How to Wear Colour Post Three

The selection of colours available to us in the fashion world these days is incredible, but it can be overwhelming if you're not sure where to start.

My best piece of advice would be to ignore those colour rules that tell you which colours you should wear and which ones you should avoid, and wear the colours which feel right to you.

The best thing to do is experiment with colour. Try as many different colours and shades on and against your skin as possible. I'd recommend doing this in natural daylight where possible. By doing this you should notice what looks good and what doesn't, and what you like and what you don't. Certain colours will look better on you than others, as different skin tones and complexions are flattered by different colours, but it's up to you to decide if you care about "flattering", or if you just want to wear what you like!

My advice? Just experiment with colour. Try on every colour you find, and have fun learning what colours are right for you!

However, if you want to know which colours are said to be the most flattering for your skin tone, read on...

The best colours for your complexion are not only dictated by your skin colour, but more importantly by the under tone of your skin- whether you have a warm or cool complexion.

An easy way to find out if you're warm or cool coloured, is this:

Stand in front of a mirror in a room well lit with natural day light. Hold some white fabric, and then some cream fabric against your face while you look in to the mirror.

If you're warm toned, the cream fabric will give you a warm glow, but the white fabric will make you look drawn.

If you're cool toned, then the white fabric will give you the glow, and the cream fabric is likely to make you look drawn.

A warm complexion means that you have a yellow undertone to your skin. Your complexion may be yellow-beige, golden-brown, peach, or ivory, for instance. Warm complexions suit greens, teals, golds, oranges, reds, browns, and tans.

A cool complexion is a colouring with a blue under tone. Your complexion may be pale, fair, rosy, olive, or black. Cool complexions suit pinks, purples, lilacs, grey, burgundy, blacks, and blues. 

I found a great image which shows the best colours for your skin tone.

[Source]

I'm cool toned, and through years of trial and error, I've discovered that I look best in peacock colours, and brighter shades like cobalt blue, apple green, and turquoise, so in my opinion, the above images are spot on! Although, I don't ever restrict myself to cool colours, as I like wearing warm colours like red and yellow, too.

These are some of the shades and hues you're likely to come across in the fashion world.

Pastel colours are soft, pale shades such as lemon, mint, and lilac, which are typically best worn in Spring time. Pastels are the most subtle way to wear colour, but they can be tricky to pull off if you're very pale like me. I usually find pastel colours wash my very fair skin out. However, pastels are a great way to begin wearing colour and they look fantastic on so many people!

These are the typical colours you would find in Autumn foliage. Think rich shades of gold, orange-brown, khaki, burnt red, camel, and beige- colours with a yellow undertone. These colours suit people with warm complexions best, but I know very fair red heads with cool complexions who look amazing in these colours, too.

Cool colours are those with a blue undertone. For example, burgundy, purple, fuchsia, pink, blue, ice grey, to black and white. The darker shades like burgundy, forest green, and teal are most commonly worn in the Winter months, and the bolder colours such as cobalt blue, fuchsia, and turquoise in the summer. Cool colours are my favourite to wear, but I regularly hear how afraid other people are of wearing the bolder shades as they do take a lot of confidence when you're not used to them.

Neon colours are well... neon. The fluorescent hues most commonly seen are orange, pink, yellow, green, and blue; the colours seen on nineties ravers, and highlighter pens. As neon colours are so bright they aren't to every one's taste- and they're definitely not for the colour shy- but they are such a fun way of adding colour to an outfit! If you're new to wearing neon, I'd recommend beginning with accessories before dressing in it from head to toe. Perhaps start with a bag, belt, or bracelet, and go from there.

And on that note, I'm going to stop here for today. I hope this post has been helpful and perhaps given you some ideas about which colours to add to your wardrobes this season.

I'm planning to post some outfit ideas for a variety of colours, shades, and hues in upcoming posts, to show you how you could wear colour, and how I would personally wear them.

If you like to read my previous two posts about How to Wear Colour, you can see Where to Start here, and How to Build Up Your Colour Confidence here.

If there's anything you like me to focus on in regards to wearing colour, please feel free to leave me a message below, or get in touch with me via email at polkaspotsandfreckledots@gmail.com.