Color Me Confident: Change Your Look - Change Your Life!

This book utilizes a well-respected system of color classification called the Munsell system, but then it fails to apply the Munsell system fully in its proferred color recommendations.

The Munsell system classifies colors according to three characteristics: hue (undertone), value (depth), and chroma (clarity). A color's hue may be either warm (yellow-based) or cool (blue-based). A color's value measures its lightness or darkness. A color's chroma measures its clarity or softness.

The book explains these three aspects of color evaluation but then sets out categories that fail to incorporate all three aspects. According to the Color Me Confident categories, you must select one dominant characteristic out of the Munsell system, i.e. that your appearance is deep (a value measurement) or cool (a hue classification) or soft (a chroma measurement). You are permitted one secondary characteristic, but the system does not accomodate the third category of color classification. Thus, if your color value is deep, your color hue is cool, and your color chroma is soft, you are forced to choose between 3 categories (Deep/Cool, Cool/Soft, or Soft/Cool), each of which only includes 2 of these characteristics. There is no category that accomodates deep, cool, and soft. You are supposed to choose which characteristics "dominate" your look; however, such a choice goes against the logic underlying the system. Each of the Munsell categories measures a different aspect of color; these different aspects cannot be readily and sensibly compared. Sorry for the cliche, but it's a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

Despite these flaws, the book may be useful in identifying your underlying color characteristics and then applying information from the different color categories to help improve your color choices.

I looked through this book at a local bookstore and decided not to buy it mainly because the color categories it presents are superficial and inapplicable to a great many people. We are categorized according to our "dominant characteristics," i.e., by our hair colors and eye colors--not according to our "season," a more subtle and sophisticated categorization that includes skin tone. Seasonal color analysis requires a good deal more training and artistry than you would need to recognize, say, a Deep type (dark hair and dark eyes).

Spillane and Sherlock's Color Me Beautiful's Looking Your Best categorizes people by both their dominant characteristics and their seasons. The problem with that book's approach is that each dominant characteristic is linked to only two seasons. For example, if you are Deep, you're either an Autumn or a Winter, but not a Spring or a Summer. This seems to be why the new CMB book, Color Me Confident, categorizes people by only two of the three color characteristics defined by Munsell. If you're Deep and Cool, it's assumed that you must be Clear as well, since Winter coloring is clear, not soft. Cool and Soft is Summer.

In the seasonal system, you could be a dark-haired, dark-eyed Spring or Summer, or a light-haired, light-eyed Autumn or Winter. So much variation is possible within each season, in fact, that the dominant-characteristic system can help in customizing your personal palette. A black Summer palette will have stronger colors than a blond Summer palette. Yet both will have the cool, soft look characteristic of Summer.

CMB's Looking Your Best defines the dominant characteristic types generally enough that you may be able to determine yours even if none of them obviously suit you. But Color Me Confident defines each type so narrowly that one type is presented as the "catch-all" for people who don't fit the other types: the so-called "Soft" type, which contains a good deal of earthy Autumn colors. I look terminally ill in earthy Autumn colors. Each of the palettes in this book is a hodgepodge of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter colors (as defined by Carole Jackson in the original Color Me Beautiful) that may be suitable to one dominant characteristic, but are not, as a group, suited to me--nor, I daresay, to many other people, either.

I'll stick with the seasonal theory for color advice, and I recommend Jackson's and Spillane-Sherlock's books over CMB's latest.

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I devour all books written on this subject since it is my passion. This book is beautiful looking and talks about much more than color. About half of the book offers suggestions on how to dress your body shape, find your personal style, and apply makeup. The color theory presented here is a modern improvement on the seasonal color system introduced over 20 years ago in Color Me Beautiful. However this book no longer uses seasonal references for color types, possibly as a way to appease women who think that being a 'season' is outdated. But it is based on the very same principles of color intensity, values, and hues. I particularly liked the photos and suggestions for each type on how to wear black when it is not an ideal color for you. But I caution readers that determining your personal color type from a book can be difficult. My own coloring could fit into three different categories based on the checklists of hair, skin, and eye colors suggested. Read the book for its great information but then see a skilled colorist to be professionally typed using an objective hands-on process to confirm your ideal palette. I've seen too many people who have self-analyzed their coloring using a book who have then built entire wardrobes around a less than ideal palette. The results of an accurate color analyis are too wonderful to leave to chance.

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The book is full of useless fillings. Finding your colors is limited to few hair and eye color combinations. It also depends on you doing a test with different colored fabrics & determing how the color reflect against your skin. After reading the book, I still don't know what my colors are. Besides, with so many different color hues on the market, how can one tell if what you're buying is an ever green or true green for example, confusing. The lack of pictures showing the types of collars they're recommending for different body types (e.g Mandarin

collar,cowl,bardot...)...is annoying,to say the least. Questionnaires are poorly structured, & the section on makeup, underwear & accessories is trivial. Save your money (i'm glad the book I read was a borrow from the library) and save your time. Pass.

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This is a variation on the color system that assigns people to the four seasons. It is an interesting addition to that idea, I was only disappointed that they spent as little time as they did on the color information. A good part of the book is dedicated to body shape and styling tips. By the way, David Kibbe's theories in his book Metamorphosis are the best ideas ever re dressing to suit one's shape, the very best, and yet he seems to get very little attention. People interested in this book might want to check out his, as well. It is out of print, but available used and therefore inexpensive. "Color Me Beautiful," by Carole Jackson is about the original color system--seasonal--and is still a good read.

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