Remember how some women in the 1980s were such believers in color analysis, they couldn't go shopping for stockings without color swatches in hand? And color consultants charged considerable money to tell you not to wear fuchsia?
Color analysis was a big business. And it was, frankly, sometimes abused.But it did define the impact of color. "Color Me Beautiful" was probably the more valid, best-known and most widely copied concept. Even today, someone will eye you and say, "You're an Autumn, aren't you?"
Now the system has been revamped. A recent book, "Color Me Beautiful Looking Your Best: Color, Makeup and Style" by Christine Sherlock and Mary Spillane (Madison Books) has sold up to 50,000 books since last fall.
Consultants now market the company's cosmetics line and provide free color analysis. And the original "four season" categories based on your natural coloring have been broken down to more specific groups such as, say, cool summer, light spring.
Sherlock, who has been with the system since 1985, was in Kansas City recently on a promotion tour. She says the idea is appealing to women who adapted the concept in the 1980s. "Our color palettes change as we age," she says. And to a new range of clients who were too young in the '80s.
The new book also has sections on personal style, body enhancement and the power of specific color families. Don't wear yellow, for instance, when negotiating a divorce settlement; it has a "frivolous connotation."
The concept has been remarkably successful in Europe, especially in England, where Spillane lives. There are 1,500 to 2,000 consultants there, compared with 300 in the United States.