Image Matters July 2008
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Welcome,
“Clothing is the outward expression of the inner person. It’s important to dress in a way that sends the right message but also looks effortless and natural. Wearing clothing that is inappropriate to your inner character is the biggest mistake a man or woman can make in terms of fashion.” Giorgio Armani
We all have to get dressed as not only are we not living in a nudist society, but most of the time the weather (certainly in my part of the world) isn’t conducive to getting round in my birthday suit. Given that I then have to buy clothes, and I make the choices about what I wear each day, it’s a great way to express your personality as well as staying either warm or stop you from getting sunburn.
We all feel happiest and most confident when our appearance reflects the inner person, and when I trained to become an image consultant, discovering how to match personality traits with clothing styles was one of the most interesting and enlightening elements that really helped me understand why the clothes that my friends looked great in, just didn’t work for me, as our personalities were markedly different.
Expressing your personality through your clothes is a creative outlet and makes dressing more enjoyable. Discovering your style is part of each Your Body Your Style consultation I do with my clients. It’s fun and affirming.
This month’s newsletter we look at Hair Colouring – making sure that your hair colour suits your complexion, plus some tips for positive Body Language. Love your body and look after it well.
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Is Your Hair Colour Working for You or Against You?The right hair colour will brighten your face, even out your skintone, and make you look all together more beautiful (if that’s even possible). The wrong hair colour will bleach you, create a harsh impression, and even make you look older and blotchy. Which would you prefer?
Given that around 70% of women dye their hair, this is expensive and requires upkeep, I would rather you spend your hair-dye money wisely, so I’m including some tips to help you find a better shade.
Your natural hair colour will always flatter your skin, because your hair colour changes over time, as you skin pigmentations also alter. The hair colour you had when you were 5 or 20 will not be the shade that will suit you at 45 or 50, and even the shade you naturally had at 40 won’t work when you are 70, as your skin won’t have the same pigments to take the intensity of hair colour you once had.
The first step is to work out your natural colour (that’s your current natural colour), so if you dye, when you get some regrowth check it out with your hairdresser and find the colour that is closest in the hair dye chart to your current natural shade (or come and have a Colour Analysis and we’ll do this as part of the consultation). This gives you your starting point.
For most of us, it’s not flattering as we age to go more than 1-2 shades darker than our natural colour, and generally, 1-2 shades lighter as well. Fair people usually look completely washed out by dark colours, avoid them.
The second step is to test whether a colour will suit you, take the hair sample and hold it up against your forehead in good lighting, and look in a mirror, if it blends with your skin and looks natural, go for it, but if it stands off your skin, avoid it, as this colour will highlight every skin imperfection you may have.
The third step is to consider do you want 1 colour, or highlights? Highlights work best on curly or wavy, short and textured hair. Block colour suits straight hair better. Highlights work on straight hair when they’re not too different from the base colour, otherwise you can tend to look stripy.
Warm people (those who have a yellow undertone to their colouring) have the greatest options with hair dye, but should avoid black, blue black, violets and platinum or ash colours.
Cool people (those who have a blue undertone to their colouring) have fewer options (sorry, but when you bleach/peroxide hair and strip it, it goes orange/brassy), and should avoid copper, gold, red, caramel and strawberry shades.
To stop hair appearing brassy, don’t lighten more than 2 shades from your natural colour, and use a specifically formulated shampoo that stops brassiness appearing (ask your hairdresser for a good one).
If you’ve over highlighted your hair and it’s gone almost white, you may need to darken your hair a few shades with a block colour before adding any highlights.
Got grey hair and love it? If you have no wish to dye away your grey hair, and as it tends to be drier and more wiry, avoid using any styling products with alcohol as they can further dull your colour and dry your hair out even more, use silicone serum or a glossing serum on your hair to add some sheen, and a violet tinged shampoo once a week to stop it yellowing.
Why not book in for a personal Colour Analysis with me and we can work out a selection of shades that will suit your individual complexion.
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How to answer the phone so people remember your nameResearch shows that people remember the last word they hear, so rather than picking up the phone and saying “Imogen speaking” studies show that this will only have 6% of people remember who they are speaking to. Instead, for 86% name recall, say “This is Imogen”.
Of course, unless your name is Imogen, I’d suggest you use your own name rather than mine!
Positive Body LanguageAs 60% - 80% of communication is non-verbal, it’s important to know how to communicate more effectively with your body language. Why not try some of these proven strategies:
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