I've been 'accused' of still having nice hair despite it being lock down several times over the past few weeks – a couple of people have looked at me very suspiciously. 

 

Imagine how we’d all be looking if we had weekly appointments for a shampoo and set like our mothers did back in the day. I remember my mum nipping round to Doreen’s on a Friday. Doreen had converted the front room of her two up, two down terraced house into a salon and had 3 of those big hood dryers in a row. You stood over her kitchen sink to get your hair washed. She had a plastic shower hose attached to the taps – well risky for scalds if the cold pressure was too high and it popped off the cold tap. Thankfully those days are no more. 

 

As you can imagine the news this week has made me very happy. I can't wait to see Brian my hairdresser again, it's just THE BEST THING that he is be able to open from 4th July. I’ve got everything crossed that my appointment goes ahead on the 8th. I've been seeing him religiously every 6 weeks for over 20 years and prior to lock down I had my appointments booked in up until March 2021! 

 

He knows my hair really well and cuts it accordingly. I.e. the style is designed to go with the way it grows. This, I'm incredibly thankful for, because it's precisely why, despite not being cut since February, it still looks ok. 

 

 

The main thing to understand with colour if you want it to be flattering for you, enhancing your skin and making your eyes sparkle is, whether you suit a warm or cool palette. So, for example if you’re blonde with pale skin and blue eyes and red is your thing there will be a red to suit you it just might be a different kind of red to your friend who has dark hair, olive skin and brown eyes. 

 

There are warm and cool hues of every colour except orange. This is because all colours are mixed from the primaries, red, yellow and blue. Red and yellow are warm colours, blue is cool. Depending on how much of each primary it takes to make the colour will determine its level of warmth/coolness. Orange doesn’t have a cool version as it’s made from red and yellow mixed together, both warm primaries. So orange is ‘double warm’. 

 

Once you understand your 'rules' it makes it all so much easier to create visual harmony across your wardrobe. When I do a colour analysis, I am looking primarily at your skin undertone, followed by your hair and eyes. 

 

The way to tell if your colouring is cool or warm is to check your veins near your wrist. If they appear green your undertone is warm. If they appear blue your undertone is cool. 

 

Obviously, we can change our hair colour with dye. I get asked a lot if your colours change as you get older, especially if people want to stop colouring their hair and embrace the grey, especially through the transition stage. 

I use the Absolute Colour System which provides the most accurate readings in my opinion and there are 18 definitive categories for me to work with. 

 

The next thing is to identify your Signature Colours – you can actually do this without having a colour analysis reading. E.g. Wearing the same coloured top as your eyes has immediate impact; there are such things as eye, skin and hair enhancers and intensifiers. I provide tips on this in my e-book called 5 Powerful Ways to Apply Colour Magic.  

 

You can get this as a bonus section to my newly launched Scarf Selfie Lockdown 2020 e-book £5 with 20% profit going to NHS charity.  

 

Click here to purchase 

 

Once you know which colours actually suit you it’s then important to explore HOW you like to wear colour. This is defined by your Colour and Style Personality…and this is where it starts to get interesting. Even though colours suit you it doesn’t necessarily mean that you like them or feel excited by wearing them.  

 

You can take my free quiz here 

 

One of these things was to update my make up video tutorials and online course as, although the content is still totally relevant, I look different and that makes them look old. The main difference is my hair – I recorded most of the videos before I embraced the seenager highlights. 

 

Also, and this is REALLY interesting, my skin looks so much smoother and radiant now than it did a few years ago. I put this down to a change in my skin care routine and using the lovely Tropic products. A few years ago, I wouldn’t even put the bin out without a full face on whereas now I’m happy to share selfies on my social media of my make up free fizzog. 

 

More so these past few weeks of lockdown and I’ve been showing up on camera with my 3 minutes make up routine on instead of my full face – which takes me 12 minutes by the way. 

 

My first true love was make up. I have always been interested in make-up from a very early age. I once went to brownies with a black eye that I’d created from my mum’s purple eyeshadow. Brown owl humoured me, and I felt so proud that I’d fooled her with my applications skills. 

 

I’m ashamed to say that I got pulled up for shoplifting make up in Woolworths when I was at primary school. My dad used to take me and sister into town on a Saturday morning, we’d go to the library and then the, market for fruit and veg; this particularly time was when we were allowed to look around the shops on our own while dad did the market run. 

I've been involved with colour, make up, textiles and fashion since the early 80's...thankfully I've kept up with the times and won't make you wear shoulder pads or dress like Bananarama though! 

 

My skills, knowledge and experience have been honed over 30+ years...but more than that I'm compassionate and approachable. 

 

I am not the fashion police and I'm not into giving someone a makeover so they look nice for that day but can't replicate it for everyday life - I like to teach my tips and tricks around colour and style so you look good and feel fab every day. 

 

I do...help my clients define and refine their personal style/image so they feel fabulous and are truly expressing their identity; confident in the knowledge that they are still themselves but an upgraded version. 

 

Lots! I met Lisa when she first started her business and went to a couple of her mini workshops that she was running at home. They were an insight to colour and body shapes as I remember. One was a make up lesson. 

 

Then I had my colours done, and attended a 5 Steps Workshop. 

I joined in online with a 21 Day Style Challenge and have also enjoyed meeting the women online ‘in the flesh’ at 2 social events that Lisa arranged afterwards. 

 

I have done most of the 21 Day Style Challenges! Three or four that I can recall have been out of a suitcase while abroad!Following one of these, I did the Suss Your Style 5 week online challenge. 

 

I have volunteered and supported all but one of the Swish events that have been run.I attended the Glum to Glam workshop, and very recently I have had my WOW colours done. 

 

You’ve sat in bright, natural daylight with a white cape, possibly a matching turban if you’re colouring your hair, no foundation or concealer to even out your skin tone, to hide the rosy cheeks or those fine red lines around your nose. 

 

She has looked into your eyes with a little light up magnifying glass to see the subtle nuances and flecks of colour in them. She’s asked you questions about how you tan, what colour your hair was when you were little. She’s even looked at your veins on the back of your wrist. 

 

You’ve had hundreds of pieces of coloured fabric draped across your chest as the consultant looks intently at what happens to your eyes and your skin each time she transfers one colour to the next. 

She decides whether you have warm or cool undertones to your skin. She assesses your levels of colour and tonal contrast and she will then declare which ‘season’ you fall into. And this is where many colour analysis consultations stop. You are presented with a pre-made swatch* and sent on your way. These are your colours to wear. They suit you and that’s that... 

 

*Swatch – a little wallet of small pieces of fabric in a selection of colours that suit you. 

(A) Colour analysis (in person) 

(B) 5 steps workshop (twice)  

3 x 21 day online style challenges 

 

2. What actually happens?  

(A) Lisa chatted to me about what I do, my social/leisure as well as work, why I felt I wanted my colours done, what I felt I might get out of the process, what wardrobe challenges I had or issues with clothes, how I felt about my clothes & whether I liked shopping for clothes, where I shopped etc. 

 

3. How did you feel before?  

(A) A bit nervous. I had met Lisa before through networking but I was really keen to know more about what she did & how she could help me. 

 

(A) Relaxed & we had a few laughs too 

 

5. How did you feel afterwards?  

(A) Amazed & enlightened. Much more confident that the clothes we had edited for my wardrobe were suited to my colour palette. NB Further work in  

(B) helped me understand my Own Style & why some of these 'me colour' clothes still didn't feel right on me! This has been a gradual education process & I am still learning all the time. 

 

This is a question I get asked a lot by people who’ve had colour analysis (or as it’s more commonly referred to “having your colours done”) before. Sometimes they are asking because they’ve had it done more than once and been given different answers each time. Sometimes it’s because they’ve had it done a long time ago and wonder if what suits them will change as they are getting older. 

 

 

Yes, the tints, tones and shades of colours that suited you when you were younger may change as we lose pigment in our colouring with age. So, for example, you could carry off a really vibrant red or orange when you were younger and your hair wasn’t grey, but now those hues are a bit overpowering as your colour has faded. In terms of your actual colour analysis, as long it’s been done properly, no – your season won’t change. 

 

 

Quite often I get clients who’ve had their colours done before but weren’t feeling it when they were given their swatch.  

 

They never feel truly aligned to the group of colours that they were given, they go along with it for a while but because deep down they don’t feel right, pretty soon the swatch they were given never sees the light of day, they go back to wearing any old colours and their money is wasted. 

We produced artwork for many of the High St retailers including Miss Selfridge, Oasis, Burtons, Dorothy Perkins, Marks & Spencer, BHS, Littlewoods, Monsoon and Next. 

 

They would bring in samples of the colours they wanted to use and we had to mix them with paint to Pantone reference accuracy. 

 

Sometimes it might take all day to get the hues just right; adding a pin prick of colour on the tip of your brush at a time until it was perfect. 

 

Give me a few tubes of colours and black and white and I could mix them by eye to match anything. These days it's all done by technology. 

 

So, this is what sets me apart from your usual franchise type colour analysis people. I know what actually makes up the cool and warm versions of colours and have a real depth of knowledge I'm not just following a manual. 

 

I have taught hundreds of students colour theory over the years - I know my tints, tones and shades, my analogous hues and all about triadic colourways...colour mixing is my super power. 

 

 

She uses massage therapy and has an interest in organic skin care products. She wants to convey a calm, professional, caring, natural feel around her business message. 

 

A while ago, when she set up in business she got some business cards made. She didn't have much spare cash so went on one of those websites that has low cost printing and you design your own cards using their templates.  

 

Brilliant! She loves red and orange, they’re her favourite colours and there's a lovely template with a flower on it. She clicked edit and cracked on. It's miles cheaper to buy a lot and she'll be handing your cards out like Smarties because everyone in the world will want to know about her business... 5000, red and orange business cards arrive... 

 

She has a uniform for her business. It's massage therapy and she need to be comfortable, have ease of movement and for it not to show oil marks. Black is practical and easy to get cheap stuff from anywhere -perfect solution. 

 

She created a Facebook page for her business; she wanted to portray a nice relaxing mood so used a stock photo of some pebbles and candles in nice muted, neutral tones. 

She uses a lovely photo of herself on holiday as a profile pic. It shows her all smiley and happy with the mountains in the background, you can't really see too much of her face (she hates pics of herself) because she has her sunglasses on and straw hat to keep the sun off her face. 

Have you got stuff that you are hanging onto that no longer fits? Or did it not fit in the first place? You bought it thinking it would be perfect when you'd lost a few pounds...but you never did. 

 

Are you a hoarder? Do you think that you'll hang on to stuff because it has good memories. Or because you just love it even though you don't wear it and more. Was it expensive? Do you think it might be worth something if you ever got round to sticking it to eBay. Are you thinking it might come back in fashion one day?Are you a repeat buyer? Do you have lots of pairs of black trousers for example? Or 18 black dresses (you know who you are)? Or a penchant for white shirts? Or, like one of my clients, if you really like something buy it in several sizes just in case your weight changes. 

 

Do you love a bargain? Is your wardrobe full of clothes that still have tags on, bought in the sale. Stuff you wouldn't have ever looked at it was full price, but it was such a good bargain you just had to have it. Or are you a charity shop shopper with the "I'll get it because it is only a few quid mentally". 

It's said that we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. I think that is probably true for most of us. 

 

Have you got stuff that you are hanging onto that no longer fits? Or did it not fit in the first place? You bought it thinking it would be perfect when you'd lost a few pounds...but you never did.