What is colour theory?

Following on from looking at and discussing skin prep, we looked at colour theory, and how this is used in the makeup industry.

Created by Isaac newton, the colour wheel is used to help explain the theory of colours, and how one set can be used to balance out or compliment another. The colour wheel displays the colour spectrum, a set of 12 colours, that are created using one another. the wheel starts with the three primary colours, red, yellow, and blue. from these three colours can the secondary colours be made- red and yellow making orange, yellow and blue making green, and blue and red making purple. these sit in between the primary colours on the wheel. finally, these colours can be combined with white to create the tertiary colours, which include fuchsia, and aqua.

In regards to makeup, colour theory helps to understand how to colour correct areas on the face, in order to create an even base for further application of makeup. colour theory can be applied to colour correcting in the way that certain colours neutralize others, such as green being able to neutralize redness, and orange, darkness/purple hues.

colour theory is also a good way of helping to build characters when trying to portray certain traits or personality- for example red could represent anger, evilness or badness, and green could represent good, happiness and purity, due to association of hue.

as well as looking at colour theory and its importance, we also discussed how skin shades and undertone are not the same thing, and undertone can be a more important consideration than skin tone. it is relevant to look for what undertone someone's skin has, for example red or yellow, and match that with a red or yellow based foundation shade.