The second in our two-part series on colour psychology looks at how you can create a bathroom colour scheme for your individual taste. Read the first part here.

Did you know that there are designers who eschew ephemeral trends and instead focus on creating colour schemes with personality in mind?

This is helpful, as it means that, instead of following a fad, you get a room that makes you feel truly at home.

Psychologist Angela Wright is credited with the theory that depending on our personality type, we lean more towards certain colour schemes. Of course, this concept isn’t entirely new. Carl Jung proposed four temperaments: sunshine yellow, earth green, cool blue and fiery red to describe our personalities. Wright decided to name her personality types after the seasons.

Sophie Robinson has really taken this approach to heart. The interior designer and TV judge is a big evangelist for styling according to your seasonal personality and even delivers courses on this topic.

Taking her work as inspiration, we’ve proposed the perfect bathroom colour schemes for each preference.

Spring personalities tend towards youthful pastels and tints. Their bathroom would consist of brightly coloured accents and they would adopt a neutral backdrop of cream and white. They would have a wall of art in the bathroom space as well as curated “shelfies” featuring their favourite products that might include jars of colourful trinkets and fresh flowers.

They’d also be tempted to place a natural rug on the floor. Doors and units would be light wood such as Meteor, Deauville or Messina and worktops would be crystalline, such as SMO™ Arctic Galaxy Gloss or Staron® Pebble Ice. If they’re feeling more daring, they might be inspired to choose vanity units in Gloss Pink or Kiwi.

Don’t be fooled by summer stereotypes – Summer often elicits images of garish fluorescent colour schemes because of holidays in tourist hotspots, but a summer personality is more in line with a Provençale landscape.

Colours for the summer aficionado are muted. They opt for pastels in blues, greens, lavenders and pinks.

Their bathroom would employ lighter pinks or mint greens, so Mulberry Gloss worktops would be ideal. If they’re feeling adventurous, then a Regal Blue or Fjord for the vanity unit would sit perfectly within their colour scheme. Accessories would be made of rattan or other natural materials with dried flowers and a large candle complementing the overall look.

Autumn personalities fit well with current trends towards darker, richer, warmer colour schemes. Reds, mustards and teals are essentials on the autumn palette, so they would love Ruby Red, Astral Blue and Burano for their units, and worktops would generate warmth in Nougat or Sahara. Autumn personalities are collectors who love cosiness and reminiscing, so their shelves would feature mementoes while the walls would host a montage of their favourite artists.

Winter personalities are uncompromising and they’re all for clean lines, bold imagery and strong contrasts. They love the primary colours combined with black. Pop art and works by Mondrian would not look out of place in their bathroom.

They’d combine night gloss worktops with Matt White cupboards, or else switch it round for Matt White worktops with Gloss Black cupboards. To make a bold statement, they may opt for Gloss Purple instead. They’d feature a large painting on the walls in the pop art style and accessorise with metallics. They may even feature a beautiful work of sculpture or two on the shelves.

It’s fair to say we all know what colours we like. That’s not the difficult part. What is trickier for homeowners is learning how to pair your colours so they don’t become an expensive disaster. With a little colour theory and a couple of tools, you can create your perfect colour scheme in minutes.

Tools such as coolors.co will allow you to easily choose colour schemes or upload a photo you like to create a colour scheme inspired by the image.

Here is some basic theory behind colour schemes to help you understand what’s going on.

Complementary

These are two colours that sit opposite each other on the colour wheel and make quite the impact. Bravery in this area is often rewarded. Autumn and winter personalities would enjoy a complementary scheme such as teal blue and orange. A spring personality may opt for yellow and purple.

Analogous

These colours sit next to each other on the colour wheel, for example, pink, purple and blue, or spring green, dark green and blue. These provide less of a contrast than a complementary scheme and so summer personalities may prefer it. This is also a great idea for a spring colour palette. 

Triadic 

If you draw a triangle on the colour wheel, you end up with your triad. The three primary colours and the three secondary colours are both good examples. These are bold and a little scary if you’re not used to combining colours, so this one is best left to the winter personalities to implement.

Monochromatic

Monochrome is ideal if you don’t enjoy working with colours. Monochromatic schemes take shades and tones of the same hue, so they naturally go together. Neutral bathrooms and black and white bathrooms are perfect examples of this. Use any colour in light and dark variations to get your bathroom colour combinations looking sleek.

Which colour schemes most resonate with you? Which colours are you too afraid to use?

Are colour personalities a helpful model for you to pick your bathroom décor? Let us know on Twitter (@AmbianceBainUK)