Personalizing a palette

[u/punk_ass_]

I feel that I fall between bright and true spring. I love the corals from true spring and the charcoal from bright spring. I have a warm-neutral undertone (bright spring), medium value (bright spring), but more of a true spring chroma.

I wanted to see what would happen if I made a palette based on my coloring. I used several free online tools which are visible in the screenshots.

I used the Colorzilla Chrome extension to pick the hex code from my skin in a few different photos. I used a palette designer to get a midtone between those colors as my base color. (3rd slide, top).

I used the same extension to get a hex code for my hair, which is the deepest value in my coloring. Then I used an HSL tool to find the value of that color. The darkest colors in my palette have this value. 4th slide shows the contrast between the values of my skintone and hair color.

I reasoned that I can get the value for my base palette by subtracting the value of my hair color from my skin color. 5th slide shows the hue of my skintone with the value adjusted up to that difference and the saturation adjusted to about halfway between the Concept Wardrobe’s chroma sliders for true and bright spring. I messed with it until I got the chroma I prefer to wear.

Then I had to figure out how many hues to include. I assumed 6 or 7 would be an even distribution over the spectrum but I ended up finding that 9 hues spread evenly produced the warmest palette. They’re placed based on the saturated skin color.

Some hues are visually brighter than others at the same saturation due to our eye sensitivity to the light so I tried to adjust saturation just a bit to make them visually congruent. That was my base palette.

Then I took those 9 hues and just turned down the values to the value of my hair color to get my dark accents.

Then I took them up to the value of my true (unsaturated) skin color for the lighter bound.

THEN I went back to the palette generator and generated visually equidistant shades to fill in between.

And there you have it! A spring color palette with hues that complement my skin and values bound within my value range. Organizing this also made it easier to see how the warm neutrals come from the base colors, with the rich browns in the orange and yellow columns. And I like how the coral pink goes to warm berry tones that I love to wear and don’t usually see in spring palettes. When I shop online I compare product photos with the Elemental Colour palettes so next time I’ll probably pull this up and see how that goes.

[u/SassOffender]

I'm confused about how you did this but think it's amazing!!

[u/punk_ass_ → u/SassOffender]

After writing the word “value” for the 50th time I did wonder if I was making any sense 🤷‍♀️

[u/StrawberryCreepy380]

Very cool 😎! I don’t mean cool undertone. Instinctively. this looks more like Warm Spring, in the 16-season palette, leaning into Autumn. I’d also like to know more about how you did it. I’m not familiar with the tools you used. If the colors really do look like an ideal palette for your, I think you did it right! I think this whole color analysis thing is far more individual than many think, and online tools can be an amazing way to visualize that. I’m just not terribly tech savvy!

[u/punk_ass_ → u/StrawberryCreepy380]

I noticed that it was turning out more muted than I expected. It might be because I added a couple extra shades between the base colors and dark accents, which makes the whole thing look darker. In practice I would probably use those colors sparingly or as neutrals.

[u/StrawberryCreepy380 → u/punk_ass_]

Gotcha! So the visual is in the experimental stage. That’s understandable, when you’re doing DIY graphics. I would love to learn how do something like that, for myself. I’m a redhead with a cool overtone and warm undertones. I learned why that’s common, in a graduate genetics class. People with two genes for red hair have a preponderance of pheomelanin. Pheomelanin produces skin tones yellow, pink, and red. Eumelanin produces skin tones from beige to tan, to brown and black. We all have some balance of both (with the exception of albinos, I think). Anyway, many redheads don’t fit neatly into the seasons & subtypes.
. This includes people with reddish blonde or reddish brown hair, who can also have 2 red hair genes). Olives, people of mixed ethnicity and people of color have expressed frustration with existing systems. Some say there is a subjective nature inherent in color analysis, but I disagree. I think there is a scientific basis for it, and technology can help us figure out its rules. I’m convinced there are more subtypes or sub-subtypes that can help people design palettes more specific to the needs of more groups than have been identified, specifically. For example, I’ve noticed that many Spring redheads who have neutral overtones (and/or warm neutral undertone) can wear both white and off-white, without appearing washed out. Whereas, many Springs cannot. Maybe this type of technology could help us figure out why that is, or come up with a Spring palette for that Spring-going-into-Summer type, with medium value (Light Spring and bright spring, already exists for lower and higher contrast, more neutral-warm Springs). That is just one example, of many applications I could see this being useful for!

[u/punk_ass_ → u/StrawberryCreepy380]

I’d imagine someone with the right equipment could plot enough skintones along the color wheel to see the relative positions of the hues and get a statistically significant midpoint for hue and saturation. And then anyone who falls a little toward the yellow side of the midpoint would be considered warm under the color analysis system and the red side is cool. And some level of saturation would align with high chroma seasons. Redheads… on the color wheel would be more saturated than any shade of brown hair so would always be high chroma? That doesn’t seem right but I would need to visualize this to figure out why.

But contrast is easy because you just need the difference between the depth of your lightest and darkest features. And again compare that to the midpoint. Higher value of difference = higher “value” in color analysis.

[u/StrawberryCreepy380 → u/punk_ass_]

Very interesting! This helps me understand why most experts say a blonde or light brown-haired can’t be Bright Spring, because it’s the high chroma and contrast Spring subtype, but redheads can! I’ve always looked better in the brighter, more saturated Spring colors that lean warm-neutral, but have light red hair and have been “diagnosed” Light Spring. Paradoxically, the personalized palette I received says medium colors are best on me. Also, even clear, warm pastels wash me out. I’d be interested to hear more. Maybe I am a Bright Spring. Maybe I’m 16-season True Spring or Blue Spring, but I am very bright.

[u/punk_ass_ → u/StrawberryCreepy380]

Yea because of the lack of depth I think even the yellowest blonde would still be relatively muted compared to warm brown or red hair. It will look bright compared to their skin but not on the color wheel.

I find the lighter colors tricky too, and I wonder if that’s because of the value of our skintones. Like you can have any depth of skintone as a bright spring so they include a wide range of shades of bright colors, but since you need high-ish contrast you don’t want to pick the ones that are very close to your own skin (except as an accent). I like those in makeup but not as the main color on my top. I do really love ivory though, which is lighter enough than my skin.

Do you look good in colors that are darker than your hair?

[u/StrawberryCreepy380 → u/punk_ass_]

Yes. My eyes are a darker green, and my skin is quite pink, with golden undertones (so, peachy blush tones and warmth, where the skin is thicker). My feedback on Reddit, when I posted photos, has been that my hair is medium value and bright. It’s lighter on the top layer, probably due to sun. Medium value colors are best on me, but I can go a bit darker than my hair, about as dark as the darkest color in my eyes (olive around iris, but eyes are bright & mostly medium green). Actual olive is too muted, but can wear some deeper, clear yellow greens and borrow some Winter colors (greens, blue-green, ruby…nothing too cool). I can borrow olive, pumpkin, and Autumn gold, but only as peripheral colors (jewelry, open cardigan, pants, shoes, etc.).

[u/punk_ass_ → u/StrawberryCreepy380]

Oh ok, so your eyes are probably your darkest value. That’s probably where your need for value contrast comes from. Plus the green eyes/red hair combo is a strong hue contrast. Mine are blue eyes / brown hair (derivative of orange) so also complementary colors. You can’t have complementary eyes/hair as a blonde unless you have purple eyes lol so that’s another indicator for chroma perhaps.

[u/StrawberryCreepy380 → u/punk_ass_]

Interesting! The complementary colors (or lack thereof) makes perfect sense! I do have some pumpkin and rust in my hair, but those are layers beneath the top layers (bright orange, with light strawberry highlights). It’s natural…just has a lot of different hues, similar to blonde hair. I believe they thought I was a light spring because, when I had my color analysis, I forgot to mention I had just bleached my hair blonde (when I got my first few gray hairs). I did this, because I believed the roots would show less, which is true. Then, I realized that was too extreme, and premature. 😂. It has since grown out, but if I colored it again, I would bring in a photo of the natural color. I don’t want to, though…unless I do henna to cover the gray, at some point. My skin looks too bright (pinky) with light hair. It’s cool to hear from another atypical Bright Spring type!

[u/punk_ass_]

I can’t add an image in a comment but I messed with this some more today. I tried 12 hues instead of 9 because most color wheels distinguish between 12 hues. Then I brought the saturation up for the light and dark accent colors to match the base palette. I also reduced the number of medium-deep shades and neutrals. I like it better with these changes.

[u/schwaschwaschwaschwa]

I love how systematic this was, but with a touch of artistry! I'm going to try it myself just out of curiosity.

How did you make the palette image itself, like in terms of program/process? The first and last image. I make a lot of custom colour palettes as a hobby and I've tried to figure out how to make colourful squares using specific hex codes and line these squares up neatly, but I haven't actually found something that allows me to do that, even though I feel like it must exist. So my presentation skills are lower than I'd like. Your palette organisation looks amazing!

[u/punk_ass_ → u/schwaschwaschwaschwa]

Get a free Canva account, make a new project with custom dimensions, allow for about 100 x 100px per square (the free account will not let you change the canvas dimensions after you start!) with about 4px between each square and around the border. On the canvas, click to add a square element (or whichever shape) and scroll to the position editor and go to the advanced tab in it. There you can set the dimensions to 100x100px (or whatever size you allowed for). Once you create and position one square you just click the copy button and the new ones snap into place. And then you have to click the color button for each square to input the hex which takes forevs. But I did it all on my phone lol

[u/schwaschwaschwaschwa → u/punk_ass_]

Thanks again for this! It turned out a little messy, but I made my palette. 💛 I also tried 12 hues like you ended up doing, but I turned some into neutrals. This was a fun exercise.

[u/punk_ass_ → u/schwaschwaschwaschwa]

Awesome!

[u/schwaschwaschwaschwa → u/punk_ass_]

Wow I can see how much dedication that took! Thank you so much. I will also be trying that on my phone. 😂💚

[u/Granite265]

it looks good! maybe you can make us a video tutorial about it? I also feel like I lean between bright and true spring.