Does your seasonal palette change as you grow older?

As we age, hair might go grey, and the natural contrast level in eyes, lips, skin and hair begins to decrease. But what does that mean for our seasonal palette of colours?

If you're twenty years on (whether you look it or not!) from your colour analysis, should you be wearing softer colours, brighter colours, or even a whole different palette of colours? This is a really common concern when it comes to seasonal colour analysis; because wouldn't it be awful to spend years building and perfecting a wardrobe only to discover one day that it actually doesn't work any more?

But panic not. Your season does not change as you age. Skintone is determined by genetics, and your skintone, whether warm or cool, bright or soft, is something you are born with and will carry through your life. Even with the shifts in skin, hair and eyes as we age, each seasonal palette is broad enough to contain our best colours for a lifetime.

So we know that we're sticking within the same season, but that our skintone might shift within the Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter seasonal palettes. But if we don't change season, what does that shift mean for our best colours if the ones that worked a couple of decades ago just aren't feeling as good any more?

The key is in the seasonal sub-types. Within each of the four seasonal palettes are a number of sub-types, shifting slightly warmer, slightly cooler, slightly brighter or slightly softer while remaining firmly within the wider seasonal palette (you can read more about sub-types in this blog post). And when we age, we can sometimes shift into different sub-type within our seasonal palette.

This means that someone who was originally analysed as a Jewel/True Winter might find that as they've grown older that they need the lighter and brighter Sprinter Winter palette, or perhaps a True/Paintbox Spring comes to need the additional warmth and softness of the Golden/Warm Spring colours.

There is no hard and fast rule as to how you might shift within your palette, but the key, if you're feeling a little lacklustre in your colours, is to experiment with the whole of your palette and see whether there's a new part of it which feels even better than the old. You'll get a feel for the area of your palette that you are drawn to, but if you need a little extra support, a consultant can help you figure out your new wow colours.

But what if you've been analysed as a different palette?

There are several factors which can occasionally produce a client who has been analysed as two different seasons at different times. Different analysis systems contain slightly different parameters and slightly different palettes, so it is possible to analyse someone as two different seasons using two different systems, especially if they fall at an extreme end of their palette (read more here about seasonal sub types). Also, analysis techniques have improved over the past twenty or thirty years, and it's possible that an analyst working a couple of decades ago simply didn't have the precision drapes and ability to investigate those people whose colouring lies right at the edge of a seasonal palette. There is also simple human error to take into account, which is why we always suggest that anyone who feels uncomfortable with their analysis first approaches their analyst to discuss it.