Choosing The Right Color Palette For Your Gray Hair - Kerry-Lou Interviews Color Expert Ginger Burr

Hello: everyone, i'm carrie lou and welcome to silver style studio. I have a very special guest for you today. She is ginger burr owner of total image consultants. Over the last 30 years, ginger has built a remarkable career as an expert personal image consultant she's worked with women from all over the world and from all walks of life. She'S helped women navigate through and sometimes completely ignore the styles of the season and feel good about how they look her deep understanding of beauty, trends and fashion has been celebrated by many popular tv shows and magazines. In addition, she's the author of that. So you create a look. You love with beauty, style and grace. Ginger has analyzed my colors and we're going to share that experience with you now hi ginger. Thank you so much for stopping by the studio today. I really appreciate it. Oh thank you. Carrie lou. I'M delighted to be here i was so happy to receive my swatches, because ginger analyzed my colors for me last month. I have so enjoyed going through my wardrobe and seeing what corresponds with this and outfits that i have in these colors. They do happen to be my favorite colors and you've taught me so much that uh we're going to talk about in a few minutes. But first i want to ask you a little bit about how long you've been analyzing colors for people, and maybe you can tell us about some people that it was a particularly satisfying experience for you to help them sure i would be happy to. I have been doing color analysis for 34 years since the late 80s, when it became very popular because of the whole color me beautiful craze, and i was lucky enough to find a woman who was very adept at it and was able to begin training. My eye at the time i did do seasonal color analysis, which is what was so popular back then. I have since moved beyond that, because i, i really started to feel limited by the seasonal color analysis. I i want to be able to give people colors that were specific for them and uh it's it's been. You know there was a little time there when i was trying to figure out whether the seasonal analysis was working for me or not, and i i was getting frustrated and i remember thinking oh we'll forget it. I just won't do color analysis anymore, and then i thought no. I can't do that because, in my opinion, color analysis is one of the foundational components wearing beautiful colors colors that look great on. You is one of the foundational components and there's one woman who diane, who she i remember so specifically, she had been wearing very kind of faded, colors and she, her coloring, is deep enough that she really needed more bold, colors and also her personality is strong enough. That she needed that kind of alignment with the the deeper colors, and i remember when she put on this gorgeous periwinkle dress and she looked in the mirror and she said i can't believe this is me looking back wow, why? Why do you think it is that um people would wear something bland because they look in the mirror and they're not looking that great with this color? But why do we get stuck on some colors or styles that don't really serve us? Well, sometimes it's uh. It'S a it's a fa, it's because things feel safe, they're colors that we've always worn. We don't feel like we're, making a mistake. We don't feel like we look silly or bad in the colors safety things. Sometimes we feel we feel safe, because it's a habit exactly and right now, neutral colors are so popular for people to wear and with you being in new york, you know all about the whole black thing, and so people tend to to just go to gravitate. What is out there? I had one one, one woman who recently said to me: you know i went to buy this top and it came in black or gray, and so i just thought well, i have to choose one and i'm like. No, you don't just if it's not a great color for you walk on go, find something else that looks amazing on you and she was like oh yeah. I could do that absolutely walk on by all right exactly. We have to remember that, as our theme song right, walk on by ladies, if it doesn't serve you well, i i totally relate to the black uh wearing all black, because uh working for so many years in the entertainment industry, black was kind of like a uniform And it was because on a set, people could see who were the crew and and also, if you picked up in the lighting, it wouldn't show as much because you're wearing black. So but then it just got easier and easier, because sometimes i would be getting dressed at 4. 00 a.m for a very early shoot. So it's just oh build up the layers and, and then you wouldn't know whether it's going to be freezing on the set or whether it was going to be really hot. So i would just wear black over black over black, and i bet when your hair was darker. I bet black looked amazing on you. I bet it was spectacular. That'S right! I could definitely that's what you taught me uh from the swatches that you sent me because i was wearing um colors. That were a lot more bold, but now, when i put them against myself um, they look almost a little bit garish. They overpower you and - and we want to see you we don't want, are you we want to see the color, but we want to see you first. Yes, exactly as a matter of fact, i i have a scarf that i bought a long time ago, um in paris and um. I love the color and it's when my hair was a lot darker. You see it's a beautiful scarf, it's lovely silk but um. It doesn't serve me well anymore, yeah, it's a little too intense for you. I mean you're beautiful anyway, and you could get away with it. But why not wear the colors that really enhance you, and so we see you very clearly, but that is a beautiful scarf and one way you could make it work a little better is if you tied it down lower. So you see a lot of skin here and then you have. The scarf is not right, see not so close to your face. You could get away with it better, yes and that's why i'm wearing white today. So i can just show you things: oh, but you were telling us the story about diane and that you got her to wear periwinkle and what a wonderful switch that was um. Did you did you ever follow up and see? If, like do people ever come back to you for a refresh, or did she send you pictures of other things in her wardrobe that she was taking your advice? Well, diana someone she's actually on my website is one of my before and after pictures, and so and i've been in touch with diane she's still attend some of my workshops and those kinds of things. So i'm very much in in touch with her, which is really it's wonderful. I'Ve had clients who work with me regularly and have for over 20 years. So i i love getting to know people. Yes, sometimes people just come to me for color and that's fine and with what's been going on with the pandemic, i have had a lot of women return because they stop dyeing their hair and they let their natural gray come in or white or whatever. It is, and that's it completely changes things completely changes what they're called what colors look good on them. Well, apart from the hair changing my palette, i found that my skin has actually changed over the years for the viewers benefit um. I just want to tell you how this works. I met ginger through a friend of mine who is on instagram hi mary. Thank you for the introduction and i thought oh. This would be wonderful because i do see some changes going on with my own colors and yes, some of it was my hair, but it was also my skin. My skin seemed to be getting maybe a little warmer or a little bit more tricky to match. So when i contacted ginger, she told me take some pictures in daylight with no makeup on and send me about six or how. However, many you can it's a good thing: lots of different lighting situations. So we did that and we kept coming back to ginger kept saying. Well, you do look a little warmer than you're saying you are because i would tell her like i'm a cool beige, i'm pale, i'm cool when, in fact, when we really looked closely at the pictures, i wasn't anymore right, ginger. Well, you weren't. I think you weren't. Quite as cool as you had thought that you were - and you know our hair obviously changes as we go as we get older, but our skin can too we can get a little ruddier. Some people have rosacea, so there's a lot more pinkness in their skin. There can be just a little bit more freckling, that's happening, or if someone tans a lot, our skin can just stay a little more tanned as we get older and the years go by. So it really can be a little different than it was 10. 20. 30. 40 years ago - and we need to take that into consideration as well - and those pictures are incredibly important - the coloring, because i will be basing your colors on the picture that i have so if it's not accurate, you're not going to get inaccurate. So no makeup, ladies, throw vanity out the window just give her the raw you and you'll get a much better result. Oh my goodness, i can think of so many people that i would love to give you as a gift. I know i think my sisters, and even my mother would love this so hey. That makes it that makes a great gift. So ginger sent me my um palettes here, so many gorgeous colors and um, so i'm just going to go over a few more colors. This is one that we decided did look good, i'm going to going to hold it up in front of me now. You told me something very interesting about this, which was the scarf has so many different patterns to it. One portion of the scarf might be more flattering than the other, and i i never even thought of that ginger because i tied it once, and you said: oh that looks great. Let'S just put it on and uh you can tell people why this scarf works. Yes! Well, it's got more of the softer gray tones in there and that um a little bit more muted purple, but it's got some of the softer tones. The brighter fuchsia is over here, which all by itself would be too intense for you, but this just it makes us. Oh you just glow, so it just brings the focus up to your face because it has softer colors in it and what's really important with scarves is a lot of times. Women will look at scarves and say: oh they opened it up. Oh this is so beautiful. You have to tie it because sometimes it surprises you and the colors that you thought were so beautiful and they are completely hidden or you have to tie it a certain way as you've discovered with this scarf. In order to really have the colors that flatter you close to your face so very important to assess it on as well as off, i don't know very much about tying scarves. I just know some very basic ones. Do you have any ideas for us, or do you have that on your? Do? You have any youtube videos about that. I actually do have two youtube videos about how to tie scarves, so you can find them on my youtube channel. Both of them are done with longer scarves rather than square scarves. Just so people know that. But yes, i do have the two scarf ties there. What do you recommend people buy when purchasing a scarf? Is it better to buy one of the longer ones, or this is a square one? I think it's a personal preference. I think square scarves have become a little more popular again than than they than they were, but it's the the longer ones are a little bit easier to tie, but look at how beautiful you've just draped, because that's a square scarf that you've got on right. Look at how beautiful you've just draped it around your face and it's got enough body in the fabric that it just stands there and stays beautifully. The thing about scarves is, you do want to tie them, so you're, not fussing with them all the time and that's what the two scarf ties that i show you can do and if a scarf is a square scarf is big enough. You actually can do the two scarf ties that i show you for longer scarves with a square scarf: oh okay, good, so people should pop over to see jinger's channel for more uh scarf tying tips, that's great okay, so we touched on um a lot of people Write to me - and they say what do i do for how do i do my makeup differently? How do i do? How do i dress differently now that my hair is gray and a couple of years ago i made a video on how to do your makeup. For silver hair, i have since learned that there are so many different types of silver and the skin tone has a lot to do with it. That video is fine if you have my color silver hair and my coloring, and i apologize for that. Ladies, but um. This is a journey for me too, and i always think of my channel as something that's ever moving ever changing, and i change my mind about some things and i learn about things and i'm happy to pass on to you things that i've been learning and what I like about my channel too, is that many of my ladies out there they give such great comments, and you can do that too. You can always comment in the comment section below if you have any input or if you have any suggestions about all the subjects that i talk about here at silver style studio. We love your input, so um ginger tell us something about uh. You know. Maybe someone has a warmer coloring to me and then not this cool tone, yes, and i'm sure your video was still incredibly helpful to the women who were who have gone gray. Well, thank you. I think i i haven't taken it down, because so many people do like it uh, but maybe i'll do an update with your health ginger. Yes, that would be fun, that'd be fun you're right. There are many many many different ways of going gray and some people stay very salt and peppery you've got this gorgeous. I mean it's just this sheen of light gray, hair that blends down into oh, it's just beautiful, although you know i think gray, hair in general is is stunning and it is amazing how many shades there are there, and it also depends on the body in your Hair, whether it's straight and shiny, or whether it's curly and looks more texturey, there's lots of different ways to look at it. And yes, there are the cooler, salt and peppers there's. Also. I have one client who, when she went gray, she had had very, very warm coloring, not red hair, but a lot of warmth in her brown hair and when she went gray. While her colors became significantly cooler and it totally changed the colors that she was wearing her gray, if you put you with her side by side, it you'd look completely different, because the gray that was coming in was mixed with the brown that was still there. So it still had a warmth to it and for someone who's a redhead like me, i don't go gray, i go white, my hair is just totally white redheads just get faded and more and more faded kind of a yellowy color, and then they go just white. So there's no dark in there because we don't have natural dark in our hair and but it still means we've gone incredibly cool with our hair color and my skin is warm so it's it's. It changes everything and colors that used to look good on you, particularly if, with someone who had had very dark hair now can wash you out now can overwhelm you unless you really heighten your makeup a lot, but then you run that risk of the makeup. Looking too intense or too garish, and that's something like with your palette, one of the things i did do at the end was. I gave you a very dark strip so that when you - because i know you do a lot of video and in very intense lighting and those would be a little dark on you for if you're not wearing a lot of makeup. But if you intensify your makeup, they will and are in brighter lighting. They will work, and i also believe that we have to take into consideration your personality because someone like i have a friend now she wasn't gray at the time, but she's italian, dark, hair kind of not super fair skin, but not real, dark skin, either and so High contrast - and you would think that she would wear really intense jewel tones and but her personality was very quiet, very reserved and the jewel tones felt like too much for her and they kind of overwhelmed her. So we had to tone down her colors just slightly and that's why, when i do a color analysis with somebody virtually and not here in person, i always meet with them on zoom for just like 10 minutes. Just so i can get a sense of who are you, oh? That is so important, and i would never have thought of that, but i i can. I totally understand that even there are some days that you want to dress a little bit softer. You want to blend, and then there are other days that you're feeling very exuberant and you want to get out there wear a bright color, and you did tell me when we discussed that i told you that one of my favorite outfits has little bits of fuchsia In it and it's quite bright - and you explained that well, if i'm wearing the right makeup and because i'm a makeup artist, i can't get away with some things, because i know how to balance things out. Um i mean ideally what you do. Is you give someone a palette that works for them, whether they're wearing makeup or not, or just very natural makeup? So if you want to pump up your makeup a little bit more, you can you can get away with a little stronger, colors. Absolutely yes! So ginger! You had done a survey um, who was the survey too? Was it people that you've worked with in the past? It was to all of it was to people i had worked with. It was also to anyone who was following me just women in general, and the survey basically asked women. I entitled it hurtful comments and unwanted advice and what i heard back from women about things that had impacted how they put themselves out there in the world visually. It was heartbreaking. I mean there were women who said when there was one woman in particular said when she was five years old. She overheard her aunt and her mother talking in the kitchen about how she had a big tummy. Oh five years old, i mean it was crazy and decades later she still felt self-conscious about her stomach. This was something she had completely internalized. It makes you realize how careful we have to be with our words when we're you know around children, when we think people aren't paying attention, words can be so powerful from one extreme to another, either very bad, or they can be amazing right and sometimes they can Be misconstrued, maybe they're meant well like a father, and i don't know how this father meant this, but one of the things he said to his daughter is smile, you're prettier when you smile, and so she did not hear that is as oh, i'm pretty when i Smile, she heard that as oh, i'm not pretty when i don't smile and that just so again cut her to the quick and it's something that a long time later she was remembering, and all of these things i have tons of these types of stories, and it Really keeps women from expressing fully who they are, or it can, if we let it take over and let it have that kind of power, and the other thing that i have heard from women is as they get older. If they decide to let their hair go gray, sometimes they feel in our world that reveres, you know, youth and and all of that they feel invisible. As an older woman and my i talk about this a bit in my book too, but basically, i believe that we can feel as empowered as and as vibrant, whether we have gray hair or red hair or brown hair or whatever color. It doesn't matter part of it has to do with just our own self-confidence and just feeling strong in who we are, and so color is one way to do that, because color can make us feel and and look more vibrant and alive and happy, and all of Those kinds of things, and so my feeling is why not use that tool to your advantage. I i love how one thing starts incorporating another thing. You know you, you start off by analyzing, colors and then well. It'S like my profession really is a makeup artist. People start talking to you and telling you so many stories. You start learning so much about people, and it also makes you a good observer like when i was um doing a lot of special event, makeup and hair. I would be doing a bride's makeup and just towards what you said you you sometimes see relatives or mothers, saying well, meaning things but you're like. Oh, my goodness. If this young woman has been hearing this all her life that wasn't good for the self-esteem like, for instance, a mother might say, oh she, she looks better with her hair around her face because she has a fat face, oh and they will actually say that word. So she looks better with her, hiding it um and you you really want to say something, but you got sometimes you just have to zip it, but we can talk forever about this, so we're going to have to get you here again ginger, if you wouldn't mind, Because i i wanted to talk to you about eyewear about glasses, i wanted to talk to you about jewelry, but this is so involved that it's definitely going to take a few visits, so it would be good to have you back? Yes, yes, i would love it. Carrie lou would be just my my pleasure and my honor okay and i'm going to put all ginger's information in the video description below so you'll be able to follow her on. Are you on instagram ginger? Yes, i am it's just gingerbread. You can find me there easily. Yes, okay, fantastic, you have been a wonderful guest and i know everybody will really enjoy this. Thank you so much for stopping by ginger. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Carrie lou. I really have had a wonderful time with you. I love talking with you. Okay, great bye, see you next time. Well, i hope you enjoyed that little chat with ginger. It was so informative. Wasn'T it if you liked it, please don't forget to subscribe. Give me a thumbs up and tell your friends about us spread the word. So that's it from me for now and i will see you next time: bye,