Suiting Colour To Your Colouring

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 65, 20 September 1940, Page 42

Suiting Colour To Your Colouring

(Written for "The Listener" by

ALIX

IVID colours are for vivid types. Less definite types should wear softer shades or they will look washed out. Have your costume a colour that is good for your figure (if plump, a darkish shade, otherwise anything you fancy), and remember to wear touches of colour that blend with your own near your face; at the neck of a dress or coat, at the faceline of a hat, in the necklaces or ear-rings. Saxon greens and madonna blues accentuate pallor and make blonde hair

almost platinum. Brunettes also, especially with yellow skin tones, can wear blue divinely if of soft deep tones. Titian, we know, loved to paint redhaired girls and in red too. But the red of the dress was more of a henna red and always just duller than the lady’s locks. If he had painted them with blue dresses, it would have shown up still more the red of their hair.

Colours for Make-up Make-up colours can’t be chosen too carefully. Some say, match your skin, others, make-up to your eyes; others again suggest making-up to the skin tones. Fortunately, skin, eyes, and hair usually belong together-so that when hair turns grey, the skin often changes with it, and where you could use strong primaries before, you must now turn to the subtle off-tints. I remember seeing a woman addressing a meeting. She had a largish figure and beautiful grey hair which she piled high to give height. Her dress was of simple grey chiffon and this neutral colour faded her figure out and brought out the beauty of her hair. She had a big bunch of violets at her throat and this gave her grey eyes charming violet tints. A good suggestion is to play up to your most striking feature. If your hair is a wonderful shade of blonde, red, or black, play up to that. If your eyes are good, play up to them. Another trick is to wear colours that include the dominant skin tone or else present a striking contrast, Colour Chart Here is a rough colour chart. WHITE SKIN: white, black, any clear colour. CREAMY SKIN: canary’ yellow, chartreuse, green, golden brown, PEARLY SKIN: dusty pink, heather, rose, beige, or for a flattering contrast, black. OLIVE SKIN: scarlet, flame, emerald, beaver brown. ROSE SKIN: rose, peach, and for contrast, green. SWARTHY SKIN: terra cotta, orange, scarlet, tobacco brown, and for contrast, cerise. The use of Rouge Red-haired women should be wary of rouge; it may make them look common, But rouge is the great standby of the women with average brown hair and drab colouring, as it brings out the shade of their eyes and brightens the hair. Rouge is also a palliative for red noses. Wear more for the evening and it will be influenced by the colours you wear. Blues, greens and violets require more colour, whether natural or applied, than do yellow and reds. If you want to bring a violet touch into blue eyes, try a violet frock. For blue eyes wear every tone of blue, also rose. For grey wear grey, dusty rose, mauve, chartreuse. For hazel, try hazel green, golden brown, coral, peach and flame. Brown eyes need brown, emerald, scarlet, amber, rose-beige. Green eyes need hunter green, fir green, peacock green, turquoise, copper. For black eyes use black, yellow, jade, gold and orange. Keep the costume a shade lower in tone if the hair is colourful or else, as in the case of black hair, stress its vividness by strong, brilliant shades. For ordinary brownish hair, you can get rinses with a warming coppery glint, Indeed, rinses can be most useful during the awkward stage of turning grey. White hair can be a great asset with a fresh skin or bright clear eyes. But it needs to be blued very subtly to combat the yellowish look that most of us know too well.