Improvability Blog

"I’ve meant to to ask about the lighting in the room when you do the colour analysis. Here in Finland, we are blessed in the summer with plenty of sunlight. BUT during the winter we have only 3 hours of daylight. That is not enough time.

So are there any artificial lights that would be sufficient for the analysis?

Then I have at my house a back room with a tiny little window. Is it possible to fit with enough lamps to do any work? I also have a space at my mother-in-law’s with two windows facing south. So plenty of sunlight (when we happen to have any). So should I preferably consider using that?" SN, Finland

Dear SN,

I wouldn’t get too worried about insisting on natural light for your colour analyses.

At the end of the day, your client will be buying her clothes under artificial lighting unless she shops at open-air markets!

In the olden days (!), we used to get ourselves all worked up about this but you can only work with what you’ve got. Yes, it would be perfect to do all your consultations outside in the garden in full sunshine but that’s just a fantastic dream.

Stay firmly rooted in what’s real, try all the options at your disposal and find out what works for YOU.

If you find you really can’t see what you’re doing in the light available, you could consider using daylight bulbs. However, a word of caution. These were originally designed to light display cabinets in shops; they were not meant to illuminate human skin!

If you search for daylight bulbs on the internet or in your local telephone directory, you’ll also come across those designed to help with seasonal affective disorder (SAD). They claim to emulate the colour of daylight so they may be worth looking at.

There will, no doubt, be new versions available all the time but I would only spend money on things like that if you are either struggling with the light or have loads of money to invest.

If you’re intending to visit clients in their own homes, you also need to consider how you’re going to get these bulky items in the car, and then how long it’s going to take you to set them up, take them down again, set them back up at home… sounds like a load of extra work that may not be necessary at all.

By the way, we offer daylight bulbs in our wholesale catalogue but they are designed for UK fittings only, – choose from bayonet or screw fitting.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 2:19 pm by Kim Bolsover and is filed under Colour Analysis, Colour Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.