Do you have a fourth style essence?
Is it possible to have four truly significant style essences?
A ton of evidence says yes. And it might not even be that rare.
So far, several of my Style Analysis clients have had four essences, and so do many celebrities, like:
Margot Robbie and Rila Fukushima
Based on virtually draping Margot Robbie, her top three essences are Ethereal, Gamine, and Classic.
And she looks really harmonious next to Ethereal Classic Gamine (ECG) celebrities:
Ethereal Classic Gamines Raven, Kate Upton, Björk, Michelle Williams, and Emma Stone.
But Margot’s face also has something that Ethereal Classic Gamines don’t. With Margot, we see a voluptuous Romantic quality:
Margot fits well with Romantic Ethereal Gamine (REG) celebrities, too—R, E, G, and C are all significant for her.
Romantic Ethereal Gamines Rihanna, Aishwarya Rai, Emily Browning, Phoebe Tonkin, and Kristen Stewart. (ECG Kate Upton is known for her voluputuous figure, but if you compare her to the REG faces, you may find like I do that her face doesn't really harmonize with theirs.)
Another celebrity who looks harmonious with REGs is Rila Fukushima—those are her top three essences:
But like Margot, something about Rila’s vibe doesn’t entirely harmonize with REG faces. Rila’s face also has significant sweet Ingenue. She looks pretty harmonious with Ethereal Gamine Ingenue celebrities, too:
EGIs Sophia Richie, Hayden Panettiere, Jisoo, Carey Mulligan, and Lana Condor.
For both Margot Robbie and Rila Fukushima, a four essence blend best captures their beauty.
Can people actually have four essences?
Yes! There’s no compelling reason why we’re limited to only three essences.
Especially since we inherit our style essences from our parents, and our parents often have at least four different essences between them.
So if dad is Ethereal Natural, and mom is Dramatic Ingenue, you could potentially inherit all four—Ethereal, Natural, Dramatic, and Ingenue.
What other celebrities have a fourth essence?
Many celebrities have a four essence blend, including:
Nina Garcia—Dramatic, Romantic, Classic, Natural
Alexis Dziena—Ethereal, Gamine, Ingenue, Natural
Gemma Ward, Shilpa Shetty—Ethereal, Ingenue, Romantic, Dramatic
Lola Tung, Natalie Imbruglia—Romantic, Ethereal, Ingenue, Classic
Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Connelly, Mariama Diallo—Romantic, Ethereal, Dramatic, Classic
More four essence celebrities are on Pinterest.
I’m also in the process of retyping all the three essence celebrities, to see if they have fourth essences that I overlooked.
This is because when I started typing celebrities, I thought that fourth essence percentages were typically so small, it wasn’t necessary to identify them.
But now it’s clear that fourth essences can be meaningful.
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Part 2: Answers to questions about four essence style types
Answering common questions—and maybe some uncommon questions—about these style types
How do I group celebrities on Pinterest?
The slightly confusing part—right now on the Celebrity Style Essences Pinterest boards, some four essence celebrities are on a board reflecting only their top three essences.
So Margot Robbie is on the Ethereal Classic Gamine board, because those are her top three essences. And honesty I think she looks pretty harmonious on that board.
But I’m in the process of creating more four essence boards, and soon I’ll create a Romantic Ethereal Classic Gamine board and add Margot to it. I’ve created some of these boards already, like REGI for Rila Fukushima.
What are the odds of having a fourth essence?
Fourth essences aren’t super common—but they’re also not shockingly rare.
Based on typing celebrities and style analysis clients, I’d guess that around 5 or 10% of the population has a significant fourth.
I always check if clients have a fourth essence, and so far several have, but most haven’t. And I’ve already confirmed that many celebrities don’t have a significant fourth—again, some have, but most haven’t.
How can you know if you have a fourth essence?
Fourth essences can be extremely difficult to identify.
This is because, odds are, the percentage of your fourth essence is really small (more on why below).
My style analysis self-assessment will also only reveal your top three essences—I’m working to revise it to detect fourth essences, but again, because the fourth essence tends to be so small, it can be extremely hard to identify without a trained eye.
The good news is, the majority of people don’t have to worry about this, because the majority of people don’t have four essences.
I’ll also always let you know for sure if you have a fourth essence, and my estimate of the percentage of all your essences, in my Style Analysis.
Through years of training my eye, I’ve grown confident in my ability to detect even very small amounts of significant essences.
How do you dress for a fourth essence?
You’ll likely want to roughly match the percentage of the essences in your face to your styling.
So if Margot Robbie is 40% Ethereal, 30% Gamine, 20% Classic, and 10% Romantic (not sure if those are her exact percentages—this is just a hypothetical example), she’d want her overall styling, including hair, makeup, and outfit, to be 40% Ethereal, 30% Gamine, 20% Classic, and 10% Romantic.
But what if one day she doesn’t include Romantic, and she styles herself 45% Ethereal, 35% Gamine, and 20% Classic?
She’s still going to look pretty harmonious—she nearly matched the ratio of essences in her face to her styling.
If she wants to look her absolute best, she’d include the 10% Romantic. But because 10% is a pretty small amount, skipping it isn’t going to destroy her harmony.
So if you want to look your absolute best, you’ll include all your essences in your styling, no matter how small the amount.
But because if a person has a fourth essence, it’s going to be a relatively small percentage, you can typically still look pretty good even if you don’t include it.
Why your fourth essence will likely be a small amount
If you have a fourth essence, the absolute most it can be is 25% of your total essences.
Why? In theory, Margot Robbie could have 25% Ethereal, 25% Gamine, 25% Classic, and 25% Romantic. Because Romantic is her least significant essence, there’s no way she can have more than 25% Romantic, because that would mean that one of her other essences would be below 25%— which would make Romantic no longer her least significant essence.
It also seems theoretically unlikely for a person to have exactly the same amount of all four essences, and based on observation, it’s unlikely to happen in reality, too.
So if you have a fourth essence, it’s probably going to be, at absolute most, about 20% of your look, and for many people, it’s likely going to be closer to 15% or 10% or even lower.
Pros and cons of having four essences?
The awesome thing about having four essences—it gives you options.
With a fourth essence, you’ll have a wider variety of harmonious hair, makeup, and outfit options available to you.
Having four essences also increases the odds that you have essences that match your lifestyle or aesthetic preferences.
Plus, it can help make your style highly creative and unique.
A downside of four essences is that it may further complicate the question of how to dress.
And if your fourth essence is a super small amount, you may find it hard to incorporate without overdoing it.
Having a fourth essence sometimes also makes it harder to identify a person’s top three essences, because it can make your percentage of all the essences smaller, and it can make it more likely that you have an essence blends that resemble other blends.
For instance, some people think Gemma Ward has Gamine, and that’s what I assumed before draping her—but after virtual draping, I actually think she’s a Romantic Ethereal Ingenue with a small amount of Dramatic. Her soft beauty combined with the small amount of Dramatic mimics the look of Gamine.
What’s the most common number of style essences?
For both celebrities and non-celebrities, most people seem to have three style essences.
Many people have just two essences, but this seems rarer than having three.
And having just one essence seems really, really rare. I can literally count on one hand the celebrities I’ve found who have only one significant essence (just two so far: purely Natural Elle Macpherson and purely Ethereal Masha Tyelna).
So it’s almost definitely more common to have four essences than only one.
What about five essences?
I’d love to find someone who has five significant essences, and I do think there’s a good chance they exist (but are very rare).
Having five essences might be more theoretically than practically interesting—it may be that the fifth essence is so small, it’s not necessary to incorporate in your style.
Summary
Most people have two or three signifcant style essences—but a ton of evidence shows it’s possible to have four
Around 5-10% of the population may have a fourth essence (my best guess right now—it could be lower or even a bit higher)
Because most people’s fourth essence tends to be small, omitting it from your styling is unlikely to make or break your look
But to look your absolute most harmonious, you’ll want to incorporate all your essences in your styling, including your fourth if you have one
