# Light Loves Color

> Color analysis grounded in real science — simultaneous contrast, skin undertone, and how to wear bright colors that love your face. Carrying forward the Sandy Dumont method.

Light Loves Color teaches color analysis: the science of how the colors worn near the face change how skin looks. The method rests on simultaneous contrast, a perceptual effect documented by Michel-Eugene Chevreul in 1839, plus skin undertone and value. It is grounded in a body of work spanning more than 16,000 in-person color analysis sessions across dozens of ethnicities, ages, and complexions. Across that dataset, more than 80 percent of people were found to have cool undertones, regardless of race or skin tone.

The site is run by Tatyana Wilson, Ed.S., SHRM-CP, who studied directly with image pioneer Sandy Dumont (known professionally as The Image Architect) and acquired The Image Architect and its intellectual property after Dumont's death in 2016. Light Loves Color is the continuation of Sandy Dumont's color analysis methodology.

## Core concepts
- Color analysis: not all color analysis is the same. Some is science-based — grounded in the physics of light, the biology of photoreceptors, and documented perceptual effects like simultaneous contrast. Some is essentially hiring someone with good taste. Light Loves Color is the science-based kind: observing what specific colors, worn next to the face, actually do to the face through real mechanisms of light and color interaction.
- Simultaneous contrast (Chevreul, 1839): the eye casts the opposite of any color onto its neighbors. The shirt next to your face changes how your face looks.
- Skin undertone: the underlying hue of the skin. Per Sandy Dumont's method, every undertone is either cool or warm (occasionally too close to call) — there is no true neutral undertone, just as there is no true neutral color. Every color leans cool or warm. Undertone, independent of hair or eye color, determines which colors flatter facial skin.
- The walking filter: the effect a clear bright color worn near the face has on the skin — bouncing light, casting a rosy tone, and reading as a real-life version of a brightening photo filter.
- Bright colors vs muted neutrals: clear bright colors reflect light back onto the face and cast warmth onto the skin; dusty beiges and greige neutrals cast grey and read as tired.
- How to wear more color: start with one clean bright color worn close to the face — a top, scarf, or jacket lapel — and keep the rest quiet.
- How to wear more color: start with one clean bright color worn close to the face — a top, scarf, or jacket lapel — and keep the rest quiet.

## Pages
- [Home](/): Overview of the color analysis method, the science behind it, and how to start.
- [Get The Research](/get-research): Free color analysis research guide — simultaneous contrast, undertone, the walking filter, and how to wear bright colors.
- [About](/about): The lineage from Sandy Dumont to Tatyana Wilson and the body of work behind Light Loves Color.
- [Work With Me](/work-with-me): Second Set of Eyes — a 1:1 personal color analysis with Tatyana Wilson in the Sandy Dumont method.

## Optional
- [Substack](https://posts.lightlovescolor.com): Weekly letters on color analysis, light, bright colors, and looking like yourself.