What is color theory and why is it important?

When you are booking a service for Permanent make-up, no artist expects you to understand color theory, but it is very important that the artist does. In fact, it is equally as important as the technique and tools they use. As an artist that who has corrected other people’s PMU mistakes, I can tell you most of them have to do with a previous service by an artist who didn’t understand color theory as well as they should have.

So why does this happen in the permanent make-up industry? For starters, even though PMU artists are doing a similar technique as tattoo artists, they usually have very different backgrounds. A tattoo artist is someone who probably likes drawing and painting when they were young so they have a lot of experience with color mixing and understanding the basics of what neutralizes and what compliments another color. However, more often than not, a PMU artist came to the art from a career that was non-artistic, like facials or waxing. Some came from different careers all together, like real estate. So, when they take a PMU course, most of the emphasis is on technique and safety. Color theory is discussed but there isn’t a lot of emphasis placed on it. This is a shame. As someone who came to both lashes and permanent make-up from a career as a hair colorist, I can honestly say there is no way I would approach permanent make-up without this background. Making a mistake in color on a client’s hair is a hassle but can be fixed. Making a mistake in color when selecting tattoo pigment for the face? Oh, hell no.

Color theory can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. You can approach it simply, by starting with the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) and then memorizing which colors you get when you mix two of those together, which give you the secondary colors (green, orange and purple). By learning and memorizing just these six colors and how they are made, you can do a lot. Have you ever heard that most of the Rolling Stones songs were written using only three chords? Well, the same is true here. These three primary colors are the three chords you need to understand to make all your music.

The purpose of understanding what colors can be made by mixing red with blue or blue with green is because it is these secondary colors that will help you pull back on a color (neutralize) or emphasize it (compliment)

Breaking the rules should never happen on accident. It should come from a person understanding completely how the theory of color works and then choosing to break a rule because in that case, it will enhance something special. It must be done with love, caution, and consideration. But the game can’t even be played if we don’t know the rules, so here they are.

1.) When you look at the color chart below, you see that Green is opposite of Red. Red is a primary color and therefore cannot be made by mixing other primary colors together (rule #1). Green is a secondary color and can only be made by mixing two primary colors together (rule #2). In this case the two primary colors are yellow and blue.

2.) Now green sits opposite from red on the color chart and is either it’s best friend or it’s worst enemy. If we put green and red beside one another, they will help one another sing out. They will lift each other up and cheer each other on like they do at Christmas time. However, if they get too close, like mixed, they cancel each other out and make brown. Neither color sings or dances, they both just die out. (rule #3)

3.) So, if I’m doing a color correction on brows that are very red, I need to use an olive corrector, or a green pigment over the red to ”cancel it” or neutralize it. There are, of course, other determining factors, like is the red from scar tissue or pigment? But that is for a later blog post. For now, let’s say I have just neutralized the red brows by using a greener pigment by applying the logic in rule #3.

4.) But what about orange over blue? This is where things get tricky. If you’ve had the unfortunate experience of getting microblading done in the more recent past and now they have turned a blue/gray color, you either went to an artist who didn’t completely understand color theory, or you ignored her suggestions and demanded the color you wanted anyway. Another problem may have been that there were heavy metals in the pigment, which is something that artists used years ago. Or, it could have been that n artist was heavy handed and cut too deeply into the skin so when the pigment mixed with blood, a blue result happens. Either way, the color used was too cool for your skin tone which is probably also cool and now there is a problem.

There are really only two ways get rid of blue pigment. One is to laser them with tattoo removal lasers like the Picosure machine. You will need several treatments defending on how saturated the pigment is.

The other way is to do a cover up of the blue pigment but there are no guarantees here. The darker the blue, the harder it is to cover because blue is darker than it’s neutralizing color, orange. So, if the blue won’t neutralize in a couple of passes of shading, there is just further damage being done to the skin. Furthermore, remember when we said that the neutralizing color can also be the complimentary color? Yep. If any of the orange gets on skin that has no blue, you are now making the blue look bluer. So, make sure your artist understands color correction and theory well before proceeding.

5.) When is it ok to break the color theory rules? Rarely ever but there is always an acceptation. Mostly it can be done with warm colors because warm colors fade better than cool ones. For instance, if someone has warm skin that is Fitzpatrick 4-5 with warm undertones, I would choose lip colors that have deeper wine shades, like malbec to complement their skin. However, a color like Sweet Melissa which is very warm can also look good on this person is their eyes are a bit blue. Why? Because the orange in Sweet Melissa is now complimenting their eye color even though it isn’t doing much for the skin. My advice to any artist would be to proceed with caution when breaking any of these rules and make sure the client really wants it.