lilac shadow and berry blush, though it's a fantastic combination on me. But she rocks a coral blush, olive shadow, and a warm red-brown lipcolor like you wouldn't believe. I prefer gold to silver jewelry, yet look better in white than cream. So, who knows? I'd say, if you've found your perfect blush, it will tell you what you are. If your perfect blush is cool, then you are cool. If warm, you are warm. And if neutral, you got it, you're neutral. I think this is a far more reliable guide than looking at skin tone. Skin tone will tell you what you are, but a blush will tell you what you should wear, which in my case are not the same thing (I am warm, but should wear cool), and I get the feeling this is true for others, as well.
Images courtesy instyle.com.
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