When creating a personalized style, it is especially important to know how to combine the colour of hair, makeup, and clothing with the client's skin and with what you want to express. Beauty professionals also need to know how colours affect people of different personalities. I have observed that few professionals, except image consultants, analyse their clients' skin tone and, when they do, feel that they can depend on their perception, without the help of a method or the right tools. The consequence is that many of the results are aesthetically and stylistically inadequate.

The biggest challenges, for those who work in beauty salons, are finding the time to do the skin analysis and avoid the mess that the test leaves. The traditional method involves placing fabrics, of different colours, in sequence, over the shoulders and under the client's face, to assess which colours favour the skin coloration. The main objectives are to find out if the client's skin is cool or warm, if it is light or dark and if it is yellowish or reddish in colour.

See in the photo how many cloths are on the bench and imagine what a beauty salon would look like if 5 or 6 hairdressers were doing skin analyses! I created another, more elegant method. I replaced the cloths with strips of cardboard, painted in the colours used in the analysis, the size of a mouth. The professional places the strips in front of the client's mouth and proceeds as is done when using cloths. In addition to not being messy, there is the advantage that hair and clothing colours do not interfere with the assessment, as vision is restricted to the area around the mouth. The problem is that each professional must make their own kit.

It is possible to replace the cloths with cardboard.

There are other factors that complicate the analysis. The most important thing is the light, which must be natural or neutral. When it comes to natural, it is daylight between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm, in a well-lit place, but without the sun shining directly on the person. Neutral light has a neutral temperature, which means it is neither cold nor hot. The temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin (Kº) and the neutral is 5500Kº. The light must also have a colour reproduction index (IRC) close to 100, otherwise there will be colour distortion. And the room needs to have neutral colours, otherwise the room's colour tones will reflect on the client's skin, changing the skin colour.

I realized then that there is another way to analyse whether the skin is cool or warm, the most important factor for a hairdresser. It helps fashion consultants and makeup artists too because it is one more piece of data that ensures that the analysis result is correct. Simply ask the customer what their skin looks like when the tan sets in. Almost everyone knows what their skin looks like during a time at the beach. It is not when a person starts the tanning process, because almost everyone who has white skin turns red. It is after a few days regularly exposed to the sun that I am referring to.

There are four possibilities for people with fair skin. They can have a golden (spring type), coppery, "Coppertone" (autumn type), darkened to a coffee tone (winter type) skin, or simply, the person can never tan - the skin burns, peels off and turns white again, repeatedly (summer type). To help the client, it is interesting to have photographs of the three types of tans. The lighter the skin, the more difficult it is for a person to hold on to the tan colour.

Black skin is easier to analyse and, when the person is exposed to the sun, the skin darkens, but it can become more golden (calypso type), more reddish (spike type), closer to rosewood or dark coffee (jazz type), or blacker (blues type). Sahara and Nile neutral skins tend to darken, like winter skin.

In the 1940s, Suzanne Caygill, an American makeup artist and artist, did the most extensive research on white (Caucasian) skin tones, cataloguing 64 different shades in 4 categories, which she called the seasons: spring and autumn, the warm skins, and summer and winter, the cold ones.

In 1991, Jean Patton created a classification for black skins. These he named after music rhythms, places, and spices: calypso and spike, warm, jazz and blues, cool, and sahara and nile, neutral.

It is critical to understand that cool colours do not harmonize with warm colours. In principle, warm colours on cool skins clash, as do cool colours on warm skins. And a warm colour on cool skin will make the skin look cooler. That is right, cooler, because there has been an increase in contrast, just as water looks cooler when your hand is warm, than when o your hand is cold.

In addition, it is important to know what each colour expresses, if the chosen colour will be in accordance with the client's intention. What is beautiful is not always adequate. For example, if a person wants to express strength and determination, blonde hair may be too light, because yellow expresses energy and dynamism. In this case, if the person wants to look like a blonde, it would be better to apply a darker brown in the background and then gold highlights, or you can put the dynamism on the cut and not on the colour.

First, let us see what warm colours express. Yellow is linked to the sun and expresses energy, while gold is more exuberant, as it refers to gold and wealth. These are colours that make a person more dynamic, but can also create excitement. Red is passionate and intense, while orange, a mixture of yellow and red, is emotional. These are colours that affect the person's emotional state, so they should be used with caution if the person is emotionally or psychologically unbalanced. Brown is associated with the earth and gives the impression of security and warmth.

The cool colours are blue, green, purple, silver, white, black, and pink. Blue is connected to water and sky and passes calmly. Green is related to nature and expresses vitality. Purple is the colour that spiritualizes people. White creates the feeling of purity, while black is linked to death and luxury. The silver colour expresses finesse and is associated with money. Finally, the colour of pink expresses childishness and innocence.

The lighter the colour, the lighter it will give to the image and the person. Dark colours are dense and heavy, so they settle the person and express firmness, power, and strength.

When colouring your hair, all these issues need to be considered, otherwise you run the risk of creating an image without harmony and aesthetics or expressing something that the person does not want. In addition to being beautiful, the colour must be in harmony with the client's intention and identity. To master colour harmony, you need to take a good course on colour and skin colour, but that is not enough. The most important thing is to train by painting. Colour is never mastered by theory alone.

To identify the client's intention, it is necessary to be trained in Visagism by Philip Hallawell.

Ito, October 2019
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