Understanding colours in makeup

Colour wheel

In order to understand how the makeup works I need to understand the colour wheel.

Primary colours are pure colours. Not mixed with any other colour. Primary colours are Red, Yellow and Blue.

Secondary colours are a mixture of two equal primary colours. The secondary colours are orange, green and violet.

Tertiary colours are a mixture of all three primary colours.

Cool and worm colours.

Colours can be divided into cool or worm colour. Cool colours tend to be the blues and the worm colours tend to be the reds-yellow colours.

My understanding of the colour wheel will help when am creating an Elizabethan look.

The Elizabethan makeup was very pale, so can be considered to be cool. However they painted there chic’s and lips red which is a worm tone.  This is a big contrast to the pale skin.

My aim is to be able to use the colour wheel to achieve a similar or my interpretation of the Elizabethan beauty.