Malin Qvarfordt Light Up Your Look: the Colors that Love You Back
by L.A. Robbins
Colors don’t tell lies. A good choice can make you look young, bright and healthy. A poor choice will do the reverse.
WIN’s March speaker, Malin Qvarfordt, showed us how the right color next to your face can make magic. Best facial features bloom: you will look stunning.
‘Each person has their own seasonal palette,’ Malin explained: ‘autumn, spring, summer or winter.’ Depending on skin tone, you may look good in cool soft colors, clear bright colors, icy blues or oranges and golds.
Malin presented a lively show-and-tell of color swatches on three volunteers: Barbara Brodbeck, Elia Nichols and Ren Ruane. In an engaging demonstration which had audience members guessing – and giggling at faulty hypotheses – Malin displayed various color samples next to models’ faces. These emphasized or dulled down skin tone and facial features.
In pink fringed hair, black-framed glasses, and a pink-and-brown stripped outfit, Malin displayed her own take on this intriguing art and science.
‘Hollywood went crazy when technicolor replaced black-and-white films, glamorising actors and creating stock characters (good or evil) based on what clothing they wore,’ she told us. Magazines and the fashion industry have been experimenting with color in clothes and the complements for hair, make-up and accessories since the 1930s, she added.
How to decide what color suits you
Remove make up. Put a white scarf around your head to neutralize the effect of hair color. Drape a white cloth around your shoulders to act as a blank palette on which various swatches will lay. Shine a strong light on the face. Position a mirror, an audience or both in front of you.
Once you have placed a color sample below your chin, look at the effect of this under the eyes, at the divisions between nose and cheeks, at the cheeks themselves and around the mouth.
What you now need is Malin, of course.
Winter and summer are cool colors; autumn and spring are warm colors.
While some people shine in specific seasonal colors, others fall in between seasons. Look for a pronounced contrast; this signifies a color that works for you.
Consider the primary tone beneath the color – does this pink have more of a cold blue tone or more of a warm red tone? Is this green more yellow or more blue?
Pay attention to the difference between white and cream; one will work better on your face than the other, depending on skin tone.
If you have a mixed skin tone you can get away with many seasonal colors.
‘There’ a shade of red, pink, white, green … for each of us,’ Malin stressed.
‘You can wear any color next to your face. If it does not naturally work with your skin tone, you may need to put on a bit more make up.’
Our subconscious often decides for us: we put something on and take it off. We don’t feel good in an outfit of a particular color.
Hair color When you go grey, does this change your designated best season?
‘No,’ Malin says. ‘Your skin tone remains the same, unless you’ve done something to change it.’ Hair frames the face. But is it always best to go with what nature assigns us? While grey hair softens the look, a color in your hair may make you look younger, she notes.
Our skin naturally becomes duller as we age. Again, this does not change the skin tone. The color palette that compliments you best does not change either.
The science behind this is now more sophisticated. Today there are the four original seasonal color groups plus many sub-groups within them.
What you might do with this knowledge:
Discover the colors that best work for your skin tone – knowing this makes it easier to buy clothes and choose what to wear
revise your existing wardrobe and make future purchases
influence make up colors and nail varnish
guide accessory choice
To have your colors done you can book a session (1.5 hours) with Malin:
giannicanale@hotmail.it 055 210332
Via Vittoria Giu,3
near Porta Leopolda/Porta al Prato in Florence