Sat, October 3 • 9:00 am-2:00 pm PDT • Live on Zoom Members free • Everyone else $49
See what light is doing to your color analysis — before it costs you a client
Five hours with four CDI color experts on eyes, hair, skin and the room you work in. One Saturday. Live on Zoom. Free for CDI Members, $49 for everyone else.
Saturday, October 3, 2026 • 9:00 am PDT • 12:00 pm EDT • 5:00 pm BST • 6:00 pm CEST
Saturday, October 3, 2026
9:00 am PDT • 12:00 pm EDT • 5:00 pm BST • 6:00 pm CEST
What you’ll walk away with
A studio setup that stops quietly distorting your results — walls, mirror, backdrop, what you wear.
The language to explain why the same client reads differently in Oslo and in Maui — and why that is physics, not error.
A master-level script for the “should I keep coloring it or go grey?” conversation you get asked every week.
A way to read the iris — limbal ring, spokes, flecks, halo — that most color systems skip entirely.
YOUR SEAT
Free for CDI Members
$49 for non-members — no membership required, everyone is welcome.
Takes about a minute. Members still need to register – we’ll email you to confirm your spot and send the Zoom link.
Four experts. One question: what is light doing?
Alessandra Ambrosini
The room is the invisible variable
Jennifer Schuettenhelm
Daylight, latitude and skin optics
Mary Kasa
Hair pigment, grey and the colour conversation
Jennifer Kaufman
The hidden language of eye colour
The Schedule
9 am - 9:15 am — Welcome
9:15 am - 10 am — The Invisible Variable: creating a neutral environment for accurate color analysis
Allessandra Ambrosini • Shape Your Style, Scotland
Wall colors, backgrounds, lighting and mirror quality can all distort a reading. Alessandra walks through what actually belongs in a professional color studio — and what is quietly skewing everyone else’s results.
- Why color perception is relative, never absolute
- How surrounding colors and contrast distort what you see
- Practical guidelines for a neutral studio setup
10:15 am - 11:30 am — Dancing with Daylight: global light dynamics and the multifaceted nature of skin
Jennifer Schuttenhelm • SciArt and Caygill trained
The same skin does not look the same in Norway and in Maui, and that is not your camera. Pigment, collagen, epidermal thickness and subsurface scattering, under light that changes by latitude, season and hour.
- How daylight shifts by latitude, season, time of day and atmosphere
- The optics of skin — pigment, collagen, thickness, the Tyndall effect
- How to explain human variation to a client without guessing
11:30 am - 12 pm — Break — grab a bite, move around
12 pm - 12:45 pm — Shining a Light on Hair Color: an advanced masterclass for seasonal color designers
Mary Kasa · Master Hair Artist, founder of MKExpressions
Skin and eyes you can read. Hair that has faded, greyed, or been colored three times over is a different problem. Mary covers the physics of hair pigment, the science of aging hair, and the exact words to use when a client asks whether to keep coloring.
- Design a hair palette from skin and eye pigment alone
- Why some clients go salt and pepper while redheads turn blonde
- Why color pulls red or gold, and covering grey without warmth
- Master-level language for the “color it or let it go” conversation
1 pm - 1:45 pm — The Hidden Language of Eye Color
Jennifer Kaufman · Gwenath Chase Atelier
Most people think eye color is blue, brown, green or hazel. It isn’t. What you see is biology, structure and light interacting — which is why the same eye reads differently from one room to the next, and why dark eyes hold complexity most systems never name.
- Find the hidden colors and undertones inside the iris
- Read iris patterns instead of settling for a color label
- Turn what you see into contrast and palette decisions
1:45 pm - 2 pm — General Q & A and Wrap-up
Millions of changes in light happen from daybreak to twilight, but thankfully we don’t experience these changes moment by moment. Instead, we take only what is useful and ignore the rest.
Arielle & Joann Eckstut, What is Color?
Five hours of advanced color education for $49. Or nothing at all, if you’re a member.
Registration closes when we go live on October 3.