Had a client last week who made me second-guess my whole approach to color theory

She brought in a photo of a lavender hair color she wanted, and when I explained the undertones wouldn't work with her skin, she said 'just mix it til it matches the picture' and now I'm wondering if I've been overthinking this whole warm vs. cool thing for 15 years.

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_burns955d agoMost Upvoted

man I feel this so hard. I spent like a decade thinking I had to follow all these rules about warm and cool and complementary colors, and then last month a girl wanted this icy blue that should've looked terrible on her but it was honestly perfect. makes you wonder how much of it is real science vs just stuff we tell ourselves so we feel like experts. some people just see color differently and it works.

ryan_gibson845d ago

Gotta push back a little here. I think there's more to it than just "rules we make up." The science of color is real, like how our eyes literally have different cones and rods that react to wavelengths. That's not something we invented, it's just how biology works. But I think where you and Evan are right is that the "rules" in fashion and art are just starting points, not laws. Some people genuinely have something about their skin tone that makes a supposedly wrong color look amazing. I've seen it too, a redhead wearing neon green that should clash but it just works. So maybe it's not that the science is fake, it's that we don't understand all the variables yet.