This installment is much less about what I know (which is abysmally little, in my opinion) and more about discussion of this practice!

I've yet to be professionally draped by a 12 Blueprints Color Analyst, but The Impression That I Get is that aiming for the overall level of dark/light, warmth/cold, brightness/softness of colors in your makeup, hair, accessories, and wardrobe will put you in the map of your season. If your makeup is too much/little of any of those categories, it's not necessarily that you don't look awesome, beautiful, feminine, or together... it's just that there are awesome points that you're leaving on the table.

Let's say you have a makeup collection already. If you have an extensive collection, or even just the basics, using the shades (be it eye, lip, or face makeup) you have and trying new application techniques is a great way to feel out what your season may be (for those of us who have yet to be draped or are unsatisfied with a previous draping). It's also a great way to style yourself more securely within your season (and Kibbe type) if you know what you are!

Let's say there's not much color in your collection at all… or you’re willing to add more color to your war paint arsenal. While I'm a big big fan of winging it, because spontaneous improvisation is an adventure, not everyone is willing to spring for a vaguely orange lip liner to see 1. If it's in the Bright Spring palette or 2. if something Bright Spring looks good on in the first place!

This guide is intended to:

• offer up a hotbed of existing seasonal makeup resources (I wish there were hundreds of these… please share what you’ve been able to find!)

• provide some methodology for picking color (again… please share your ideas!!!)

• and to discuss finding makeup looks/tutorials/makeup artists or gurus who can help you with painting for your season (I have a CDL for The Struggle Bus… this one is something I’m particularly good at struggling with.)

SEASONAL MAKEUP RESOURCES

• Alane, The Color Geek, is a Sci/Art Personal Color Analysis. who writes a lot of great content. Here is a blog post from earlier this year, “Subtle Lips for 12 Seasons which has one lipstick recommendation for each season. Most of these lipsticks are popular, commonly recognized brands that should be easy enough to find at whatever retailer you shop at/order from! Here is her Pinterest, with lots of great boards with inspiration as well as product recs.

• Cate Linden is another 12-Tone Personal Color Analyst. who creates some great content on numerous platforms. Here is her blog post about the YSL Vinyl Cream Lip Stains and here is her blog post about the Bite Amuse Bouche lipsticks. Here is her blog post about Bobbi Brown Art Sticks. She’s got a TON more blog posts about various topics that had me laughing, eager for more, and (my favorite) calming the hell down about the insurmountable task of figuring this all out.

• If you know your season, or want to try a specific season, shopping from Cate Linden or from any of these multiple 12 Blueprints gurus might be a good idea for you! That website itself has lots of content, specifically with posts for each season with some makeup recommendations. (I’ve found mine to be a little outdated, with most of the shades impossible to find for sale.) As a makeup addict with no interest in rehab five years into my long wearing, high quality makeup searching journey, I’m skeptical of the quality of those cosmetics, so naturally, I enjoyed this blog post of Cate’s. Most of the analysts I’ve looked at offer makeup kits/makeup advice as a service, so check that out for yourself as well!

PICKING COLOR FOR YOUR SEASON

• A few days ago, I posted asking how people shop for their season and got some great feedback. Based on what I’m seeing from analysts, I think the best way to pick makeup for your season is to swatch it. It looks to me like you take the pigment and swatch it on white paper. Super scientific. Can’t lie, I’m somewhat skeptical of this. The way those pigments look swatched on white paper, in my mind, is different than how it will actually perform when applied to you! Furthermore, when you factor in your primers, base makeup, and certainly any color correcting you do for dark circles/redness/etc…. Things become complicated. But if you’re comparing 12 Blueprints swatches to makeup shades, white paper is probably correct and the best that can be done, so ignore my neurosis :)

• If you have a fan, hold it up to the swatches and work it out. Or maybe, for rogue individuals willing to risk shoddy results (raises hand) print out your color palette and go boldly into the adventure. Let me tell you the reasons the latter approach (which I’ll probably be taking later this week) is a bad idea! For one, not all printers are created equal. Let’s say the color second row from the bottom, third row from the right is roughly C 0% M 65% Y 100% K 11%... (CMYK is cyan, magenta, yellow, key/black, one of multiple color coding systems used digitally to specify a certain color.) If your printer ink is low, your printer is imprecise, etc., your baseline is incorrect. For two, if you’re printing a palette offline, chances are good you don’t actually know your season according to a professionally trained analyst and you may not be selecting for the right shades at all. Furthermore, the paper you’re printing on can also skew your baseline if it is any of various shades of “white”.

• I really enjoy looking at makeup swatches online… be it google images, Temptalia, dupe that, or makeup artists/gurus/addicts I follow. I look at as many swatches, as many different swatching techniques (e.g. eyeshadow brush swatches are more realistic than finger swatches, anything swatched with a finger will look great, but usually you apply eyeshadow with a brush so finger swatches aren’t realistic) and as many skin tones (e.g. swatching shadows/blushes on deeper complexions tells you a lot about quality/intensity of the pigment, while seeing the same shade on multiple different complexions gives you a more thorough understanding of that shade) as possible to get a good idea of the quality and color of the pigment.

• Like any vaguely tech savvy online shopper, I totally take online images, place them on the same artboard/copy paste them in the same file, and do a color match to determine if the product color is on the palette. The risk here is that the images you’re viewing may not be precisely colored.

• If none of that is your cup of tea, keep in mind the season you’re aiming for. As a tentative Bright Spring looking at makeup racks in Ulta (who has a gloriously forgiving return policy… don’t be shady, but take advantage of it as needed), I chant to myself, “super bright, pretty warm, medium value” and grab whatever looks right. If I were Dark Winter, I’d be chanting “dark, pretty bold, cool.” Then, commence swatching.

• Now that I’ve flailed about writing this, I found this blog post about Light Spring Makeup that includes a great guide for swatching makeup. This is canon.

HOW TO PAINT FOR YOUR SEASON

• A while back, someone posted a quiz that matches you with a vlogger with similar coloring. I don’t think it was specific to the 12 seasons, and like most quizzes it relies on your ability to objectively evaluate yourself. I remember being dissatisfied with my result… When I look for inspiration, I’m not usually looking for specific product recommendations. I’m usually looking for overall color combinations to create using my own collection, and since my makeup goal for the last year or so has been to incorporate as much vivid color as possible, I’ve been pretty unsuccessful in my own pursuit.

• In pursuit of that quiz… Like a total creeper I found this incredible post. Not sure how up to date it is, as it’s three years old, but it’s a staggeringly good start. (TV Timeout… Like.. how much does this woman KNOW?!!!!! I’d like to demand an “About the Mods” post added to the wiki.)

• Something interesting about the seasons is that they don’t just encompass colors.. They encompass textures, finishes, and overall vibes. Where a Spring is dewy, a winter is frosty, for example. Key into that as you select your products which come in a multitude of finishes from matte to satin to sheer to glittery to shimmery to metallic. The challenge here is that the color not conflict with your Kibbe… I imagine a Romantic Summer would be pretty cohesive, as would a Gamine Spring… but I really don’t know.

• I’ve been looking at pictures of each season in their drapes, but I find myself eager for more examples of each season fully realized. Like most makeup wearers, I don’t want to look fake and overdone, but I’m also not going for that effortless no makeup Neutrogena ad look either. I am a Romantic Bright Spring… one of my favorite quotes is, “Blue is my neutral.” That’s kind of how I want to feel about my look… I want to wear green and orange and pink and blue and every color under the sun, I want my entire look to smile at you before I even look at you, I want to project any of nineteen different vibes on any given day while still looking very much myself from one day to the next. Kibbe and PCA are tools for doing this… but where can I look to see examples? Pinterest, of course.

I’ve built a Pinterest with the intent of catering it to the seasons, and eventually Kibbe. Right now it’s just seasons with draping photos, with carefully followed People/Boards in that vein. Here are the best, most linkworthy boards I’ve found!

• Summer Inspo product rec’s

• Spring Inspo product rec’s

• Winter Inspo product recs

• Autumn Inspo album

If there are any boards or people you follow, please mention them!!!

Hopefully this is helpful, and prompts more discussion! I clearly have very little figured out, so hopefully this is a launching pad for you to do much better than me :)