What is The 5-4-3-2-1 Method for Packing: A One-Week Blueprint
March 16, 2023
The joy of having a capsule wardrobe goes beyond easy morning routines. It also extends to perfect outfits that highlight your natural beauty, rather than clashing with it. In this guide, we will teach you how to choose your ideal capsule wardrobe color palette, which revolves around patterns, hues, and contrast levels that let you shine. Are you ready to dig into the color wheel, where a myriad of color choices awaits you? Let’s dive right into it.
How to Choose Colors for Your Capsule Wardrobe?
To develop your ideal capsule wardrobe color palette, you should analyze your skin complexion, choose complementary colors, and build outfits around a certain color season. By this, you will enjoy enough flexibility in your capsule wardrobe without compromising on the vibrance of your outfits.
Truly, colors can either work for or against you. The key is determining your perfect palette, which should correspond with your complexion, hair color, and eye color. This way, you will identify the very shades of lipstick, blush, jewelry, or clothing that will highlight your best features, and you will make more sound decisions for your capsule wardrobe items.
Step 1. Conduct Wardrobe Color Diagnostics
When exploring how to choose a color palette for your capsule wardrobe, you may or may not look for an image makeover. However, it is crucial to identify your color standing and evaluate your current situation before investing in new items or revamping your fashion taste.
Use the following questions to identify whether or not you have a color problem, so that you can make wise decisions regarding your color choices:
- Can you identify certain garments in your wardrobe that fit well but you still haven’t worn?
- When dyeing your hair, do you overlook whether the dye is cool- or warm-toned?
- Do you find it difficult to color coordinate your clothing?
- Do the everyday basics in your wardrobe feature accent colors that overpower your outfits?
- Do some of your garments only look good with a tan?
- Does one component of your makeup clash with the rest – e.g., a certain shade of blush that does not match your favorite eyeshadow?
If your answer to these questions is “yes”, then you may have a color problem, which can distort the way the world perceives you. Not knowing your color season, undertones, or the ideal palette can dim your natural beauty, preventing you from leaving the best first impression.
The wrong colors may throw your entire outfit off or make you look lackluster. So, before revamping your wardrobe, it’s right about time you solve the most pressing color problems in your makeup, wardrobe, and image curation.
Step 2. Find Out What Colors Suit You
When selecting a color palette for your capsule wardrobe, it’s time to address and solve your color dilemmas. Let’s start with the most important part – assessing your complexion.
Different skin tones exist, and specific hues may either work well with or against your complexion. In order to choose colors that accentuate your best features, it is crucial to know if you have warm, cold, or neutral undertones.
As such, people with warm skin tones appear best in earth tones like warm browns, oranges, and yellows, whereas people with cool skin tones look great in blues, greens, and pinks. This also includes individuals with pale skin and pink undertones, who typically fall on the cooler side and tend to look most harmonious in soft rosy hues, icy pastels, and blue-based colors that enhance their natural flush rather than overpower it.
Warm vs Cool Undertones: Which One Are You?
Although you may not know this, your undertone is either warm, neutral, or cool. To find out which one it is, you need to take a closer look to your hair, eyes, and skin tone – they hold the secrets behind your ideal color palette.
This distinction will also determine, for example, whether you lean toward Spring vs Summer coloring, since both seasons can appear similar on the surface yet belong to opposite undertone groups. Spring is warm, while Summer is cool, and the differences often show up in the subtle nuances of your skin, eyes, and hair.
Examine Your Eye Color
Make sure to face natural lighting and take a look at your eyes in the mirror. Does your iris feature any gold, hazel, or brown flecks? Are your eyes reddish, brown, amber, or olive green? If so, they are most likely warm-toned (e.g., Spring or Autumn). If they’re grey, navy, or powdery blue, with an icier or softer quality, they likely lean cool (e.g., Summer or Winter).
Yet, if your eye color is ambiguous, you may have to think twice about its undertones. Eyes that look blue-ish may actually feature turquoise, aqua, or teal hues, which are considered warm.
Assess Your Skin Tone
While it can be challenging to determine your skin tone, you should know that it never changes with a tan or a certain shade of foundation. In other words, your skin tone is innate to your complexion.
To evaluate your skin tone, use this simple trick: take a look at the inside of your wrists, where your skin is thin and transparent.
- Are your capillaries blue or purple? then you probably have a cool undertone.
- If they are green, your innate undertones are warm.
- If they are light green, your undertones are neutral.
PRO TIP: if you are a regular user of fake tan or sunbathe often, note that tans may overpower your skin tone, making it appear golden, dark mustard, or olive. However, this does not determine your innate undertone that you’re born with.
Experiment with Gold and Silver Fabrics
Another way to determine your innate undertones is to wrap silver and gold fabrics around your face to see how it looks against them. The right tone of fabric will make your eyes ‘pop’, smoothen out your skin, and highlight your teeth. It will also reduce the appearance of fine lines and dark eyebags.
So, simply alternate between silver and gold fabrics – consider whether they make the whites of your eyes clear and bright while complementing your overall complexion.
If the silver fabric completes your look, that’s an indication of having a cool undertone. However, if you look better with the golden fabric, you most likely have a warm undertone.
Examine Your Hair
To do so, think about the hair that you have right now as an adult, rather than as a child. Warm hair tends to feature golden, orange, and red hues, which are common among copper, auburn, strawberry blonde, golden blonde, flame red, deep chestnut, and ginger hair.
Cool hair tones, on the other hand, can encompass anything from platinum blonde to blue black. Featuring no golden undertones, jet black, pearl grey, silver, ash blonde, ash brown, and dark brown are considered cool hair colors.
Step 3. Match Colors with Your Undertone
Once you’ve done the tricky part of determining your undertone, you can move on to color selection. The nuances of your undertones can help you select the most flattering colors for your outfits – hence, determining the ideal color scheme for your capsule wardrobe.
Cool Undertones
Skin with blue or pink undertones is indicative of a cool undertone. It is advisable to choose cool shades like blue, green, and purple when choosing colors to compliment them.
Silver, gray, and jewel-tones like sapphire, emerald, and amethyst are hues that go exceptionally well with cool undertones.
Yet, make sure to avoid warm hues like orange and yellow, as they can clash with the cool tones of the skin and result in unpleasant color combinations.
Warm Undertones
Warm undertones directly reflect the skin’s underlying golden or yellow hues. Olive, rust, and mustard yellow are examples of earthy hues that go blend well with warm undertones. So are orange, crimson, and coral, which are unique examples of warm shades.
Having warm undertones, you should avoid using cool colors like blue, green, and silver, which could dim your complexion and steal your innate sparkle.
Neutral Undertones
Skin with neutral undertones features a synergy of cool and warm tones. That is, as a wide range of colors, neutrals encompass both warm and cool tones. They’re also known as adaptable colors, which include beige, white, taupe, and black.
Earthy hues like brown and gray, in tandem with jewel-tones like emerald and sapphire, complement neutral undertones exceptionally well.
Step 4. Determine Your Color Season
Identifying your “color season” is a common strategy for choosing the colors that go well with your skin tone. This entails determining which seasonal color scheme best matches the hues of your complexion, hair, and eyes. Each of the four color seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—has a distinct palette of hues that flatters persons with a particular undertone.
You can put together a capsule wardrobe color palette that complements your natural characteristics by figuring out your color season. Being aware of your color season will ultimately streamline your fashion decisions – making it easier for you to style, purchase, and revamp your clothes.
Assessing Your Color Season: Contrasts and Undertones
As you have figured out your skin undertone, now you should move on to identifying your color season, which takes into account not only the undertone of your complexion but also contrast levels.
If you have warm undertones, your color season belongs to the category of either Spring or Autumn. If your undertones are cool, you are automatically considered either a Summer or a Winter.
Yet, apart from undertones, you must identify your contrast level to pinpoint your unique color season – that is, you must determine whether you’re a ‘light’ or a ‘deep’ contrast.
If your hair is brunette, auburn, or black, your contrast is considered ‘deep’ by default, as your hair stands out against your overall complexion. However, if your hair is light brown, blonde, or light grey, your contrast level is low, that is, ‘light’, since your hair blends perfectly with the rest of your features.
From here, you can now identify your exact color season, which will help you choose the best colors for your capsule wardrobe. Here’s a simple set of rules to track it down based on undertones and contrast levels:
- If your undertone is cool and contrast level is deep, you are a Winter
- If your undertone is cool and contrast level is light, you are a Summer
- If your undertone is warm and contrast level is deep, you are an Autumn
- If your undertone is warm and contrast level is light, you are a Spring
Color Season #1: Winter
Cool and deep, Winters look great with colors like taupe, icy pink, navy, magenta, raspberry, icy yellow, turquoise, icy blue, and teal. This color season is characterized by bright, vibrant colors that stand out.
Winter’s Hair
Winter’s hair feature deep contrasting tones like brown black, jet black, and blue-black. It also can encompass medium to dark brown hair with ash highlights, silver, white, and salt-and-pepper.
PRO Tip: Keep in mind that you can’t be naturally blonde as a Winter.
Winter’s Skin
Winter features a wide range of skin tones – from porcelain, white, and beige, to almond, cocoa, and mocha with blue or reddish undertones. Many Africans, Asians, Latinas, Native Americans, and Middle Eastern people can identify with the winter color season, as cool winter shades brighten up their skin and makes them look more put together.
Winter’s Eyes
The color season often features deep, dark eye colors, including black, blackish brown, red brown, as well as blue and green tones.
Color Season #2: Summer
This color season features colors like light navy, deep rose, soft fuchsia, watermelon, mint, light lemon yellow, lavender, as well as powder baby blue.
Summer’s Hair
A person identifying with the summer family in color analysis will have grey, brown, or blonde hair – with light, low-contrast hues, or ash highlights. This means having no golden tones in their hair color with a more dusty, muted look.
Summer’s Skin
The primary undertones of Summers tend to be reddish, including pink and rose. However, they also range from the lightest porcelain to pale, which includes blue-ish undertones. Besides, they often have rosy cheeks and sometimes, cool beige skin.
Summer’s Eyes
Having brown eyes is a big no-no when identifying with this color season – all Summers have blue, grey, or blue-ish eyes (or sometimes, cool hazel with blue hues).
Color Season #3: Autumn
The Autumn color season complements colors like ivory, bronze, coral, gold, turquoise, golden brown, mahogany, coffee brown, tomato red, salmon, lime, and mustard.
Autumn’s Hair
With golden brown, burnt orange, and desert-like colors, this color season features hair colors like copper red, bright auburn, and chestnut brown, which leave red and golden casts.
Autumn’s Skin
All golden undertones belong to this color season, which tend to appear more orange, rather than blue, purple, red, or green. This includes skin tones like caramel, beige, copper, bronze, maple, latte, and golden brown, which are more common among Native Americans, Africans, Latinas, Middle Eastern, and Middle Easterners.
Autumn’s Eyes
Autumn eye color ranges from golden brown to amber, featuring not only brown and golden but also greenish hues. In terms of the iris of the eye, Autumn’s eyes feature golden, brown, and hazel flecks. However, rarely, it’s possible for an Autumn to have bright aqua or turquoise eyes, which occurs among redheads.
Color Season #4: Spring
The ideal color palette for the Spring color season includes muted yet warm colors, such as mango, light orange, buttermilk, salmon, pastel green, clear red, bronze, coffee brown, and gold.
Spring’s Hair
Picture Spring’s hair as luscious, warm, and rare – whether it’s strawberry blonde, caramel, champagne, or copper, Spring’s hair colors feature peachy and golden hues.
Spring’s Skin
When it comes to skin color, the Spring color season carries a warm or even golden undertone.
The most obvious indicator of the color season are light, golden freckles. Be it ruddy skin or light blonde pigmentation, Springs’ complexion tends to be light, soft, and delicate.
Spring’s Eyes
Springs feature a wide array of eye colors – namely, blue hues like green or aqua, as well as golden ones like warm hazel, golden brown, green gold, topaz, warm amber, or even caramel eyes. However, you can’t be a Spring if you have dark brown eyes.
Step 5. Find Your Personal Contrast Level
Besides undertones, we all have our innate contrast levels, which correspond to the difference between the depths of our eyes, lips, hair, and other features.
Some individuals exude a homogenous look, with all the features blending into the rest of the face in a harmonious manner. Some, however, possess distinct features, flaunting a striking contrast between the depths of their hair color, eye hues, or the entire complexion. Such individuals, such as Eva Greene, who possess contrasting pale skin and dark hair, best in high-contrast, bold looks.
That is, low contrast faces with blonde hair, light skin, and muted eyes look more put together with muted, low-contrast outfits. This way, the vibrance or depth of clothing won’t overpower their innate muted hues.
It’s worthwhile to prioritize contrast levels when choosing your capsule wardrobe color palette – especially if you belong to the low-contrast club. When building the wardrobe of your lifetime, the last thing you want is getting washed out by your clothing.
Assessing Your Personal Contrast Level
To evaluate your personal contrast level, take pictures of yourself both in color and greyscale. Put them side to side and observe the depth and intensity among your strongest features, especially hair, eyes, and skin.
If you notice a lot of depth in your overall look, you most likely have a high contrast. Yet, if you notice that your greyscale picture looks a bit bland, indicating a certain uniformity of depth, you have a low-contrast look.
How to Dress if You’re Low-Contrast vs High-Contrast
If you’re low-contrast, anything bold or vibrant can overpower your look. This is why it’s crucial to curate a capsule wardrobe for blondes carefully, as bright colors, contrasting patterns, and too much depth can throw off your pale or muted look entirely. As a pale blonde with platinum hair, for example, bright colors, such as magenta or cobalt blue, could overpower you. Yet, you would benefit from pastel shades or monochromatic designs, which would match with the subtlety of your low-contrast features.
If you’re high-contrast, the opposite applies. Deep, rich, and vividly saturated shades tend to harmonize with your natural features and highlight your coloring. Strong blacks, crisp whites, jewel tones, and clearly defined patterns usually work well because they echo the bold differences between your hair, skin, and eyes.
PRO Tip: Pay extra attention to the colors around your face, as they can draw attention towards or away from it. A bold, colorful garment won’t clash with a low-contrast person’s face, if and only if if features deep cleavage or an off-shoulder design (that is, if it exposes the skin around the face), and vice-versa.
Step 6. Choose Complementary Colors
According to the color theory, opposite hues on the color wheel provide a striking yet pleasant contrast. Color combinations like red and green, orange and blue, as well as yellow and violet, may craft beautiful outfits for your capsule wardrobe. After all, opposites attract, and this also applies to fashion.
Teal, for instance, sits between blue and green, which is why it can look either vibrant or subdued depending on the wearer. Its complementary opposite is a warm red-orange, giving teal the ability to stand out against warmer tones while blending softly with cooler ones. Once you find the right shade of teal for your color season, you can style it with its complementary warm red-orange tones for a bold, high-contrast look, or pair it with cooler neighboring hues for a softer, more balanced effect.
Why Complementary Colors Look Good Together
Complementary colors activate the retinal cones in our eyes, which are in charge of perceiving colors in the environment. They stimulate the cones in contrasting ways simultaneously, which produces a captivating, visually striking effect.
When incorporated in outfits, equal amounts of complementary colors can cancel out each other’s saturation. Neutralizing each other, they produce a relaxing effect. For this reason, artists and stylists use complementary colors to add depth and aesthetic intrigue to their craft.
Picture this: to add depth with navy, you can observe how it interacts with its complementary warm tones. As such, navy’s ideal color season falls on the cooler side, but when you combine it with burnt orange, terracotta, or golden hues, the shade appears warmer and the contrast becomes more dynamic. This is because navy’s opposite shades on the color wheel are warm, creating an interesting contrast in temperature.
How to Identify Complementary Colors?
To identify complementary colors on the color wheel, simply look at colors that stand opposite of each other. The combinations of red and green, orange and blue, yellow and violet, as well as yellow-orange and blue-violet, are considered complementary colors that always go well together.
To ensure a unified and aesthetically pleasing outcome, invest the effort in locating the color combinations, experimenting with seemingly clashing hues, and exploring relationships between contrasting tinctures.
Do complementary colors work for all capsule wardrobes?
Choosing complementary colors for your outfits shouldn’t be taken as a strict rule. Since they craft a high-contrast look, these contrasting tones may not even work for low-contrast people with neutral hair, skin, and eye colors. In fact, complementary colors may overpower and ultimately, dim their features.
So, before centering your outfits around complementary colors, make sure identify your personal contrast level.
Balancing Neutrals and Accent Colors
As a final point, when curating a capsule wardrobe color palette, the balance between neutrals and accent colors plays a key role in how cohesive your outfits feel.
Low-contrast individuals often look best when neutrals form the base of their wardrobe, with accents added sparingly to maintain visual harmony. High-contrast individuals, on the other hand, can incorporate more saturated accent colors without disrupting balance, since their natural coloring already supports stronger visual contrast.
A structured approach can help you plan these ratios more intentionally. A simple tool like a printable capsule wardrobe checklist can guide you in choosing the right number of essentials, base layers, neutrals, and accent pieces for your lifestyle and palette.
Frequently Asked Questions
There’s no fixed number of colors to include in a capsule wardrobe, as it all depends on your existing clothing options. To create a clothing collection that’s both cohesive and eco-friendly, it’s crucial that you identify overarching color themes and experiment within them. So, make sure to leave rigid capsule wardrobe blueprints behind and work around what you already have in your closet.
If you’re cool-toned, you can center your wardrobe around blue, grey, or silver hues like mint, navy, or porcelain, while if you’re warm-toned, it’s wise to incorporate reddish, yellow, or golden hues like copper, beige, or burgundy. Overall, the primary colors of your capsule wardrobe should depend on what you wear the most often and what complements your color season the best.
Your color season won’t alter with external changes like dying your hair or getting a tan. However, it’s possible for your ideal palette to shift toward low-contrast color seasons, as our innate colors begin to get washed out with age. Around 40 years of age, our pigmentation (particularly, melanin-producing cells) starts to fade away, which lowers our contrast levels as a result.
Consider your personal style and the colors that you wear the most often first. Gold jewelry can warm up and lend richness to an outfit, while silver jewelry can give it a cooler, more subtle appearance. Silver may be the best choice if you want something that goes with neutral or cooler undertones, while gold grant those with warmer color palettes a touch of sultry elegance.
If you’re someone with low contrast features, consider wearing garments that feature the same saturation or intensity together. This way, they will blend in with your soft look in perfect harmony. If you’re someone with high contrast features, on the other hand, play around with striking contrasts and the boldest color combinations.
