A Journey of our Graduated Course Student

Reflecting on my budding journey as a colour analyst and style consultant takes me back to a memory that I had not revisited in awhile - in primary school, I had chosen to spend my book prize money on a second hand book sale, where I picked up Bobbi Brown’s 1997 instructional manual “Bobbi Brown Beauty”. Bobbi Brown espoused a philosophy that there is no one “perfect” beauty standard, but countless expressions of personalised beauty, which she took pains to showcase in her diversity of models and techniques.

When I take a moment to reflect on what looking one’s best means, I find that is has indeed, been shaped by the myriad of aesthetic sensibilities, experimentation and unique personal expressions of the people I cross paths with in my career as an interdisciplinary practitioner in social services and the arts. These are the people who have shown me the importance of recognising and celebrating every person’s unique beauty.

As a personal colour analyst, I keep in mind that I am looking for what truly helps to complement the features of the person in front of me. While personal colour analysts need to undergo rigorous training to understand, then execute, the logic in the analysis process, I strongly believe that the goal is not to fit people into limiting boxes which restrict them. Instead, we support clients with helpful observations and recommendations to better understand what elevates their images and energies.

I first discovered personal colour analysis while watching videos trying to understand my own skin’s undertone, and learning about misconceptions that all Asians have warm skin undertones. Personal colour analysis gave me language to understand why I could never pull off a chic beige outfit, or why the coral lipsticks with gold glitter of my teenage years didn’t make me look fresh and lively. Instead of feeling lacking, I was intrigued to play with other colours, and find that those other colours could help me achieve the variety of looks and styles I wanted to pull off. What started as a highly personal interest gradually grew over a few years, when I realised that my eye for nuances in colours, textures and fabrics helped others around me to find outfits and cosmetic products which flattered them.

Taking care of wardrobe and makeup in a theatre production in my university days!

This led me to attending a series of online lectures with Uireh Color, whose founder pioneered her own system for organising colours. It was really fascinating to take it all in and an unexpected but amusing result of first studying personal colour in Korean is that some adjectives we use to explain our analysis to clients come to me in Korean first, even though I am far more fluent in English! It further opened me up to exploring work as a personal colour analyst.

I decided that I was keen to pursue this line of work. I believed that it was important to train in-person with a studio that had a thorough curriculum and lots of opportunities for hands-on practice and feedback. I was thrilled to enrol in the Personal Colour Certification Course by code.d, and am treasuring the opportunities to hone my skills and work with the dynamic team at code.d now.

Personal colour analysts undergo rigorous training to understand, then execute, the logic in the analysis process. I strongly believe that the goal is not to fit people into limiting boxes which restrict them. Instead, we support clients with helpful observations and recommendations to better understand what elevates their images and energies. Hence, I appreciate the approach we take at code.d where we analyse each client’s best colours for clothes, accessories, hair and makeup separately to find what suits them as an individual, without giving cookie-cutter template answers. As a team, we take time to discuss our analysis and keep up to date on new information, trends and research.

My training here has showed me that the work encompasses far more than the analysis - it is also about interpersonal communication skills, hospitality, time management, and much more.

code.d aims to provide clients with a confidence-building and engaging experience. This is thoughtfully expressed in all the little details - from the ambience we set in the studio, to our personable conversations, helping clients to compare their existing clothes and products to examples from our physical resources collection, to post-appointment support through chat and our digital library resource hub.

I am excited to keep growing as an analyst in my time with code.d!