Inspirationail Colour School – Tints, Shades & Tones

Now that we’ve had the grand opening of the Inspirationail Colour School, covered the basics & taken a look at warm and cool tones it’s time to learn about tint, shade & tone. It may sound complicated, but it’s really easy to understand and we’ve included helpful graphics.

Understanding the Colour Wheel

Now that you have a much better understanding of the colour wheel and how it works, hopefully you feel comfortable playing with it. The concept of circles of colour growing exponentially makes us want to do some painting (or at least buy some varnish). Just a quick recap for those joining us for the first time. The colour wheel starts with three primary colours (red, yellow & blue) and the spectrum grows from there. Some of those colours are warm, like oranges & yellows, and others are cool, like blues & greens. Today’s lesson shows you how colours can be changed by adding varying amounts of neutral shades to them.

These terms are often confused with one another, but the concept is very simple.

Tints

Tinting a colour is when you lighten it by adding white. Eventually this creates soft, pastels and the lighter end of the spectrum.

Shades

Shading a colour is when you darken it by adding black. Eventually this creates, well, black. The colour continues to darken until it hits pitch.

Tones

Toning a colour is when you darken it by adding grey. The tone grows darker, but varies considerably from the shades which come from adding black.

In Conclusion

Yes, you can take your favorite colour and create thousands of similar colours to play with, just add white, black or grey. Understanding these concepts will be beneficial for more than just your nails. Being able to go a little darker, a little lighter or a little greyer to get the right look is very handy indeed.

Next Week’s Lesson

If you haven’t already, be sure to go check out the colour basics, warms & cools and stay tuned for next week’s lesson about combining colours.