How Your Color Palette Is Built, Color by Color

When clients receive their palette, the first thing most of them ask is, “How did you know?” How did I know that her Power Color was emerald and not royal blue, or that her Romantic Red was cinnamon rather than crimson?

The answer is that a palette isn’t guessed. It’s built, color by color, each one in relation to your coloring and to the colors that came before it.

In this post I’ll take you inside a color palette consultation, the heart of every color palette analysis I do, and show you how a personal palette is constructed, the way I teach it in my book, Dress Your Essence. You’ll see why every color belongs where it does, and why a palette built this way works as a whole.

Before Any Color: Artist and Scientist

To find the colors that express your essence, I work as both artist and scientist.

As a scientist, I examine the colors of your hair, skin and eyes, determine their values, and reveal your color harmonies from there. As an artist, I’m looking for how each color illuminates and uplifts you, and captures your essential energy.

Both matter. A color can be technically “correct” and still leave you flat. A palette has to be accurate and alive.

Step 1: Your Neutrals

Every palette begins with the neutrals, the building blocks every other color goes with.

• Formal neutral: the darkest value your coloring can support. For many it’s black, navy, dark brown or dark olive.
• Semi-formal neutral: another value of your eyes (blue eyes often contain gray), a lighter value of your hair, or a shade that balances your skin.
• Casual neutral: a value of your hair color.
• Palest neutral: the color of the whites of your eyes, which gives you your white, ivory or light gray.

Here’s a real Autumn palette from my book: brown hair, café-au-lait skin and warm green eyes produce espresso brown, dark olive (the darkest color in her eyes), chestnut brown (from her hair) and caramel (slightly deeper than her skin).

Step 2: Your Romantic Red

Next comes your Romantic Red, the color of passion and celebration. It comes from the blood showing through your skin when you flush.

Gently pinch your cheek and the color rises. It might be bright pink, dusty rose, coral, mauve, cinnamon, paprika, rust, burgundy or crimson. The undertone of your skin decides it: Springs are often given a bright pink, coral, vibrant ruby or cranberry; Summers range from cool dusty rose to burgundy; Autumns wear warmer reds like brick, cinnamon or rust; Winter reds range from bright cardinal to deep ruby or magenta.

When you capture the right shade, your skin and eyes glow. The wrong red makes you fade into the background.

Step 3: Your Power Color

The Power Color is the one you’ll wear when you want to be center stage. It’s also the hardest to find, because it doesn’t directly match your hair, skin or eyes. It’s built from the color wheel, using your Romantic Red and the lights of your eyes.

• Spring: the complement of your Romantic Red, or the missing piece of the color triad between your red and your eyes. A Spring with a bright ruby red and gold lights in her eyes might have a rich emerald (complementary to ruby) or a bright peacock (completing the red/yellow/blue triad).
• Summer: the strongest color within your analogous range, usually in the blue, teal or violet families.
• Autumn: analogous colors on the warm side. With a warm brick red, your Power Color might be emerald or Persian turquoise.
• Winter: the strongest jewel tone that complements your skin and eyes, usually in the blue or purple family.

If a candidate looks out of range, cool where your red and skin are warm, or bright where your red is muted, the hue, value or intensity needs adjusting.

Step 4: Your Supplementary Power Color

Your Supplementary Power Color is quieter than your Power Color but still conveys authority and confidence. It’s usually analogous to your Power Color or your Romantic Red, and it moves cooler or warmer depending on your skin.

Examples from my clients: a Winter whose Power Color was peacock had a deep eggplant as her Supplementary Color, to reflect the violet in her skin. A Spring’s royal blue was supplemented by a bright teal. An Autumn’s emerald might be supplemented by a bright avocado or a deeper forest green.

Step 5: Your Support Color

Your Support Color is the one you’ll wear to support others, foster teamwork or let someone else take center stage. It’s softer than your Power Colors, and it’s found by continuing around the color wheel from your Power Color.

If your Power Color is royal blue and your Supplementary Color is teal, your Support Color might be kelly green, if your skin is warmer. As colors relate more closely to your skin tone, they appear softer on you.

For Autumns, whose Power Colors are often green, moving around the wheel leads to yellows, which aren’t necessarily softer. So I look instead to golden browns that reflect the undertones of the skin and eyes. For cooler-skinned Winters, the Support Color might be emerald or jade.

Step 6: Your Optional Colors

Optional Colors are lighter values of the rest of your palette.

• Springs: palette colors with more white, like a lighter coral or a turquoise version of peacock
• Summers: muted, dustier versions of palette colors
• Autumns: lighter earth tones like wheat, oyster, sand, corn silk and terracotta, rather than pastels
• Winters: cool, icy pastels, always paired with a formal neutral or metallics to keep the contrast

Step 7: Your Metals

Finally, your metals, found in the lights of your eyes and the highlights of your hair. A blue-eyed, brown-haired Summer might wear silver (eyes), rose bronze (hair) and rose gold (skin). A green-eyed, blond Spring might wear antique brass (eyes), gold (hair) and a peachy copper or pink gold (skin).

The level of sheen matters too. Smooth skin suits smooth, shiny metals; highly textured skin suits engraved, hammered or carved finishes.

The Final Test

When the palette is complete, it has to work as a whole. Every color must complement all three parts of your hair, skin and eyes. And if you could conceivably wear your Power Color with your Romantic Red, all of your neutrals and your eye color, the palette is in harmony.

That’s why a palette built this way feels like you. Nothing in it was chosen from a chart. Every color came from you.

What to Do Next

• Find your palest neutral by looking at the whites of your eyes in natural light.
• Do the pinch test and gather every red object in your home to find your Romantic Red.
• Notice which colors you already wear to important meetings. Are they your Power Color, or your Support Color?
• Book a short conversation with my team for your complete palette.

Your first step today: hold three reds up to your face in daylight and notice which one makes your eyes glow.

A Palette That Works as a Whole

A personal palette isn’t a list of colors that suit you. It’s a system, built color by color from your own coloring, where every shade has a job and every shade works with every other. That’s what a color palette consultation creates.

The first step is a short conversation about your goals. Book a Call with Jennifer’s Team.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens in a color palette consultation? With me, you send photos beforehand, then we sit down and talk, virtually or in person. I read your hair, skin, eyes and essence, build your palette color by color, and your palette arrives as a book of swatches.

How do I find my Power Color? Your Power Color is built on the color wheel from your Romantic Red and the lights of your eyes. Because it doesn’t directly match your coloring, it’s the hardest color to find on your own.

What is a Romantic Red? Your Romantic Red is the color of your natural flush, the color that rises when you gently pinch your cheek. It can range from petal pink to deep burgundy and is the color of passion and celebration.

What’s the difference between a Power Color and a Support Color? Your Power Color conveys leadership and authority for center-stage moments. Your Support Color is softer, for teamwork or letting someone else lead.