On March 1, Skylar Peck (12) and I visited Color GA Sanda in Mapo-gu to take a personal color test. 

For a consultation of 90 minutes, the total was 110,000 won. 

Though it is quite costly, if you want objective feedback from a professional on how to dress according to your physique, I highly recommend you make an appointment. I could say with confidence that I’ve learned a lot on how to present myself in a way that helps complement my natural look. 

Personal color tests have been a rising beauty trend in Korea. A color consultant analyzes the customers’ skin tone and body type to suggest clothes and makeup products that will best suit them. 

After Skylar and I greeted Manager Danbi, our consultant for this session, she handed us a questionnaire form to see what specific concerns we had. The form asked these questions:

• What color do you prefer to wear on a daily basis? 
• What season (cool or warm / autumn, summer, winter) do you think you are? 
• What is your reason for getting your personal color tested? 

Then, Manager Danbi skimmed over the form and explained how our physical characteristics—such as our hair, eyes, skin tone, and overall vibe—can be classified into 12 different “seasons.”

In the first stage, all color consultants determine your tone: cool or warm. Koreans with a paler complexion with a pink undertone are often cool toned, whereas those with a tanner, darker hue are considered to be warm. 

To get our skin tone assessed, Manager Danbi covered our hair and clothes with a white cloth and placed an array of colored cloth beside our face. 

Skylar went first. Manager Danbi had a difficult time evaluating her tone because she was one of the rare few who held a skin tone that lies in-between warm and cool.  

Conversely, Manager Danbi barely needed much time to figure out mine. It seemed obvious to her that I was warm-toned. 

In the second stage, our consultant worked with more specific shades of warm and cool-toned colors to determine our exact “season.” This helps categorize our skin tone as either autumn, summer, winter, or spring. 

This process took 20 minutes, and throughout the entire process, Manager Danbi meticulously compared each color.

In the end, Skylar and I were both evaluated as deep autumn. 

Then, our consultant grabbed a different array of white-shaded clothes to see whether we better fit vivid or mute colors. For this one too, Manager Danbi suggested that Skylar and I both suit more muted, tone-down shirts and jackets. 

The three of us then moved to a round table, where our manager wrote a form that summarized our analysis. Based on our skin tone and eye color, she gave us her top three recommended seasons: autumn deep, winter deep, and autumn mute. 

She also checked off the specific kind of makeup—foundation, makeup base, lipstick, eyeshadow, and eyeliner—as well as jewelry, hair color, and clothing material best suiting each of our appearances. 

Afterward, we moved on to the second part of our analysis: face and body line. It turns out that the face can be classified into five main shapes: wide-square, oval, egg, long-square, and heart. The body can be separated into four: hourglass, inverted triangle, triangle, and straight. In the end, she concluded that I had an egg-shaped face with an hourglass body.

With almost ten minutes left, Manager Danbi wrote down her personal suggestions on what clothes best fit our body line, how to part our hairline, and which earrings would look most flattering on our face. 

She also gave us a list of makeup products that potentially enhance our facial features. 

The overall experience was a 5 out of 5! I’d recommend everyone to get their personal color assessed at least once in their lifetime.