Unrequited color love

youlookfab had a thought-provoking post about the disconnect that sometimes develops between the colors we love and those that look best on us. I'm certainly guilty of completely ignoring colors because I don't like them.

I used a very fun tool called Colorbender to make these palettes.

First: colors that like me, and that I like in return.


As you can see, I am all over jewel tones. White, black, navy, and dark grey all work on me. I love saturated blues, teals, and purples, and I tend to avoid anything approaching pastel, with the exception of periwinkle.

Next: colors that work on me, but I don't wear them.

Reds, browns, and terra cotta all look good on me, but for whatever crazy reason I much prefer shades of pink/plum to any shade of red/orange. However, I'm much more apt to wear shades of cranberry (2nd from left) than bright tomato red (1st color), and I actually have a cranberry-colored shirt I wear fairly often. Still, it doesn't get nearly as much play as anything blue, green or purple. As for brown - well, chocolate brown is nice enough, but I simply prefer black, gray or deep blue.

And lastly, just for fun, we have colors that don't look all that great on me, but I wear anyway.

Pale pink, pale gray and mustard yellow all wash me out, but this effect is easily mitigated by a scarf or laying the piece over a "good" color, like deep blue. The story behind leaf green is that I simply love the color: it's fresh and uplifting. Not the best color on me, but not terrible either. Also, at some point my mother told me I should never wear green, so wearing my beloved leaf-green top is my little way of rebelling.

(Postscript: With the exception of mustard, I'm really not a big orange/yellow person, so I have little idea which shades of these colors work on me. For all I know, I look divine in pumpkin, but I have little desire to find out.)

So, this exercise reveals that:
1. Me and pastels will never get along.
2. I should probably learn to love red.
3. Good thing that blue is my favorite color, because I look great in it!
4. My mother can't keep me from wearing leaf green.
5. I should keep an eye out for bright blue, rich purple or magenta pieces.

So...anyone else have complicated relationships with certain colors? Spill!