Colour my world

Colours can be intimidating. When you understand how to wear them, you can look more attractive, healthy and interesting. The wrong colours can make you look sick, tired and bigger than you are. We often go to so much trouble to decorate our homes to get the right feeling or mood but we don't often bother with ourselves. Sometimes we fall into a rut of wearing safe colours and combinations because we just don't know what else looks good. I thought I'd give you a bit of a colour theory lesson and some ideas to add a bit of diversity to your wardrobe.

We learn when we're little there are 3 colours we start with. These are the Primary Colours- RED, BLUE & YELLOW.
We mix these to get the next lot of colours, these are the Secondary Colours.
RED + YELLOW= ORANGE
RED + BLUE= PURPLE
YELLOW + BLUE= GREEN

Then we do a bit more mixing and we get the Tertiary Colours.
RED + ORANGE= RED ORANGE
ORANGE + YELLOW= YELLOW ORANGE
YELLOW + GREEN= YELLOW GREEN
GREEN + BLUE= BLUE GREEN
BLUE + PURPLE= BLUE PURPLE
PURPLE + RED= RED PURPLE

Now you probably understand how this works but you might be thinking RED PURPLE, what colour is that? I'll give you some of the names retailers use for these colours.
RED- True Red, Crimson.
RED ORANGE- Tomato Red, Clear Red, Vermilion.
ORANGE- Pumpkin.
YELLOW ORANGE- Clear Gold, Light Orange, Ochre.
YELLOW- Golden Yellow, Lemon, Yellow Gold.
YELLOW GREEN- Lime, Apple, Sap Green.
GREEN- Forest, Emerald, True Green.
BLUE GREEN- Emerald Turquoise, Teal, Turquoise, Jade, Viridian.
BLUE- Royal, True Blue, Sky, Ultramarine.
BLUE PURPLE- Purple, Periwinkle, Indigo.
PURPLE- Violet, Amethyst.
RED VIOLET- Plum, Magenta.

We can then go on to make endless number of colours by adding varying amounts of WHITE, BLACK or BROWN to the list above. When we add WHITE to a colour we get the muted, pastel version. When we add BLACK or BROWN we get deeper, richer versions which often become more neutral because BLACK and BROWN are considered neutral colours. Here is a list of the pastel, muted versions and the shaded, toasted colours.

RED+ WHITE= Pink, Bubblegum, Rose, Pale Pink
RED + BLACK/BROWN= Burgundy, Wine
RED ORANGE + WHITE= Salmon, Blush, Rose Pink, Coral
RED ORANGE + BLACK/BROWN= Rust, Terracotta
ORANGE + WHITE = Apricot, Peach
ORANGE + BLACK/BROWN= Tobacco, Mahogany, Chocolate
YELLOW + WHITE= Cream, Buttermilk, Icy Yellow
YELLOW + BLACK/BROWN= Mustard, Camel
YELLOW GREEN + WHITE= Light Lime, Apple Green, Dirty Apple
YELLOW GREEN + BLACK/BROWN= Khaki, Olive
GREEN + WHITE= Mint, Icy Green, Pistachio, Jade
GREEN + BLACK/BROWN= Pine
BLUE GREEN + WHITE= Eau de nil, Icy Aqua, Aqua
BLUE GREEN + BLACK/BROWN= Deep Teal, Sea Green, Slate, Petrol
BLUE + WHITE= Icy Blue, Powder Blue, Sky, Wedgewood
BLUE + BLACK/BROWN= French Navy, Navy, Prussian Blue
BLUE PURPLE + WHITE= Bluebell, Hyacinth, Periwinkle, Mauve
BLUE PURPLE + BLACK/BROWN= Deep Periwinkle, Dark Plum
PURPLE + WHITE= Lavender, Icy Violet
PURPLE + BLACK/BROWN= Cardinal
RED VIOLET + WHITE= Warm Pink, Fuchsia, Soft Plum
RED VIOLET + BLACK/BROWN= Deep Plum, Aubergine


Now that you understand how we get the colours, in my next post I'll start to show you how we can wear them to look our best and possibly try them in a new way.

Keep blossoming!
Vanessa.