Lip Draping 

Is 'lip draping' an effective tool to help find your season?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Here is why lip draping is pointless.  

A few years ago, back before I set up better professional boundaries for myself, I had a person want my opinion on your color analysis.  Back then I used to give a lot of free analyses, because I wanted to help people and to also make a name for myself.

It turns out that there are many people who contact multiple analysts asking for their opinions. Repeatedly.

And not only do many of them not value your opinion, sometimes they come back and tell you how wrong you were and “why couldn’t you have figured me out” because so-and-so got me right. (Sigh).

Anyway, back to lip draping. I had never heard of the term until this person wanting my opinion sent me dozens of pictures of her with nothing on except a white towel, hair slicked back, no makeup and different lip colors on. She said she was lip draping herself and it’s a thing now.

Essentially, they were similar to this photo below:

However, she sent me about 25 different photos with 25 different lipstick colors but all were in the same light, position, hair slicked back, etc.

I asked her if she had pics of her with her long hair down. She said no, because she read that hair color made no difference in color analysis.

It does, by the way. This is wrong and one of those persistent ‘myths’ I wish would go away.

In the end I told her she was a Deep Autumn. This was only discernable due to me looking at her natural hair color at the hairline and the long ponytail which was a naturally deep auburn. Her eyes were warm red-brown and her skin was  undeniably warm. Actually, today in my ColorBreeze Complete system, she’d be a Toasted Soft Autumn.

The lip drapings offered little-to-no help in determining her season, and there are a couple of reasons why.

First, lips take up little real estate on the face. Her lips were exceptionally thin to begin with. 

Color under her face - fabric or cardboard, turtleneck or scarf, or even a towel – would have helped more to see how or if it harmonized with her coloring. It allows for forming an overall look to determine if one of the test colors is better (or less bad) than the other. 

An overall look must include eyes, skin, and hair. 

But most importantly, with regards to the 'lip draping' theory, I think this has to do with the different rules or expectations for makeup I talk about in my ebooks. 

For example, you can be a Warm Autumn but the burnt orange that lights you up in dress or blouse may seem odd and stand out when worn as lipstick. I know that it does on me. 

The same goes for the bright magenta a Clear Winter can wear in a dress. It is a fabulous color in a dress or scarf, but it will probably look too circa 1980’s in lipstick. That’s fine if that is the look you want to project, but for most Clear Winters, they want something a little less bright or more natural looking. 

Unless you are going to a big event where red lipstick is to be expected, usually when we look at lips we expect it to be somewhat natural (and I do realize there are wide variations of what constitutes ‘natural’ and personal preferences will override norms).  

Bottom line, lip draping is not an effective way to find your season.

That woman who wanted my opinion? She wasn’t happy. She insisted she was a winter because her coloring was so deep. Yes, it was deep. But it was also undeniably warm, too. But she found someone to tell her she was a Winter. So she wanted to let me know how wrong I was. (sigh)