Going Green
Like all colours, green comes in warm and cool versions, and it’s one of the colours that really matter about the warmth or coolness and your colouring. The right green will make you look great, the wrong one, really sickly. So it’s important you can figure out if your best green is warm or cool.
Greens that are warm have a yellowish undertone – they extend all the way around the yellow-greens. Cool greens look bluish and extend into the turquoise and teal shades.
Most likely, if you have an olive green eye (or hazel eye) you will suit the warm shades of green. All other shades of eyes may be warm or cool, you need to figure that out based on your skin-tone. But green is a great colour to use to see if you are warm or cool. Take an olive type green (warm) and a more forest green (cool) and see which suits you best.
Sheer Style
Sheer fabrics are a great way to wear a colour that is less than stellar for you. The ability to see skin, or another colour through them can soften down the colour and make it more flattering.
If you are wearing a sheer top to work, ensure it is appropriate and that you have an opaque top underneath your sheer top.
in one of my former posts on my blog I am wearing both green and sheer! I have eyes that are indeterminable in colour, they have equal amounts of green and grey and a bit of blue in them. The colour that dominates depends on the lighting and on what I am wearing! I have cool colouring and although you can’t see it v well, the shade I am wearing in my post is just excellent for making my eyes pop.
Alongside green, I think orange is another great colour to determine whether you are cool or warm. A cool person can’t wear orange. Also, gold vs silver. I always knew gold was not for me, even before I knew anything about colouring.
I really love your shirt!
And I agree on what you wrote about orange and gold vs silver. I’m also cool and orange looks hidious on me. Also silver is much better than gold for me.
🙂
Looking at your blog and all your lovely outfits, we have similar colouring: cool and bright is what seems to suit us both!
I can see that you really love black 🙂 I used to love it too, although I have tried to accumulate more and more brightly-coloured outfits over the past couple of years.
True, I love black (being a goth for a very long time, now trying to use more colour in my outfits, as well :D)! And yes, I think we have very similar colouring. 🙂
I’m a sucker for shades of pastel mint green…I find the lighter color is more neutral and works on most skin tones.
Love the post on Going Green. I have been assessed as warm colouring (Auburn hair, pale with freckles, blue eyes) but was told that teal was ok to wear. In fact, its my most favourite colour so I am desperate for it to be ok! Was the advice wrong?
I remember asking Imogen the same once and she said teal is a neutral and both warms and cools can wear it. Teal is excellent for bringing out blue eyes.
Btw here it is: https://insideoutstyleblog.com/2013/01/what-are-universal-colours.html
I was similarly petrified that red-violet (which I really like) would NOT work for me as a cool person. But as explained in the video, there are some universal neutrals!
Rachel – teal (which is a combination of blue and green) is a colour everyone can wear!
I’m always a little doubtful over whether I’m a warm or cool colouring (although I teeter towards the warm), but if I was to base it on this post, I’m definitely a warm. My eyes are greenish-brown, and look good in olive-y shades of green – they are hard to find, though.
Today I wore a sheer top in purple, a colour I hardly ever wear, and interesting to read Imogen’s advice that sheer is a good way to wear colours that don’t suit you, because that was exactly my justification for buying (and wearing) this top!
I think you look great in that purple top. And a nice little detail to add the red top underneath!
Thanks Micci 🙂
Wow, I’d have thought you’d be cool… I mean black being cool, deep and bright does not at all suit someone who is warm…
I’d love to know what Imogen thinks.
PS really love your sheer blouse!
Thanks, Susie!
I wear a lot of black, but honestly, it is probably more because a lot of plus size clothing is black. So it has been my “go to” neutral for the past few years. I think the biggest benefit out of doing Imogen’s challenge, for me, is that it’s highlighted how much better I look in colours than in basic black.
With my colouring, sometimes I identify with warm and sometimes with cool. My foundation (ie, makeup) is always in the “true beige” range, so I’m not really on the pink or yellow side of the scale! Maybe I’m just lucky, and can do both!
My mum has always worn gold, not silver, yet some warm colours, such as orange does not seem to suit her at all. She used to have reddish hair before giving birth to me and my brother, and she has blue-grey eyes and freckles. all this would perhaps suggest she’s warm, but I think she is really in-between.
Black as a colour is cool, deep and bright, so suits me, yet dressing me all in black is too sombre despite that. monochromatic dressing just doesn’t work for me, due to my high value and colour contrast.
and on top of that, as Imogen once kindly explained to me, there are other aspects of colour which may be equally important, such as brightness. Bright colours suit you better than muted I think, so perhaps that’s why black is not that obviously distracting on you even if you are warm.
But yes, Febr 14 seems far too black for my liking, but I really liked Febr 13. And Febr 17 too! So pretty!
Colour in general is so versatile, and can say so much. When I was younger, I used to dress rather Gothic, with a lot of black. I also used to altogether avoid prints. I now try to experiment with them and incorporate at least two colours into my outfits.
Green is a colour I don’t wear much. Actually, I don’t even have more than one green top in my wardrobe. So, my choice for the green day was quite obvious.
http://www.lily.fi/juttu/fabruary-26
Today I wore two sheer elements, a bright blue shirt and a long black vest on top of it. I really like sheer clothes, especially in Summer (and on my holiday to Egypt in less than a week!), but it’s also possible to wear them in colder weather if you use layers.
You are so right about green! It can be very tricky. Having light, warm, muted colouring with green eyes I wear it all the time, including lime and leafy greens, even using khaki, olive and moss greens as my neutrals. I also wear turquoise and teal, which you consider universal colours, as warm blues. I have noticed that the cooler pea, emerald and forest greens do not suit me as well as the yellower tones. However, if they are muted, like a sage green (which is like a greeny grey to me) they seem OK.
When I wrote my post I wasn’t sure whether the “going green” referred to wearing the colour green or being environmentally friendly! So I tried to cover both, to be on the safe side. I think I have a mix of greens in my wardrobe, some of which suit me better than others, so clearly what Imogen says about warm and cool shades explains this. I am sooo relieved to hear that turquoise and teal are universal colours as I love them!
I honestly thought I would have to miss this particular challenge – sheer tops on an over 60? I shuddered at the thought, but then I read your post and after that I went shopping. You must have been lucky for me as I found a top that was thicker (remember it’s winter here!) but see-through so I reckoned it could qualify as sheer. Hope that you agree!