By understanding and working with a customer’s colouring type, face shape and style personality, a practitioner can offer a service tailored to meet the needs of every individual. Cliff Bashforth explains how to identify customers' different colouring types - based on skin tone, eye and hair colour and contrasts between these - demonstrating which frame colours work best, with examples from celebrities.
1. Work out your customer’s dominant colouring
There are six dominant colouring types;
- Light has delicate colouring, naturally blonde hair and light eyes. Celebrities like Reece Witherspoon or Owen Wilson
- Deep has dark hair, dark eyes, any skin tone. For example, Michelle Obama or Keanu Reeves
- Warm their hair and skin tones will have a golden appearance. Eyes can be green, blue and all different shades of brown. Stacey Dooley or Ed Sheeran, for example
- Cool will have ash and grey hair tones, any colour eyes and either a pink or yellow skin undertone. Good examples are Jamie Lee Curtis and George Clooney
- Clear customers will have bright eyes with lots of contrast between hair, skin and eyes, such as Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Benedict Cumberbatch
- Soft clients will have blonde to medium brown hair, any eye colour (which will be muted). Very little contrast between hair, eye and skin. Kylie Minogue or Michael Bublé, for example.
2. Introduce colour
This is the fun part and it really is amazing how transformative wearing the right colours can be. Your starting point is to have an idea of your customer’s dominant colouring characteristic and then work with it. The frames should either complement or contrast. Someone with light colouring will look best in frame colours that are transparent through to mid-tone neutral and shades. They should avoid dark frames, as it will look as though their glasses are wearing them. Someone with clear colouring will look best in frames that are dark through to black, and bright, vivid shades. Pale, dusty or muted colours are best avoided as these will wash them out.
4. Find the best shape
Your glasses should complement your face shape. Customers with an oval face shape will suit most styles but should avoid heavy-framed masculine styles. Square face shapes need glasses that soften the lines of their face so oval or rounded styles work well. People with more of a rectangular face will look best in frames that have thicker arms that will help to break up the length of their face giving the illusion of shortening it. If your customer has a rounded face shape, then square or rectangular frames are ideal. Finally, if your customer face shape is inverted triangle-heart-shaped then oval or rounded shaped glasses will suit them best.
5. Make sure they fit
When helping your customer to choose their new frames you need to take into account their dominant colouring type and their style personality as well as considering their face shape and proportions. Check where the spectacles sit on their nose: if they have a long nose, the bridge of the spectacles should be deeper and/or sit lower down to make their nose seem shorter; if they have a short nose, the bridge should be narrower, transparent or sit higher. Their eyes should be in the centre of the lenses. You might even like to suggest that they have different styles for different occasions, such as a work pair and a going out pair.
7. Elevate conservative choices
In these circumstances, look for frames that are similar to their existing ones but with a little twist. For example, frames that have a pop of colour on the inside of the arms, or if they like metal frames then show them one with detailing on the hinge, and if they normally go for tortoiseshell frames do you have any that are coloured, rather than just brown?
- Cliff Bashforth is managing director of Colour Me Beautiful style consultants.
