Tricks for determining your style type

How can you find your style essences? Here’s seven of the best methods.

1. Find your celebrity lookalikes

If you resemble many different celebrities who all share the same (or a similar) style type, it’s possible you also have their style type (or at least a similar one).

This is especially true if you’ve been told you look like some celebrities who have markedly different skin tones, eye colors, and/or hair colors than you do, because this implies that your similarity reflects your facial features’ shapes and essences, rather than your color palette.

That said, sometimes people with similar coloring do have the same or similar essences:

Many people think that (l to r) Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, and Christina Hendricks look a lot alike, and from a style essences perspective, they do—Bryce and Jessica are both Ethereal Dramatic, while Christina is an Ethereal Dramatic Gamine.

(Some people think Christina is Romantic Ethereal Ingenue. In the image above, you get a big clue that she has angular “yang” bone structure. I might further detail why I think she’s EDG in a separate post.)

So sometimes people with similar coloring do have the same or similar style essences. You’ll just want to consider that if people tell you that you “look like” someone, the judgment might be more based on color season than style essences.

Does this method always work?

Another disclaimer is that I’ve written a whole post on how you shouldn’t assume you share a style type with your celebrity lookalike.

This is because some alleged doppelgangers—like Ethereal Dramatic Gamine Katy Perry and Natural Classic Ingenue Zooey Deschanel—don’t actually have any style essences in common.

So as Katy and Zooey’s case illustrates, the lookalike typing method isn’t foolproof.

But the method can provide a great starting point for exploring a type that has decent chance of being yours (or at least close to yours).

(Side note, I never thought that Bryce Dallas Howard and Jessica Chastain looked very alike, and before typing them, I assumed they’d have different style types. I think what throws me off is that Bryce often has bangs, which can really change the look of anyone’s face and maybe especially an Ethereal Dramatic’s, since Ethereal Dramatic faces are characterized by elongation ((want to do a post on bangs soon…)) But also even people with the exact same style essences and similar hair, skin, and eye colors don’t necessarily look alike in an objective sense. And many people do think they look really alike! So the point is that you do have to be careful of typing yourself based solely on your lookalikes, because ultimately the question of who looks like who is subjective.)

2. Consider your best hairstyles

Ethereals are flattered by long, narrow braids.

We often have accurate insights about our most flattering hair.

So to help determine your essences, you can consider which hairstyles you tend to gravitate toward, and which ones you tend to avoid.

Then you can go through the best haircuts and styles for each essence and determine which essences are found in your favorite (and least favorite) hair for yourself.

There’s a good chance that the hairstyle you like best on yourself reflects a style essence that you have, and that your least favorite hair for yourself reflects an essence that you don’t have much of.

You do have to be careful about ruling out an essence just because you aren’t flattered by that essence’s hair. For instance, you might decide your least favorite hair on yourself is a pixie cut, and so you might conclude you don’t have any Gamine (the essence most flattered by short hair).

But it’s actually possible you do have a little Gamine—just not enough to be flattered by such an extreme cut. For instance, you might be a Romantic Ethereal Gamine, with mostly Romantic and Ethereal. And since Romantics and Ethereals are both flattered by long hair, it makes complete sense that you don’t love a pixie on you.

Does this method always work?

Is considering your best hairstyle a foolproof way to learn your essences? No. It’s possible that for whatever reason, your favorite hairstyle isn’t one that ideally flatters your face. Sometimes we prefer ourselves in styles that we’re used to seeing ourselves in—because they’re familiar, and change can feel disorienting—even if these aren’t our absolute most flattering looks.

So you can combine your observations about your best hair with other methods of determining your essences, like:

3. Consider your best makeup

Can you pull off a lot of makeup that looks stereotypically heavy or intense? If yes, there’s a decent chance you have Romantic or Dramatic or both.

Romantic makeup will be elaborate and blended—think intense smokey eyes, long full lashes, glossy lips, and generous blush. In contrast, Dramatic makeup will be intense and matte—think matte liquid liner in an extended, angular application, very dark matte lipstick, and heavy contour.

And if any kind of heavy makeup seems to overwhelm you, there’s a reasonable chance you have a lot of Ethereal, Natural, or Ingenue. Especially if you look your best in very minimal or no makeup, there’s a good chance you have a lot of Natural.

This isn’t to say that Ethereals, Naturals, and Ingenues can’t wear a lot of certain products or applications, because they definitely can—for example, Ethereal can take a ton of highlight and shimmer.

It’s just that no matter how much actual product you wear as a person with a highly Ethereal (or Natural or Ingenue) face, if the makeup is harmonious on you, the result won’t tend to appear heavy or intense.

What about Gamine and Classic? Gamines can pull off a lot of a certain type of makeup—namely matte, angular, colorful makeup—but are easily overwhelmed by “softer” makeup elements like shiny or smokey finishes.

Classics are also more in between, favoring polished but understated makeup. So if you feel you’re best in a moderate amount of makeup, Classic is a definite possibility—although preferring yourself in moderate makeup can also reflect that you have a blend of essences: at least one essence that can handle more intense makeup and at least one essence that favors a lighter touch.

4. Consider your favorite outfits

What’s your current favorite outfit or outfits on you? Was there something you wore in the past that you felt really, really great in, and maybe it’s not even something you own anymore, but you still have the memory of loving that outfit?

Asking these questions can help you identify if there are patterns in your favorite outfits, like one essence that an essence that always seems present in them. This essence may very well be significant in your style type.

Like the other methods, this one isn’t foolproof, especially because it can be hard to disentangle reactions related to body shape. You’ll want to focus on how outfits make your face look, rather than your figure.

Similarly, you’ll want to determine whether your reaction is truly based on the shapes the outfits or is more based on their colors.

5. Consider your least favorite outfits

For better or for worse, sometimes it’s easier to identify the styles you really don’t like on yourself, versus ones that you do.

So you may want to consider if you regularly avoid certain styles, because you can never seem to make them work.

Again, it can be hard to disentangle your feelings about your face versus body shape.

One trick is to focus on your favorite and least favorite necklines, because this approach minimizes the chance that your reaction is based primarily on body shape—for example, do you feel you easily pull off crew-neck style T-shirts? What about flannels, turtlenecks, polos, blazers, v-necks, sweetheart necklines?

Once you’ve narrowed in on a particular type of neckline or clothing style that you dislike, it helps to get specific. So maybe you’ve determined you’re not highly flattered by blazers—but “blazers” don’t belong to only one style essence. There are blazer styles that flatter every essence, though they’re probably most commonly associated with Dramatic, Classic, and Gamine.

So it can be helpful to think about the specifics of the fashion that does or doesn’t flatter you.

6. Consider hair color

This one is tricky. Originally I wasn’t going to include it, because I ultimately believe that anyone can make their natural hair color work with their style type, and I’m hesitant to say that certain hair colors look best on certain style types.

But then this tip was helpful for accurately typing Natalie Dormer, so I decided it was worth including.

I typed Natalie a while ago as dominantly Ethereal with some Gamine and Dramatic, and I thought this made sense. She has a lot of facial similarity to other EDG celebrities.

Then I happened to see a picture of her with dark brown hair, and I was struck by how harmonious it looked—maybe even better than the light brown and blonde I’m more used to seeing on her. This was odd to me, because highly Ethereal faces tend to be flattered by very light hair colors, and Gamines also tend to be flattered by vibrant hair, including bright blonde. It made me wonder if Natalie had more Dramatic than I thought or even had some Romantic—Dramatics and Romantics have the most intense vibes of all the essences, so they tend to be flattered by “intense” hair colors, and dark hair tends to more easily read as intense than light brown or blonde.

Virtual draping revealed that the hair-provoked hunch was correct—Natalie to my eye is harmonious in some Romantic styling, and has Romantic as a fourth essence.

So sometimes considering what hair colors you can pull off can give you a clue to your essences.

But I really want to emphasize that you don’t have to dye your hair to look your best. Your natural hair color already perfectly matches your color season, and any style type can be harmonious in any hair color.

Hair colors that exemplify each essence?

With that said, certain hair colors arguably can evoke particular style essences. The short version is that darker hair is especially harmonious with Romantic, very dark (and sometimes extremely light) hair works well for Dramatic, and lighter hair tends to read as Ingenue or Ethereal. Naturals look great in their natural hair color (shocker) and are also often flattered by sun-kissed highlights. For Gamine, I think the saturation of the color is more important than the actual hue—light locks may be considered ideal because they tend to read as more youthful and playful than dark hair (e.g., many young children start out with a lighter hair color than their adult locks). But darker shades can also work well especially if they appear vivid and saturated. Highly Classic faces are a little harder to pinpoint—obviously any extremely unnatural looking hair colors aren’t ideal for Classic, and I think the same would be true of very light or very dark hair unless the color looks natural for you in the context of your overall coloring.

With that said, my belief is that your natural hair color doesn’t factor into your style type. That is, even if you’re a blonde, you won’t necessarily have a significant amount of Ethereal or Ingenue, and even if you have very dark hair, you won’t necessarily have a significant amount of Romantic or Dramatic.

So, how does hair color help you find your style essences? If you’re very flattered by dark hair (especially if this isn’t already your natural color), you may have a lot of Romantic or Dramatic. If you’re very flattered by light hair (especially if this isn’t already your natural color), you may have a lot of Ethereal or Ingenue. And if you love yourself in sunkissed highlights, you may have a lot of Natural.

7. Practice typing yourself and others

If you’re like me, you’ll find it’s way easier to be objective about others than about yourself—arguably a central part of the concept of “objectivity” is that it’s just inherently hard to be objective about yourself.

So if you really want to figure out your style essences and are ok with a method that takes a little longer, then one of the best tactics is to just practice identifying the style essences of people in general. Notice what styles do and don’t flatter different celebrities. If you want to use an approach that helps you systmetically compare people’s faces to different styles of clothing, making simple yes-no judgments about what does or doesn’t flatter a person until you arrive at their style type, my Style Type Self-Assessment will help you do that. Using the Assessment on yourself might even lead you straight to your true type.

That said, I do think people vary in their natural ability to accurately type people, in the way that humans vary in their ability to do any kind of task. So I can’t guarantee that your results on the Self-Assessment will be accurate for yourself or anyone else the very first time you use it. But the more you carefully use it, you will get better, and I do think that for most people, with enough practice, you’ll be able to discover your essences. It just might take a bit of time.

So if you’re serious about determining your own style type and don’t mind that it may be a time commitment, I do recommend my self-assessment. But you’ll also want to keep in mind that right now the assessment only detects one-, two-, and three-essence blends—so if you suspect you have a fourth essence and are very interested in knowing your fourth, my assessment won’t be the best method.

Methods to be wary of?

To be honest, I would say that over-relying on any of the above methods is something to be wary of. All these methods—determining your lookalikes, considering your best hair, makeup, and outfits, and practicing typing others—can be useful ways of figuring out your type. But using any one of them in isolation can also lead to inaccurate conclusions.

To be most effective, I’d suggest combining many of the above methods and seeing if you can narrow in on a single type.

What about getting help from friends or family?

People who are very close to you—like family and significant others—are unfortunately not guaranteed to be the best determiners of your style type.

This is because it can be hard for those closest to us to see us objectively (especially if they’re biological family members who at least somewhat physically resemble you—your identical twin or your lookalike sister probably isn’t exactly unbiased).

If you have a very honest friend, you could seek their opinion on your essences. But style analysis is a skill that people have varying levels of natural ability with, and it can take some practice to be able to reliably type people. Relying on a friend could work if that friend has an amazing eye, but it could also end up being misleading.

Summary

If you’re looking to determine your style essences, here’s some of the best methods. You’ll likely want to use several of these methods in combination rather than relying on just one:

• Identify celebrity lookalikes—especially if different people have told you that you look like several different celebrities, and these celebrities all have the same or a similar style type, it’s possible your type is the same as or similar to theirs.

• Consider your best hair—your most flattering hairstyle likely reflects a style essence or essences that are significant for you. Your least flattering hairstyle likely reflects either essences that you don’t have at all or essences that you have only in small amounts.

• Consider flattering makeup—if you can pull off very heavy makeup, that’s a clue that you have a lot of Dramatic, Romantic, and sometimes Gamine. If you’re best in a much lighter touch, that’s a clue that you have a lot of Ethereal, Ingenue, or Natural.

• Find your most (and least) flattering outfits—the outfits you love most on yourself likely contain some style essences that are significant for you. And the outfits you dislike on yourself likely have high amounts of essences that aren’t in your style type.

• Consider flattering hair colors—if your best hair color is different than your natural color, it may be a clue to your essences. Darker colors tend to be extremely flattering for Dramatic and Romantic; lighter colors tend to be extremely flattering for Ethereal and Ingenue; and sun-kissed highlights are awesome on Naturals.

• Practice—the more you practice observing what flatters others, the better you’ll get at identifying style essences in general, including your own.