Invitation to Houston VIP color event: Color My Closet, Macy's & Estee Lauder

Houston ladies,

Color My Closet is collaborating with Macy's & Estee Lauder on a VIP color event just for you. There are only 15 slots available, so please RSVP right away!

Dates: Friday, March 5 & Saturday, March 6

Location: Macy's Galleria at Sage, 2727 Sage Road, Houston TX 77056

RSVP required: 713-968-1914

Your VIP treatment includes:

*Mini color analysis by me to determine your undertone: cool, neutral or warm

*Expert match on foundation & concealer

*Selection of custom color palette & makeover

*Hair coloring & jewelry tips

There is a $50 minimum purchase for this appointment, and your free gift is included.



The 7-Piece Gift is INCLUDED with your Estēe Lauder purchase.

Gift includes: Choose your Color: Warm or cool shades of Pure Color Lipstick and an Eyeshadow Quad. Choose your Skincare: 7-Day supply of Soft Clean Cleanser and Time Zone Line and Wrinkle Reducing Crème SPF 15 or Perfectly Clean Cleanser and NEW Hydrationist Maximum Moisture Crème. Plus each Gift includes a Sumptuous Mascara in black and a chic lizard-pattern cosmetics bag and coin purse.

More FREE Gifts!

Spend $55.00 or more and get 4 professional makeup brushes in a sleek travel case!

And as a special BONUS receive a free 10-day supply of foundation that’s right for you.

Please join me for this fun & informative event!

Live in color,
Lauren

myPANTONE

myPANTONE

Posted using ShareThis

I cannot color analyze you at first sight...and here's why!

To continue our introduction from yesterday, we are discussing why I--the professionally trained color analyst--cannot simply look at a woman to determine her tone/season/color category.

Here are the top 5 reasons why this can't happen at first sight:

1) You color treat your hair. About 90% of you gals out there color treat your hair in some way. This means that you are altering the look of your skin just by shifting your natural hair color around. An accurate analysis requires that we cover your hair up with a neutral grey cap, so that the hair color doesn't interfere with the process.

2) You are wearing makeup when you ask me this question. Makeup is designed to mask imperfections and smooth out skin tone. We need to see the face without makeup in order to measure the different optical effects that various colors have on the skin.

3) The colors that you are wearing now alter the look of your skin completely, rendering it impossible to conclude anything definite regarding your color category. We do color analysis by asking you to first put on a neutral grey drape, or gown, to keep the focus purely on your face...and what various colored drapes do to the look of your skin.

4) We're sitting across from each other in a poorly lit room. The ONLY way to accurately analyze a person is in daylight, or full spectrum lighting (there are special lightbulbs for this purpose). This enables us to see the full variance of colors and better see their effects against the skin.

5) You use a self-tanner and thus alter the look of your own skin. Artificial self-tanners can render an analysis inaccurate, because they do not produce a natural, sun produced tan. We ask that you cease using self-tanners for at least one week prior to the color consultation.

I hope that this helps, and that folks don't get offended when I explain that I cannot color analyze them on the spot.

Live in color!

Lauren

The 1 question people ask me the most......

Hello, colorful folks out there!!

Tomorrow I will cover a topic that I'd like to introduce you to right here. The # 1 most frequently asked question I receive is "What am I?", as in, "What season am I?".



It's an innocent question that seems reasonable to ask. Tomorrow we will uncover why any professional color analyst cannot answer this question on the spot.

I will be offering my top 5 responses to that question, explaining a bit more about the science of color along the way.

Live in color!
Lauren

Skin color VS Skin undertone

So many people out there are confused as to how to classify their skin tone. What do we even mean by skin tone...and what do we mean by undertone?

To clarify, let's first distinguish between the two. Skin tone, or overtone, refers to the actual color of your skin. There are hundreds of variations on skin tone.

Undertone refers to whether you can wear cool, warm, or neutral colors. It has to do with how your skin reacts to certain colors, when those colors are placed next to the skin.

Colors that blend with your undertone bring out the best in your skin tone (color). In other words, your skin will look more polished, smooth, and rejuvenated in these colors. Color in the wrong undertone will visually accentuate any imperfections and/or create uneven skin tone.

When determining your color palette, it is essential to understand that it has everything to do with analyzing your undertone. I have personally seen women with ivory, rose beige, olive, bronze and ebony skin tones fall into the same cool undertone category. Yes, their skin tone/color varies tremendously, but they share the same undertone.

Please understand that color analysis has advanced so much that we are not only able to determine coolness, neutrality and warmth of undertone. We are also able to detect how neutral a person is.

The system I use, Sci\ART, contains 2 cool tones, 2 warm tones, and 8 neutral tones. The question then becomes: If I'm neutral, then what kind of neutral am I?

There are varying degrees of neutrality. You may be neutral but leaning more to the cool (blue) undertone, or leaning more to the warm (yellow) undertone. You may require lighter rather than darker colors, or softer rather than brighter colors.

The point is that there is a key difference between undertone and skin tone, and that lots of folks fall somewhere in between cool and warm undertones.

Please feel free to respond with any questions. I always enjoy feedback and interacting with readers here.

Live in color!
Lauren

Color from a dude's perspective: Intern Allen

So as a dude I had to find out why color was important, and I started where any normal male would. I dumped my Crayolas out on the table as if they were chicken bones, hoping that the answers to the universe would appear. After all, these colors had dominated my childhood, and my childhood was pretty darn fun! There had to be a correlation, and obviously--just like chicken bones--the only thing that appeared was Crayons, not answers.

It turns out that my search for color insights required more research and data (I know, big surprise!). I looked to music and more specifically to one of my all-time favorite songs: Devil with a Blue Dress. This only fueled my curiosity. I mean, why did the devil wear blue, why not purple, yellow or gold? I had to do more research…

According to the experts at wikipedia, color is an important part of human expression. If that is the case, then the 1980s were full of people expressing themselves, though I'm just not sure what they were trying to say. I read further and found that the color of bed sheets could elevate mood. This piece of information could prove useful at a later date, so I’m keeping that in my back pocket. But I still had more questions than answers…

I looked further on the Internet and found that there was color theory. Whoa! Really? Now I know that gravity is a theory, as I had seen it in play at an early age--it kept me from my dreams of flying and being Superman. Heck, gravity still keeps me from my dreams of flying and being Superman. But color theory? Maybe that didn’t explain why I couldn’t fly, but it might explain why Superman wore BLUE tights with a RED cape.

I read more, and just like music, words, or even the ingredients of your favorite dish, colors can be used to make harmony or to make racket and noise. Used properly, color can be brought together to do a multitude of things, to lift your mood and energy, to make you slimmer, to make you look younger. Color is a tool. Maybe Crayola crayons had it right: when color is used properly, you can make beauty.

I thought to myself and wanted to apologize to every art teacher I ever had, for my coloring outside of the lines and scribbling until the crayons were dust. I never learned HOW to use color. Now I know why I got the grades I got in Art!

I should have embraced color, then maybe my Valentine cards would have been better received. Maybe all those junior high dances, if I had dressed in better colors, I wouldn’t have had to hold up the wall, but instead would have been showcasing my dance moves--moves that up to that point had only been shared with my bathroom mirror. On my journey to understanding why color is important, maybe I had missed the key to my own personal style. I needed help.

Color My Closet, please help me! I’m a drab caveman who needs some color in my life.

TRYING to live in color,
Intern Allen

Q: Macy's, what have you done for me lately? A: A LOT..check it out!

Many of you know that I have a nice working relationship with Macy's, be it shooting TV spots or hosting events in their stores. Truth is, I pursued Macy's a few years back. They surely didn't pursue me...Macy's is busy, folks.

Why did I want to work with Macy's to begin with? It's simple: I had a good shopping experience there once I discovered a couple of my favorite brands: INC and Alfani. I learned how to break down the intimidating department store experience into more of a boutique experience..and in turn wanted to partner with Macy's for my business, Color My Closet.

2009 was a good year for Color My Closet and Macy's. We partnered on more projects and discussed further collaborations in 2010. I'm excited about this year!

What about you, the consumer? Why should YOU choose to do business with Macy's? As responsible consumers and business owners, lots of us like to do what I call "eco-ethical" business.

We look to buy products and services from vendors who are ecologically and/or ethically compatible with us and our values. They put their money where their mouth is, so to speak.

Well, here is our list of 10 ways that Macy's put their money where their mouth was in 2009 to make HUGE social impact. Thank you, Milinda Martin, Macy's VP of Media Relations and Cause Marketing, for pointing me in the right direction here!

1. $1 million donated to Make A Wish chapters through our holiday Believe
campaign.

2. $750,000 donated to Feeding America for those using food banks,
through our Come Together campaign -- this equates to 10 million meals.

3. More than $6.5 million donated to Reading is Fundamental for
multicultural libraries and reading programs in Title 1 schools.

4. More than $6 million donated to the American Heart Assn for the Go Red
campaign, educating women on heart health, including their Por Tu Corazon
program for Latinas.

5. $1 million donated to the National Parks Foundation to protect our
natural treasures.

6. More than $16 million donated through the Macy's Foundation to
non-profits throughout the country -- these are smaller regional
charities.

7. More than $1 million donated to various HIV and AIDS organizations.

8. More than $1 million donated to Boys & Girls Clubs through our Thanks
for Sharing program.

9. More than $500,000 raised for local charities through our national
Shop For A Cause program.

10. More than $250,000 donated to the Family Violence Prevention Fund to
raise awareness of domestic violence.

This only scratches the surface of what Macy's has done for the community....my research uncovered dozens of other initiatives from 2009. These are only the highlights!

Live in color!
Lauren

Patricia Zohn on Walt Disney Animators (March 2010) Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com

Patricia Zohn on Walt Disney Animators (March 2010) Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com

I so enjoyed reading this article in my March 2010 Vanity Fair magazine, which came in the mail yesterday.

It chronicles the lives of several young women who were responsible for painting the beautiful colors into thousands of "cels", or sheets for filmmaking.

They worked relentlessly and put in at least 16-20 hour days for months at a time just to get the right colors of paint on characters like Mickey Mouse and Snow White.

Speaking of Snow White, they were able to make her otherwise dull black hair come alive with some highlights, and her cheeks were made rosy with a beautiful pink paint flush.

So much of what these ladies did is now digitized, but their artistic talent and precision deserve special accolades and were indeed prized by Walt Disney himself.

In fact, these full color animated pictures could not have been made possible without these colorful gals!

Live in color,
Lauren

Black and gold---Who Dat Nation!

Color My Closet owner and president Lauren Battistini was born and raised in New Orleans, so it is understandable that her latest YouTube video would be dedicated to a mini-analysis of the Saints' team colors: Black and Gold.

See the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRO3hXlYRCk

Behind the scenes on our latest TV shoot

We've been enjoying a nice relationship with the good folks at ABC Live Well HD network's show Mirror/Mirror. This means that we pitch a lot of ideas to them, they ask us to present topics of their choice, etc.

Yesterday I was on location at Macy's Galleria on Sage to tape our 2 latest segments. Now, I cannot spill the beans on the details of the segments, as they have yet to air.



Let me say that each segment covers the topic of certain colors and how to wear them. We had the privilege of working with 5 fantastic models yesterday.

Karen is both stay-at-home mom and part-time business owner. Her industry is scrapbooking!

Amy is also a stay-at-home mom with a quick wit that tells me she may in fact be a member of the elite MENSA group (we'd have to ask her to verify :)...she was a kick to work with)

Vanessa is a student in Houston, Texas, and she is studying Fashion Merchandising if I recall correctly...

Jennifer works as an Assistant Manager of an upscale apartment high-rise in Houston. As our lone redhead on set, Jennifer made her modeling debut and now there's no turning back.

Shandolyn is a buddy of mine who has worked in various aspects of fashion, marketing and event promotions. She was rockin' out all of the looks we put on her.

Big thanks also to Andrea Bonner, stylist/owner of Style On Demand, for helping me behind the scenes.

And last---but never least---are my friends at Macy's. Not only did they provide all of the merchandise as well as locale, but they also provided beautiful gift bags and Macy's Money for my models. Thank you, MACY'S....we love you!

Live in color,
Lauren

New intern Allen to begin blogging "Color from a Dude's Perspective"

Hey everyone of Color My Closet!

I’d like to introduce myself. I’m the new intern, Allen Salinas. Just to give you a little background on myself, I’m a 29 year old single male. I am a swim coach on a nationally recognized swim team in the Northwest Houston Area.

You may be asking yourself: Why would a young, very attractive hetero male like me get involved with Color My Closet? The answer is quite simple: the women of course! No, I’m just kidding, well only half kidding :).

Now, my knowledge of fashion and most specifically color is limited (I wear a red Speedo for goodness sake), but I am always eager to learn skills that may enhance my own worth to the opposite sex. Though I’m dashingly handsome, I hope to learn to use color to further enhance my image, as well as the image of that very necessary accessory on my arm—a girlfriend.

In my search for love, I hope to find a woman who is up with fashion, color, and style. If I for my part can help her out with these things, then I think she’d find me to be more than just a great face with a rockin’ bod.

So join me on my exploration of color and I’ll give you a dude’s perspective that can ultimately help all of us—male and female—on our individual style journeys.