colour personalities

From Habitat magazine - issue 05

OK, so I like golds and other strong colours – what does that say about me?

I am tasteful, gracious and sensitive. I’m critical and difficult to please. I don’t place much hope in dreams. I should get party-hard hazel contact lenses because I prefer George Clooney to David Beckham. I totally renounce the world, am selfish, demanding and unpredictable. Ummmm…

Actually, after an afternoon on the internet exploring the world of colour personality quizzes, I seriously worry that I am a total schizophrenic. Luckily, when I check my hair-colour personality, it turns out I am a redhead at heart; just as well, since I was born a ginga and coloured my hair for the first time when I was 48!

There is something in human nature that loves to classify and simplify the complexity that is the human personality. Be it by birth date or astrological sign, leadership style, hair colour or even, apparently, the colour of your motorbike, reducing all the gorgeous contradictions and quirks of each person somehow makes the world a more manageable place. And that’s before we examine our chakras or the personality of our pets by their colour.

We do have some serious data on colour and how it can affect us – blue lowers blood pressure, red stimulates appetite, for example. From what I can gather from those quizzes, though, the rest is hypothesis and can vary so wildly it’ll do your head in worrying about it.

So, release yourself from fretting about what your favourite colours say about you. Enjoy the glories of reveling in the shades that seem right and make you feel happy. Forget the old-fashioned notion of beige, taupe and charcoal being good for decorating because they are “safe” or – god help you – “good for re-sale value”. Feel free to change the colour of your world every year. Heck, every season if you have the energy – all it takes is a can or two of paint and a couple of afternoons.

words: Catherine Smith
pictures: Courtesy of TRANZ