07 Jul Make-Up Mondays :: COLOR WHEEL | Austin Boudoir Photography

Know Your Color Wheel

Hello Ladies!

You can understand make-up, tools and every product under the sun, but I can tell you one thing –> if you don’t understand which colors to use, or what looks good with what, the 2+ hours you spend on your bright blue eyeshadow with your orange blush and hot pink lipstick will make you end up looking worse than the clown from the movie “It”.

“Well, how am I supposed to know what colors work best with what?”

To best understand, let’s go back to kindergarten.

The Color Wheel

Primary, Secondary & Tertiary

Ahh…  So many big words with, …really, such simple meanings.

First, there are only 3 true colors in the whole universe.  They are red, blue and yellow.  You can not and will not EVER be able to create these absolute colors, no matter how many color combinations you try.  These are known as our Primary colors.  Mixing equal parts of two Primary colors will make your Secondary colors.  For example: 1 drop of red food coloring + 1 drop of yellow will make orange.  So with that being said, green, orange, and violet (purple), are the secondary colors.  Now here are the colors for the last weird word, Tertiary.  Yellow-orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green and yellow-green make up the Tertiary family.  By mixing equal parts of the Primary and Secondary, you get those pretty colors.  Black is not a color but simply the absence of light.  Mix unequal parts of the primary colors and you will get brown and by mixing equal parts, you will get gray.

Alright, so now that we know what category the colors fall into, we can now start making formulas for the perfect harmony of color combos.  You will always be safe with neutral colors, as in any color falling in the brown or black family, regardless of your ethnicity.  But neutrals tend to be so boring!  Let’s brighten things up!

You will always make perfect harmony by using these two rules:

Analogous Colors & Complimentary Colors.

Analogous colors are any three colors which are side by side on a 12 part color wheel. For an example: Yellow, yellow-green, and green are analogous colors and will always look good together.

Complimentary colors are any two colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel.  Now, these are easy to remember!  Christmas is all complimentary colors!  When you think of it, you think of red and green. If you look at the color wheel, you will then notice that they are opposite of each other. The same goes for yellow and violet (the Lakers) and blue and orange (the Broncos).  The list goes on & on making a zillion different complimentary colors.  The bottom line is that opposites attract.

(Photo credit: Women’s Lifestyle)

Now that you understand harmony, you can now put together different combos to make your look gorgeous! Don’t get me wrong, though.  Don’t go out with orange eyeshadow and dark blue lips telling people, “Lauren said this color combo will make me look gorgeous!”  I mean if you buy some awesome new blue eyeshadow, DON’T BE AFRAID O IT, but also don’t make yourself look like a blueberry by wearing blue clothes as well.  Try a pretty orange dress or top.

Now go play with some colors, girls!!  🙂

Stay you, stay beautiful!
XO,

Lauren

Join our “Make-Up Mondays” email subscription list!