“Are you a spring, summer, fall or winter woman?” That is the big question with which the 1980 book
The Color of Your Beauty begins: Choose the colors that flatter you
.
by Carole Jackson. In 160 pages, the American explains how a person should choose the clothes she wears according to her skin, hair and eye color, for which she defined four “seasons” and 16 color subgroups. A summer girl, for example, should use radiant colors to highlight her features and a winter girl should opt for muted and dramatic tones. This discipline, known as color analysis or colorimetry, has burst onto social networks after years as a niche subject, and has become a booming market thanks to the new forms of business offered by platforms such as TikTok and the arrival from artificial intelligence to fields such as fashion or personal image.
Coffee shops, jewelry stores, candy stands, real estate agencies, lawyers. The list of businesses, small businesses and professionals who have turned TikTok into a window for their business or a business in itself is long and continues to grow. The phenomenon has been extraordinarily driven by the so-called generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012), which is the one that above all moves, consumes and revives fashions and businesses on this social network. 50% of them use the platform, according to the analysis
What companies need to know about the generation that changes everything
,
published by the consulting firm Oliver Wymann last year
.
The report also states that this generation is four times more likely to find products and services in online searches or directly on social networks, than in a traditional way. In Spain, according to a 2022 InSites Consulting study, 19% of SMEs had created a service based on a trend present on the platform.
@carolbrailey
The reds, pinks and purples in each color analysis palette… it's a Valentine's Day special post 💕 I always include purple in colors of love because magenta and purples are fabulous colors in terms of color energy to connect us with highest love, spiritual-based love . I wish you a day filled with unconditional love 💕🎨⭐️ #carolbrailey #coloranalysis #colouranalysis #colouranalysistok #coloranalysistok #undertone #sparkle #authenticity #naturalbeauty #personalcoloranalysis #personalcolouranalysis #colourseasons #colorseasons #valentinesday
♬ original sound - Carol Brailey|Color Analysis🎨
A little over a year ago, colorimetry joined this fever of businesses that are flourishing on TikTok. In countries like South Korea, for example, this activity has been practiced for decades and has even become a destination for tourists who travel to receive a top-level analysis at luxury prices, but the phenomenon has grown after going viral in TikTok. According to a report by
Business Insider
, many foreigners travel to Seoul every year and spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars for the most sought-after color analysis services in that country.
If you search for “
color analysis
” on this social network, you get tens of thousands of results—some with millions of views—mainly from girls explaining how to do the correct procedure to find the colors of clothing that supposedly suit your skin. But beyond viral trends, it is also a growing market, with more and more image consultants selling their services online to perform a professional analysis and thus choose the ideal wardrobe and makeup.
From in-person service to the triumph of
online
Carol Brailey is one of them and a veteran of colorimetry. Her journey began in the early 2000s, when she took a personal image course at George Brown University in Toronto. “In a few months I realized that it was my passion,” she explains over a video call. She continued her training at the International Image Institute, also in Canada, and since then she has been completely immersed in this world. Before, she offered color analysis in person, along with other types of advice, but now she dedicates herself exclusively to online colorimetry services, for which she charges 300 Canadian dollars (about 200 euros).
Brailey maintains that colorimetry predates the publication of
The Color of Your Beauty
by many years . According to the expert, the great pioneer of this field was the Swiss painter Johannes Itten, who at the beginning of the 20th century realized that the portraits his students painted looked better when the colors of the objects “harmonized” with those of the fur. It was Itten, furthermore, who established the division of colors by seasons.
For Brailey, since then colorimetry has been present and he does not agree that it has made a return: “It never disappeared, but I think that now social networks have given it a lot of visibility.” She does clarify, however, that over the decades she has evolved. For example, she works with 22 color categories and not the 16 that she describes in
The Color of Your Beauty
. Brailey explains that the subdivisions depend on the system used, since depending on the analyst, a category such as autumn can be divided into more categories, such as “warm autumn” or “temperate autumn.”
For an online colorimetry, consultants usually request photos or videos of the client with a neutral background and without wearing any makeup, in order to observe the natural colors, diagnose a category and recommend the shades that will highlight their features.
@meanwhileweb
✨This is just the beginning of what you can look at to know your COLORIMETRY✨ #colorimetria #teoriadelcolor #asesoriadeimagen #asesoriadeimagenpersonal #cuatroestaciones #colorimetriachallenge
♬ ♡ ᶫᵒᵛᵉᵧₒᵤ ♡ - SoBerBoi
This is how Brailey and other advisors work, such as Marcelle Kozlowski, a Brazilian lawyer who lives in New York and who a few years ago found a new career in colorimetry. It all started, she says, by helping other people get dressed for important appointments like job interviews or meetings. “Let's say I have a client, she is a CEO and she is having difficulty showing herself as she is to her colleagues. They don't see her as a boss because she wears a very pale color and she can't communicate what she wants. Therefore, when people contact me I ask them what they are looking to project and I help them find the colors for them,” she says over a video call.
Booming trend also in Spain
Spain has already imported the colorimetry business. María García from Albacete is an image consultant who started her own company in February 2023. Although her services are not only color engineering, this is one of the pillars of her work. As she explains by email, for a price of 60 euros she sends the client “questionnaires” to find out details that she cannot know with images alone and subsequently requests a series of photographs where the skin, hair and body can be seen. the eyes. “From there I carry out different color tests and based on this and their features I determine the colorimetry,” she details.
According to TIME
magazine
,
Prices in the United States for a color analysis are usually close to $500, while in South Korea (a country where colorimetry is big business) they range between $60 and $180. An internet search shows that in Spain there are offers for prices less than 100 euros.
The Internet and networks allow us to see the varied range of colorimetry services that currently exist, but it is true that, as Brailey explains, it is not something new. The American historian Nicole Rudolph explains in a YouTube video with newspaper clippings from the time that since the 1980s in the United States these analyzes were already offered for prices ranging from 35 to 300 dollars (without adjusting for current inflation). .
@color.analysis
🌈✨ ever wondered if the colors in your wardrobe are truly speaking to you? to those scrolling through, have you ever questioned the impact of bones on your personal narrative? your wardrobe is your canvas, and each color is a brushstroke telling the world your unique narrative. imagine a life without the vibrant spectrum that colors provide – it's like a story with missing chapters. can you dress monochrome? yes, of course! but make this decision consciously of the message that you want to convey! or do you think i chose gray for this video by chance? 🤔 watch the video carefully! 🎨 join me on this colorful journey and discover the transformative power of personal expression. 🌈 as an image consultant specializing not only in colors but also in online sessions, I offer a unique perspective on crafting your story. 🖌️💬 ❤️ follow for more insights into smart personal image – because on instagram, every follow is a vote for a vibrant, personalized world! 🌐❤️✨ #colorfullife #imageconsultant #personalstyle #coloranalysis #onlinecoloranalysis
♬ Natural Emotions - Muspace Lofi
More women and more white people
When talking about colorimetry, it is common to always do it in feminine terms. This is not a prejudice, the same experts confirm that men who come to seek a color analysis are a minority. Carol Brailey estimates that men make up 20% of her clientele and Marcelle Kozlowski says that more and more are interested in colorimetry. María García, however, says that at the moment she has only worked with women.
Another issue that constantly arises in the history of this business is whether it is a service suitable for non-white people. “
The Color of Your Beauty
was written for an audience of white women, and to the extent that it attempted to include other women, the book divided ethnic groups with seasons, saying, for example, that black women, Italian women, and Jewish women They are Winters,” reads an article in
Jezebel
magazine that refers to how Carole Jackson's book tried to appease criticism of racism by including non-white women in later editions.
All the experts consulted by EL PAÍS strongly reject this criticism. They claim that they serve a diverse clientele and that colorimetry can be applied to anyone regardless of their skin color or any other characteristic of their body.
Color analysts also agree that social networks, although they have been a great tool to make themselves known (all with content creators about colorimetry), have also spread a lot of inaccurate information about the work of color analysis. A practice that constantly appears in searches on TikTok and Instagram and that they consider does not work is that of observing the veins in people's wrists to determine “the undertones” of the skin color and apply them in the color prescription.
TikTok has also been filled with thousands of videos in which girls appear using filters that supposedly determine their color season, but many appear to be random results because they can prescribe different seasons in a row to the same person. Reproductions and
likes
, however, contribute to cementing the place of colorimetry in the social network. ChatGPT is also no stranger to colorimetry and is capable of diagnosing a color season if supplied with a description of a person's skin and eye tone.
AI boost
This new
boom
in colorimetry is also allowing it to merge with technological advances, such as artificial intelligence. In Malaga, three months ago a company called ColorAI was launched, which developed color analysis software that it sells to cosmetics and clothing companies or salons. The co-founder and executive director, Estefanía Moreno, says via video call that she has always been “passionate about the world of personal image” and that is why she specialized in colorimetry in Brazil with Luciana Ulrich, an important reference in this discipline. Back in Spain, Moreno decided that she wanted to take her colorimetry work a step further.
The ColorAI application uses an artificial intelligence algorithm. According to the co-founder, the application is available for a subscription of 60 euros aimed exclusively at companies. “When the salon hires us, we create a user and they put the application on a
tablet
, a
smartphone
or a smart mirror. Then the client stands in front of the device, a photograph is taken and at this moment the artificial intelligence analyzes the pigments,” explains the woman from Zaragoza. In the case of salons, the application will recommend haircuts “according to your face type” and the colors “that best suit you.” “She is also given her color palette for clothing and shown her colors indicated for makeup cosmetics, even with the cosmetics already classified so that this client does not have to go crazy in the store,” explains Moreno.
At the moment, the co-founder says she cannot comment on the companies with which they are negotiating, but she assures that at ColorAI they are “very happy with the good acceptance and interest of the brands.”
From Johannes Itten's painting classes to artificial intelligence applications, including
The Color of Your Beauty
, the journey of colorimetry has led it to establish itself in popular culture and as a form of business. Historian Nicole Rudolph, however, believes there are problems in this field that persist today. “It is not a perfect system, two different analysts can assign you different color seasons,” she says in a video in which she highlights alleged inaccuracies in the season categories that, according to her, omit essential aspects such as color contrast. She also mentions how colorimetry is still pigeonholed as a discipline for people with dark skin: “It is designed to work on a very limited range of skin tones, particularly light tones.”
Sustainable fashion influencer
Verena Erin is also critical and maintains that the only filter that should be applied when dressing is “what you like and what you feel best in.
”
“At the end of the day, colorimetry is just a random person's opinion on what they think looks good on you,” she says via email.