A palette app is an understandable thing to try. You take a photo, answer a few questions, and a season arrives in under a minute, usually with a grid of nice colours and a strong opinion. Some of those apps are pretty. Some are expensive. A few will be roughly near the mark, in the way a stopped clock is right twice a day. They are still not colour analysis.
I do not offer virtual consultations for the same reason. Colour draping needs true daylight and a mirror between us. A phone is a camera, a light source and a piece of software. It is not the daylight in the Ilkley studio.
What an app is actually looking at
An app sees a photograph. That photograph was taken in a kitchen, a car, or under the warm bulbs of a shop fitting room. The white balance has already made a decision. A golden bulb pushes everyone towards Autumn. A cool office LED pushes everyone towards Summer. The phone then "corrects" the picture, which is another decision, made by software that has never met you.
Makeup is in the photo, unless you were unusually strict. Foundation changes the very thing colour analysis is trying to read: the bare cast of the skin. Hair dye is in the photo too. If your hair is a cool brown and your skin is warm, the app often believes the hair, because hair occupies more of the frame. Dark dyed hair is how a Soft Autumn gets told she is a Winter. Bleached blonde is how a Summer gets told she is a Spring.
Filters, portrait mode and the colour of the wall behind you join in. So does the screen you view the result on. Two phones side by side do not show the same coral. If the tool and the evidence are both slightly the wrong colour, the confidence of the result does not make it truer.
An app is solving a different problem: a fast guess from incomplete information. That can be a bit of fun. It is a shaky way to decide a coat.
What draping sees that a photo cannot
In the studio I put real fabric under your chin, in daylight, and we both look in the mirror. The comparison is immediate and physical. The same face, two colours, one after the other. You do not have to remember what you looked like in a photo from March. You can see the shadow appear and leave.
Daylight is the point. It is the light you are actually seen in, and it does not have a white balance. A drape that looks lively under a warm bulb and lifeless at the window has told us something an app will average away. Sequenced draping also tests the edges: not just "warm or cool" as a single question, but how warm, how light, how clear. That is the difference between a season and a sub-season.
Most people who get their colours wrong have the right season and the wrong sub-season. An app that says "Autumn" and stops has done the easy half. Soft Autumn and Deep Autumn do not shop the same rail. Light Spring is overwhelmed by colours a Bright Spring wears easily. Cool Winter and Bright Winter both dislike camel, and then they part company. The four season guides show those splits. Twelve sub-seasons is a lot to ask of a selfie.
There is also metal, lipstick and the neutrals you actually live in. Gold against the face, then silver. Ivory, then pure white. Black, then chocolate, then charcoal. These are comparisons of cloth, not of pixels. A swatch on a screen sits next to other swatches. It does not sit next to your skin.
The honest job of a quiz
The free quiz on this site is an indication. Eight questions, two minutes, no email. I would like you to take it. I would also like you to believe it exactly as far as it deserves, which is: a nudge towards warm or cool, light or deep, clear or soft.
A quiz has one advantage over an app. It asks you to look at yourself, in words, rather than trusting a picture. It has the same limitation as any remote tool. You are the witness and the subject, and hair dye, tan and habit all lean on the answers. "I suit black" often means "I own a lot of black" or "I was told black was safe." The drape is allowed to disagree with that story. A form is not.
Use the quiz to see the landscape. Use the season-by-season guide if you want to read the four palettes before you decide anything. Then, if you want to know, book the draping. Photographs, screens and memory distort colour. That sentence is on the season pages because it is the whole argument, not a slogan.
What people notice when they have done both
I will not invent a tally of how often an app is wrong. The mechanism is visible, which is the point. When a drape is wrong, the face looks a little greyer, a little redder, or a little further away, and you can see it without being talked into it. When the drape is right, the face looks like itself. The digital guide you take home is a record of that comparison. It is there so the afternoon still helps you in a shop later.
If an app has already named you, bring the result. Disagreement is useful. We can drape the app's favourite and your face's favourite in the same light and let the mirror vote. You do not have to defend the phone, and you do not have to defend your instincts. The cloth is quite blunt.
What in person will not pretend to be
Draping will not be convenient in the way an app is convenient. You travel to Ilkley. The studio is the point, because the light is. Leeds and Harrogate are about half an hour, Bradford a little less, York about an hour, and there are notes for each on the areas page. It takes two hours, not a few minutes. It costs £150, not a subscription. You come with little or no makeup. If you want the longer visit, Colour + Body Shape is £225.
It is also not a trick. You can see every comparison. The session itself is a conversation, then fabrics, then makeup, jewellery and the guide on your phone. Afterwards you can still ask about a specific dress.
If you enjoy the app as a game, enjoy it. If you are about to buy a coat, a work wardrobe, or a wedding guest dress on the back of it, come and check. Book a colour analysis when you want the answer in daylight, with your own face, and a palette you can actually shop with. The phone can store the palette. It should not be the one that chooses it.