It doesn’t happen often, but last week I treated myself! My treat was a colour analysis session with Jane Lowther from House of Colour. I became friends with Jane through my local women’s networking and business support group, Metis Women, which I help run in Maidstone, Kent. She has been a House of Colour colour consultant for 15 years and helps both men and women find their ‘season’ and therefore the colours of clothing and make-up that suit them.
As someone who has a wardrobe full of black , mushroom, beige and cream, I hadn’t exactly embraced colour. Colour is evident and very deliberate in my business branding but not in my clothing choice.
We started the day learning about our skin tone, hair colour, eye colour and how these have an effect on which colours look best on us. Within the group we had two ‘Winters’ and an ‘Autumn’ and for all three of us, you would never been able to predict our season at the start of the session! It wasn’t until we had differing shades of green, blue, pink, purple draped around our necks/chests that we could quite clearly see that some colours drained the colour from our faces and made us look bland and washed out whilst other colours made us look vibrant, healthy, with a bright complexion and clear sparkly eyes. I was so surprised that the colours I had been wearing for years, and loved, in fact did nothing for me. I faded into the dull colour of the clothes rather than standing out.
The same can go for your business colours. If you work in a particular industry or field, there are colours that are more suited to what you offer or what you stand for. Colours in your logo or branding can subconsciously communicate so much about you or your business. Yellow for example says warm, friendly, upbeat and happy and is a great colour for grabbing attention. Blue says trust, dependability and strength. Red says ambition, drive and excitement and black says credible, powerful, premium and professional. Purple says creativity and imagination and green says calm, health, peace and growth. My brand it about giving clarity and helping businesses grow so I deliberately chose green as my predominant colour. Are your brand colours right for your business? Tweet me if they are so I can have a look! @lisafromklarity
Source: http://visual.ly/what-colors-should-you-use-marketing
So according to Jane, I was a 'Sultry Winter', which meant that I could still wear black but not browns and certainly not creams, mushrooms and beiges! I need to wear rich and vibrant dark colours such as indigo, damson, burgundy, cerise, navy and pine green. (So you can imagine what came next can’t you – a shopping spree! Yipee!)
So I am slowly embracing colour. I have three House of Colour lipsticks that have been specifically chosen for me and now wear them with permission and confidence. I am slowly adding new more colourful items to my wardrobe and packing away the beiges, browns and mushrooms! And I have already had comments about how fabulous I look (thanks to my colour choices!)
Do you suffer from lack of colour in your business or wardrobe and want to do something about it? Tweet me @lisafromklarity and I can either direct you to Jane from House of Colour or help you find the right colours for your business, branding or logo.
Embracing colour,
Lisa from Klarity x