Color is not just for kids!

Color = happy!

Think back to when you were a little and how you used color. What was your favorite color? Did you use only certain color crayons, markers, or pencils? What flowers did you gravitate to? What was your favorite room in the house and why? What was your favorite toy color?

Fun fact: Everyone can wear every color! Yup, it's 100% true, the key is to find your best hues within each hue segment. Once you discover your best colors, it's pure magic!

The magic color offers is pure power, lifting our spirits and freshening our skin, giving us sparkle in the eye, erasing width from our bodies. Color also protects us from eating moldy foods (fuzzy foods I like to call them) and alerts us of venomous creatures or poisonous plants. It's fascinating how much we use color every day without thought. We take for granted what a powerful resource it is and how certain colors can help us. Green can help lower blood pressure and helps us learn and think, red is a good color for a first or romantic date, blue instills trust, yellow is eye-catching and helps us remember information, use yellow for legal pads and post-it notes, orange gives us energy, turquoise relaxes.

My enthusiasm for color is probably no surprise as an enneagram seven. I love possibilities and options and that is why I am such a fan and love my job so much. The possibilities are endless and the complexity of color is delightful. The seven-point is in the thinking triad and I enjoy the mysterious nature of color and its three-dimensional aspect. My brain enjoys working out the puzzle aspect of creating custom colors for clients and working out color combinations in a way that accentuates each person. I may suck at crossword puzzles but I can work a super cool color scheme that speaks to a person.

I have always loved the use of color but it was not until later in life when I truly understood the power that it offers. When I created ebhues™ I researched the great artists and saw (no surprise) that these trendsetters intuitively used color and its psychology before it was a thing. Instinctively they knew how to use color to create mood, enhance, detract, and use relative color to create feeling or depth (colors within the same hue segment that are either warmer or cooler than the one next to it). For me the study of art color selection is so interesting I can get lost in a piece of art for that reason alone. The brilliance of artists' use of color is fascinating especially when the color choices were innate in their usage of each hue. This is why I love looking at children's art.

Color has meaning and is used in color psychology. Visually in art and fashion color can be used optically and can perform as needed when used together creating optical illusions, changing the way the color is perceived, bringing forward, or receding, and creating vibrancy or dullness. Color works this way on the body as well. Your best hues enhance and freshen you while violation hues diminish, add width, and dampen you. Having the ability to lift the spirit or dampen is very powerful, it’s a superpower that we all can attain.

Whether you wear these colors in makeup or wardrobe, in your home for walls or accents, office, exteriors, or garden the power of color is easily available, and once you do it’s mind-blowing. Paint your office in a color that helps expand the mind instead of tiring you, your bedroom in a color that either relaxes you or creates romance, your bathroom in a color that calms and balances, you get the idea. Using the power of color is fun.

I remember when my daughter Blake was in middle school. She had a favorite red poncho that she never took off. I would have to wash it for her while she slept as she never took it off. It became a loving teasing opportunity between her and her friends. Looking back to that poncho and her love of red which today still exists. You can see why she latched onto that poncho. It is truly her power color and one descriptor of the color red, power. Others would include passion, lust, desire. Her signature color is red, her signature lip is red, she now enjoys mixing reds and pinks.

Yes, she is extra lol, below on her wedding day. She married an amazing man who supports her extraness and is even a little extra himself. Together they are a wonderful team of extraordinary creativity and talent creating amazing art installations and renovating their home with their unique thumbprint. They both use their knowledge of color in everything they touch.

Here are some tips on how you can use color to lift and freshen. Empty the trash on all “advice” you have read, watched, or been told that color is not for those over a “certain age”. PSHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! My plea for those that need a lift is to embrace color. I writhe inside when my clients come in and tell me they read, saw on youtube, or had been told that because they are “of a certain age” they should not wear color on their faces or body and they should just wear black, gray, or muted colors if any. They toss their once enhancing lip colors aside for a muted color that sucks the life from their face or they dress in funeral wear simply because someone said so, they think they are fat, or because they have simply given up. They no longer apply blusher or wear a dull color that is lackluster or has a pulling effect instead of using a cute blush with a pop. Maybe they do this because they were not wearing their best colors and never really experienced the enhancing effect of wearing proper colors, maybe they continue to wear what they did 10, 20, 30 years ago and it worked then, whatever the reasoning is behind this action I just die inside for them because I hate to see anyone deny themselves the power of color and neglect themselves from the power that it wields.

So here are some tips that you can explore. I hope you get a bounce in your step and a smile on your face.

1. Color is the new black

GASP!, you may say. Before you X out of this blog I have no ill towards this trusted friend, I too had been sucked into the allure of black. It’s easy, is great for messy people like myself an MUA (makeup artist) who works with pigments, and yes I too was sold on the “idea” that is slimming and sexy. You may be super surprised when I tell you that black is NOT always slimming and 10 out of 10 times I can find clients a much sexier option than black. True black can create a shadow on the body that creates width and drags the skin, giving the appearance of age and width, while this is not always the case, there is always a cuter, sexer, more fun option that does slim. TRUTH. As a long-time MUA, I have worn black as my uniform for years and now when wearing all black around my face I feel sad and frumpy. Wearing black does not give me joy, I don’t feel chic, I feel frumpy. I am someone that wears black well, however, when I do I feel it makes me look peaked. Here is a photo/blog featuring a beautiful woman who has professional makeup on in both photos, showing how color makes a difference.

2. Get cheeky! Change up the value of your blusher. Have you been wearing subtle washes on those cheeks? Try something brighter with a fresh appearance. Perhaps your blusher has been deep, again try a pop of color. You can even wear both the pop closer to your eye and the deeper option on the cheekbone. Rosey or berry? Is the color of your cheek red or magenta? You may want to explore the opposite of what you have been doing. Play with options on your arm and see which one makes your skin look fresher before trying them on your cheeks.

1. Lippies - brighten or deepen. Explore lip color. If you put your brighter colors on the back shelf because you read somewhere that you should do so, again PSHHHHHHH!!!! Pull those buddies out and apply, make selfie faces in the mirror. Think of yourself as your best friend, which you should be doing anyway, is it cuter? Is there something off? Perhaps you need an undertone tweak, or a slightly deeper, brighter, or more saturated option. Again, play with color options on the inside of your forearm first, look for those that enhance the skin. Do your lips have a lot of blue in them, are they fair of color, or rosey without color? These are all things to consider. You may want to compare one lip option to another by applying two lip colors side by side applying half the lip with one color and the other half with another.

2. Do where eye color even a soft wash. I recently worked with a client well into her wiser years the only eye color I applied was a wash of red-purple, a color called Subdued. It was adorable and gave her golden skin a lift without even looking like makeup. Because it was a one-and-done slap it on she did not even have to see to apply so no need to struggle without her glasses with the application. There was no wrong way to put on the eye color.

3. Mascara is a must! If you tend to look best in warm rust-type colors you may want to try a brown-black mascara over black you may be pleasantly surprised. Look for deep brown-blacks to richen those lashes.

4. Brows. If your brows have white hair in them or are thining do enhance with brow color always be mindful of color it is everything.

5. Under eyes. Don’t forget to brighten those peepers by counterbalancing red, blue, or brown under eyes.

Shameless plug into my color tools if you want to explore my website. I have spent the last 24 years of my life dedicated to finding your best colors, I’d be honored to help you reveal your best self.

Do a DIY cheek drape

1. Elea blake cosmetics has a lip drape which you can do with several friends and have a blast. See how to do it.

Let me find your colors in person.

Find your own colors