I just had a wonderful reunion with one of my favorite students. Lauren Battistini flew in from Texas to attend the Color Mixing and Matching I course that I taught in Homosassa, Florida. Lauren is a leading American image consultant with whom I have had the pleasure to collaborate for several years.

Lauren has already been certified by Sci\ART Global as personal color analyst. Her business, Color My Closet (www.colormycloset.com) is very successful. But In her capacity as a professional wardrobe consultant, she recognizes the importance of continuing education to stay on top of what is going on in the color industry. To that end, she took advantage of this opportunity to learn not only how to duplicate the millions of subtle color variations we see every day, but why nature mixes those spectral hues to sustain harmony in our environment.

I certified Lauren as a Personal Color Analyst in 2007. I am impressed with her natural eye for color even more now than I was back then. We asked her to share some of her thoughts about Sci\ART and this class. Here’s what she said:

“I’m a stickler about being at the top of my game, so I always seek out the best training possible. Sci|ART remains on the cutting edge of this industry because the system they use is based in science. It’s very thorough because it measures color 3-dimensionally.”

“Color is my passion and I want to learn as much about it as possible. This type of continuing education keeps me competitive and up-to-date, and it enables me to give my clients my very best effort.”

“I’m a tactile learner and the way Kathryn teaches fits me to a tee. She’s hands-on, points you in the right direction and then lets your practice on your own before guiding you to the next level. Kathryn builds on the foundation of her teachings in a very logical order. Her book (Understanding Your Color — A Guide to Personal Color Analysis) is the same way. It’s amazing.”

“This course was even more thorough than I thought it would be. I’m planning to take Sci\ART’s Color Mixing and Matching II class just as soon as I can.”

I’d like to thank Lauren for those kinds words. When it comes to color, Lauren “gets it.” She especially learned a great deal about mixing warm, cool and neutral flesh tones. Pardon the pun, but she passed her final exam with flying colors!
If you would like to learn more about the color education courses we offer at Sci\ART, visit http://www.coloranalysis.com/category_s/124.htm.

In the meantime, remember: When it comes to color, beauty and health are inseparable

Here are some photographs of Lauren that were taken during the class:

During the third (or is this the fourth?) year of our current economic recession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession#United_States ), Sci\ART has bucked the trend. Rather than laying off employees, trimming our capital and marketing budgets, or cutting back services to our clients, we have expanded in every area. We have more employees, new state-of-the-art equipment and we have made a major investment in our communications strategy so that our message will reach an even larger global market. (More on that exciting news in upcoming blogs.)

We’d like to claim this success as our own, but the truth is that our loyal, satisfied customers have made all of it possible. Your continued trust in our purpose and our products (www.coloranalysis.com/default.asp) not only has sustained us, it is propelling us toward an even-more-promising future.

We sincerely thank you for our prosperity, and we are just as sincere in our hope that we have suitably shared our knowledge about color therapy, color analysis and the essential relationships between the science and essence of color. Whether you are an image consultant, a day spa owner, a holistic health practitioner or a private consumer, you are a valued customer. We remain enthused about advising and serving you.

We also are eager to enlist your help in spreading the good news about how color can heal our bodies and enhance our natural beauty. To that end, we are striving not to raise our prices in 2010, despite the fact that our costs for materials and equipment are increasing.

We remain dedicated to our customers – existing clients as well as the friends we haven’t met yet. This commitment to sensible austerity is just one way to show our appreciation for your patronage.

As we begin what we pray will be a healthy and prosperous 2010, we hope you will come to believe, as we do, that when it comes to color, health and beauty are inseparable.

Happy New Year!

Not long after Future Shock was published in 1970, I read Alvin Toffler’s tome and was fascinated by his broad vision of what lay ahead in our world.

For those who may not have read his book, Toffler defined “Future Shock” as the “shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.”

Toffler went on to dissect each element of our society and then extrapolate how it would change the way we think, react and survive.

Even if you haven’t heard of Toffler, I’ll wager you have heard or used a phrase that he coined: “Information overload.” Most of us can agree that “information overload” has become the rule, not the exception, in our lives. So much information is so readily available that it competes aggressively for our time and energy. If not properly managed, it actually can result in negligence and indecision.

Beyond Toffler’s informed observations about where we were going, I was taken with his insight as to how quickly we would get there. Toffler’s thinking was right on target, but not even he could have predicted the meteoric pace of the Age of Information.

Along this road to progress, we have have allowed key parts of the journey to become blurs in our rear-view windows. The impact Future Shock had on my life is one reason I recognized early on the importance of melding the past with the future. That fundamental philosophy was pivotal as I chose my lifelong career in color.

As our society has progressed, it has taken us away from the healthful benefits of color in our lives. We have substituted artificial light for the healthful benefits of sunlight. By staying indoors so much, we are missing out on the naturally-occurring colors of green, red, orange and blue.

At Sci\ART we have made a priority of creating color products and therapies that can compensate for those deficiencies (www.coloranalysis.com/color_therapy_s/2.htm). Holistic medicine specialists, day spas owners, chiropractors and others routinely purchase our texts, techniques and products to expand their practices. By all accounts, their clients have benefitted.

To be sure, Toffler’s prediction of “information overload” has come to pass. Fortunately, there are professionals who are using the information and technology astutely to bridge the chasm that too often separates the simple from the complex.

You can read Toffler’s ground-breaking commentary online. Go to http://books.google.com/books and type in “Future Shock.” And after you’ve read the book, you might want to check out this interview http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.05/toffler.html in which he reflects on his work a quarter-century later. Fascinating man, and a still-fascinating topic.

Happy reading, and until next time remember: When it comes to color, beauty and health are inseparable.

What if he went on to tell you that he could guarantee the prescription would have absolutely no side effects? If you’ve ever read the fine-print disclaimers that accompany your prescription medicines, such a claim would be almost unbelievable.

If he then informed you that you don’t even need a prescription to gain the benefits of this miracle remedy, you’d probably Google “quack” and expect his name and photo to be the first listed.

But the inclination to report your health care provider to the review board of the American Medical Association would be premature. Actually, he is giving you sound advice about a technique that is based upon thousands of years of science: chromotherapy.

There is nothing complicated about chromotherapy; simply put, it is the therapeutic use of light and color. Ancient cultures used light and color routinely to treat most illnesses. Evidence indicates these venerable healing practices existed in Egypt, China and India simultaneously.
Since then, chromotherapy’s scientific evolution has been well-documented.

Light therapy has regained momentum in the past few years because of consumers’ demands for natural alternatives to the mainstream medical industry’s reliance on pharmaceuticals. At the same time, more and more physicians are recognizing the benefits of chromotherapy and prescribing it for their patients.

For instance, here at Sci\ART we have received an increased number of orders from both doctors and their patients for our LED lights. Blue lights are being used to treat and prevent bacterial infections, including MRSA and acne. Red lights are effective in preventing hair loss and are also used to increase the rate of the healing process from wounds, varying from cuts and scrapes to diminishing scars. Green light heightens the immune system and works wonders to slow aging of the skin.

Read much more about how different colors have different applications at www.coloranalysis.com and then click on “Color & Light Therapy.” Better yet, plan to attend the two-day professional workshop that I will be teaching in St. Petersburg, Florida in the spring of 2010.

What you can learn about color and light therapy will illuminate this truism: When it comes to color, health and beauty are inseparable.

The incidence of MRSA infections continues to rise at an alarming rate in the United States.   According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 12 million people get checked for suspected MRSA – commonly known as “staph” – infections every year. Health care facilities, schools and fitness centers, for example, are fighting daily to prevent the spread of these potentially dangerous bacteria, which are increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

The problem has become so bad in hospitals that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, recently awarded $17 million to fund projects to fight MRSA and other healthcare-associated infections. MRSA contributes to the death of almost 100,000 patients every year and has an estimated cost of $30 billion to treat.

The National Institutes of Health offers useful information about how to reduce the spread of MRSA – formally termed methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus – that is helpful, especially as holidays approach. Not only will many of us find ourselves visiting with family and friends who have been in contact with other travelers, Thanksgiving and Christmas also are times when we visit loved ones who may be in a hospital or nursing home. Clearly, prevention is key to avoiding MRSA and everyone should practice the NIH’s recommendation for anti-MRSA hygiene. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/infectioncontrol.html

But if you or someone you know is unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with MRSA, you should know there are alternatives to the costly – and sometimes ineffective – regimen of penicillin-related antibiotics. The one that has the most momentum in the alternative medicine community is blue light therapy.

A study that was published in the April 2009 issue of the Journal of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy detailed how blue light killed more than 90 percent of the MRSA bacteria. The results of this scientific study are undeniable. Although no one can claim yet that blue light is a cure for MRSA, the results are very encouraging and provide a solid foundation for further research. (Read the entire study at Blue 470-nm Light Kills Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Vitro. )

The dosage of blue light that was used in the study is available at the precise amount in the LED and dichromatic lamps we sell at Sci\ART Global. The GE Dichro-Color Blue and the enLux Blue R30 LED Floodlight are two very popular ones. We have a number of doctors who help heal their patients with light therapy lamps they order from us.

In future blogs I’ll write about the principles of chromotherapy and how different colors have different healing qualities. Until then, keep in mind my mantra: When it comes to color, beauty and health are inseparable.

P.S. MRSA can also be contracted by animals.You can also contract MRSA from a pet or a visit to the vet’s office.Be careful!

Even though Virgil wrote his Trojan epic in Latin more than 2000 years ago, his insight holds true today. A person who needs the most informed advice about a specific topic should seek the counsel of an experienced full-time expert, as opposed to someone whose expertise is a part-time sub-speciality.

At Sci\ART Global, our business is color; it is our exclusive focus. We provide training and products to very successful companies that perform personal color analysis.  And

because Sci\ART specializes in color, we are constantly developing new color products. That gives our analysts a tremendous advantage, especially as the media constantly looks for something new to report about the very lucrative beauty industry.

An example such a product is our Bridal White Color Collection, which is an assortment of bridal fabrics color-coded into the 12-tones of personal color. The correct shade of white is what makes the perfect wedding gown for that most special occasion.  And the average $3,000 cost for a gown clearly justifies the modest investment for a personal color consultation to determine the perfect shade of white.

We offer the Sci\ART Bridal White Color Collection exclusively to our certified, fully-trained and fully-equipped color analysts. Some of them have been in the news spreading the word about the benefits of discovering the just-right white.

My friend and student Kim Mittelstadt of KM Impressions in San Antonio, Texas was interviewed recently in San Antonio Weddings magazine. In the article http://tiny.cc/fyVWM Kim says “ … brides need to understand that every skin tone is different and some shades work better with certain undertones than others.” Kim has more than two decades of experience in the image and makeup industry, and is Sci\ART-certified as a personal color analyst.

Another Sci\ART student whose success as an image consultant is skyrocketing is Lauren Battistini www.colormycloset.com. Lauren was featured recently on the Live Well HD Network cable television show Mirror/ Mirror. I recommend you view the episode at http://tiny.cc/j1Gb7 to gain a better visual understanding of the shade differences in whites. Darin Wright of Elea Black Cosmetics in Chattanooga also has an informative YouTube video about Bridal Whites color analysis at http://tiny.cc/Db6M.

At Sci\ART, we are working around-the-clock to develop the products and training programs that color analysts like Kim, Lauren and Darin use to accentuate the natural beauty in all their customers.

As for Virgil, in addition to wisely imploring his readers to place their trust in an expert, the poet also wrote in The Georgics that “Practice and thought might gradually forge many an art.” I agree with Virgil on both counts. At Sci\ART we toil daily to forge the art and science of color, and we value our customers’ trust in our expertise above all else.

Until next time, remember: When it comes to color, beauty and health are inseparable.

That vision is convenient – even flattering – but erroneous. The truth is I have used my research, experience, creativity and determination to develop my own color curriculum. That path was taken not by choice, but because there has been a remarkable unavailability of formal education about color. (Check out this article by Christopher Willard http://www.colormatters.com/willard.html. It was first published 11 years ago, but it accurately portrays the dearth of color education in academia at the time. Sadly, the situation may have actually worsened.)

I was introduced to the illusionary nature of color in a design class. It piqued my interest and I set out to learn more. I was disappointed to find there were no other courses to further my education about color. So, I began my independent research while continuing to work as an artist and as a professional colorist at Munsell. The Munsell Color System, of course, remains the gold standard for color communication, and it is the foundation upon which I began to build my studies about the science of color.

As I developed my own understanding of both the art and the science of color, I gained the confidence to do as my colleagues suggested – teach those who shared my love of color.  And it eventually resulted in my first book, Understanding Your Color — A Guide to Personal Color Analysis, as well as a very unique color curriculum.

By creating a curriculum that always relates color to human being, students who take my color courses are assured that they are the recipients of truly unique training.

My next “Color Mixing and Matching I” course will be held Nov. 14-16 in Homosassa, Florida. Details are available at http://www.coloranalysis.com/category_s/125.htm. If you’re curious about what a significant impact color has on you life, this will be an eye-opening experience. I hope to see you there.

Until then, always remember: When it comes to color, beauty and health are inseparable.

Lisa K. Ford and Lauren Battistini were featured in an article in The Tampa Tribune by columnist Jackie Silver. (Here is a link to that article, Feng Shui now extends to fashion, http://tiny.cc/u1sGa).

Both Lauren and Lisa have been expertly trained in personal color at my company. They have used that training as a key component in building their businesses and advising their clients about the importance of color in building image.

Lisa Ford is a certified image consultant who, along with many other image-building services, she offers combines color, style and proper fit to create wardrobes for her clients. Color is an essential element in her approach to image-building. You can learn more about Lisa’s business at www.inventyourimage.com.

Lauren Battistini owns Color My Closet, a professional color and wardrobe consulting firm based in Texas. On Lauren’s Web site (www.colormycloset.com) she explains to viewers that the proper use color can “create a visual facelift, wrinkle reduction, teeth whitening and weight reduction all in one!” Lauren goes on to say that skillful use of color can “shave 10 pounds and 10 years instantly.”

It is so gratifying for me to see true connoisseurs of color like Lisa and Lauren using the techniques they learned at Sci\Art, and that they are continuing to share them with a new generation of image-makers. Just as I was compelled to study to become an American Master Colorist so I could pass on what I learned at Munsell Color, it is fulfilling to know that the teachings of Albert Munsell and Johannes Itten are lighting the path for future colorists.

And, as more people realize every day, the power of color extends far beyond fashion. For instance, the use of red light therapy to rejuvenate skin and prevent hair loss is gaining scientific momentum daily. That may be of interest to Tribune columnist Jackie Silver, who also has written a book, Aging Backwards: Secrets to Staying Young. You can learn more about Jackie at www.agingbackwards.com.

Until next time, always remember: When it comes to color, beauty and health are inseparable.

Do you want to understand how color can improve your life? If you answered “yes,” then you’ll want to bookmark this site. This is where you will return to learn more about the life-sustaining qualities of color and how it can empower those who embrace its nature.

Whether you wish to use color to enhance your appearance or heal your body, you first must recognize this: While color most certainly is an art, it also is a science. I have spent my life developing the ability to understand the relationship between the two, and it is why I named my business Sci\ART Global when I started it in 2000.

You can read all about my background as an artist and colorist, as well about how Sci\ART has become the industry’s gold standard for educating and certifying color analysts worldwide, at www.coloranalysis.com. There also is useful information there about our services and products, as well as an overview of my book, Understanding Your Color – A Guide to Personal Color Analysis.

Viewers also can learn about how light and color therapy is gaining popularity as a holistic health practice and increasingly gaining respect in the mainstream medical community. (Check here for a few health care providers who think so: www.coloranalysis.com/category_s/177.htm)

It is my intention to use this blog as an educational tool that will raise awareness about these specialized applications of color, and to offer my expertise to help those who need it. It will include topics that are essential to  both existing and potential clients, and it also will include links to other World Wide Web sites that contain relevant information about color, light, science, art and even fashion.

As the dialogue develops, I am hopeful it will foster a greater appreciation about color and how it can be used every day to improve your life and the world around you.

I hope you’ll drop by frequently. But until the next time, always remember: When it comes to color, beauty and health are inseparable.