How to distinguish between shades of the same colour 1

The importance of the right colour and the right shade

Any colour and shade decision you make will affect how you look dramatically
Even if you are wearing the right colour, it has to be the right shade: think "Are you feeling OK?" versus "You look so well in that colour", that I'm sure you've heard before. The right colours and shades will make your eye colour pop, and your skin glow.
The basic principle: amount of yellow versus amount of blue
Trying to distinguish between different shades of a colour is very important. It may be difficult at the beginning, but once you take into account this basic principle, ie. the amount of yellow versus the amount of blue inside a colour, trying to see the differences between shades of a colour in those terms, it gets easier and easier.

1. The greater the amount of blue inside a colour, the cooler it is. For a description of the people who look best in cool shades, visit the Summer palettes or Winter palettes.
2. The greater the amount of yellow inside a colour, the warmer it is. For a description of the people who look best in warm shades looks like, visit the Spring or Autumn palettes.

The colour wheel

An artist's colour wheel or pigment color wheel includes blue, red, and yellow as PRIMARY COLOURS. The corresponding SECONDARY COLOURS are green, orange, and violet. The TERTIARY COLOURS are the mixture of the first two: red+orange, red+violet, yellow+orange, yellow+green, blue+violet, and blue+green [Source: Colour Wheel, Wikipedia].

Moving inside the colour wheel: true colours, dark colours, light colours.

 

These are the most common, popular names for the mixtures between primary colours (blue, red and yellow), and secondary colours (orange, green, and violet). Tertiaries are situated between primaries and secondaries. On the outer part, you have first the result of the colour adding white (e.g. pink, from red), or adding black (e.g. maroon, from red).

True or medium colours have the same amount of yellow and blue inside. When you move towards the closest primary colour, you no longer have that true or medium shade. For instance
True red

• When you move from true red towards yellow in the wheel, you no longer have true red, but something in the way to orange, like tomato red. If you keep on adding yellow, you arrive to orange.
• When you move from true red towards blue, the same thing happens: you no longer have true red but scarlet, crimson... in the way to magenta/violet. If you keep on adding blue, you arrive to green.

The same thing happens with the other primary colours. In the case of true or medium blue, when you move from true blue towards yellow, you obtain cyan/aqua, and eventually green.When you move from true blue towards red, you obtain purple, and eventually magenta/violet.

The amount of black and white inside a colour gives you the intensity of the colour, i.e. how dark or light it is (green plus white gives mint, green plus black gives olive), but it doesn't affect how cool or warm it is.

The border line between shades is difficult to see sometimes and has to be discerned on a one by one basis: when does blue become teal (blue plus different amounts of yellow)? and when does teal becomes plain green (equal amounts of blue and yellow)? No two human beings see colours in exactly the same way. I was forever having the same heated discussion with my sister about turquoise (she sees it greenish, I see it blueish), until we read about it, and now are very civilized about the whole thing.

MORE?
To learn more about colours, follow the label Colour savvy below or in the column on the right.