Oneiric: Essence or Subtype?
Is “Oneiric” the eighth style essence?
My view is no.
I think Oneiric can be considered an optional style essence subtype.
But to look your best, you don’t need to know if you have Oneiric.
Here’s why:
What is Oneiric Beauty?
“Oneiric” has been defined as a type of surreal, haunting beauty—allegedly similar to, but more intense than, Ethereal; yet not intense enough to be Dramatic.
Celebrities who have been recognized as having Oneiric include Rooney Mara, Irina Shayk, and Rila Fukushima.
Rooney Mara
Irina Shayk
Rila Fukushima
Other examples include Ruth Negga, Kristen Stewart, and Daniel Radcliffe.
Is Oneiric Real?
Do I think Oneiric beauty exists?
I do! I agree that certain celebrities, like Rooney Mara, have surreal, haunting beauty.
But, just because a physical quality exists, doesn’t make it a style essence.
This is because we can describe people in many different ways beyond what is captured by essences. For instance, people can have brown or blue eyes, but there isn’t a Brown Eyes style essence or a Blue Eyes style essence.
So, the question isn’t, is Oneiric a real quality?
The better question is, is it accurate to call Oneiric a style essence?
I’d say no, for the following reasons:
Why Oneiric isn’t an Essence
The main reason I don’t consider Oneiric an essence is that the fashion and facial features assigned to Oneiric are already fully accounted for by various other essences and essence blends:
Oneiric Lacks Unique Fashion
For instance, Oneiric fashion has been described as being either straight and stiff or long and draped.
But, we already have separate essence categories for people who can wear these kinds of silhouettes: Dramatics (or Gamines or Classics) can wear straight and stiff; Ethereals can wear long and draped.
And we already have blended categories for people who can wear both straight and draped, such as Ethereal Dramatic.
Similarly, the visual examples I’ve seen of Oneiric fashion include a variety of styles, all of which can already be accounted for by the existing essences, such as tiered skirts (Ingenue) or wide (Natural) silhouettes combined with sheer (Ethereal) fabrics.
So, when it comes to fashion, Oneiric doesn’t function adequately as a new or unique essence, because it completely overlaps with what already exists in the seven essence system.
Additionally, when I’ve virtually draped people like Rooney Mara in Oneiric fashion, I find that the blend I’ve assigned to her, Ethereal Gamine, is more flattering on her than Ethereal Gamine Oneiric fashion.
This makes sense, since Oneiric fashion appears to include elements from many of the existing seven essences (especially Ethereal, Dramatic, Natural, and Ingenue).
The result is that Oneiric fashion as a whole doesn’t ideally harmonize with most people, since most people don’t have high amounts of more than two or three essences.
Oneiric Lacks Unique Facial Features
Similarly, Oneiric facial features combine features that are already accounted for by the other style essences, like having horizontal brows (this can be Classic or any of the “yang” essences) combined with large, protruding-seeming eyes (such eyes are often Ethereal).
So, from a style essences perspective, Oneiric isn’t a necessary descriptor of fashion or faces—the other essences already account for Oneiric’s qualities.
Oneiric is Real—It’s Just not an Essence
To clarify, I do think Oneiric beauty is real, and that there are people who have this type of moody, haunting look.
But not all physical characteristics fit the criteria of a style essence (e.g., people can have green eyes, but there isn’t a Green Eyes essence).
And in the style analysis system that I use, the core essences are defined by having specific fashions and facial features that correspond to those essences and that aren’t reducible to other essences.
So, based on that criteria, Oneiric doesn’t fit with the other seven as a core essence, since Oneiric’s fashion and facial features are fully accounted for by combinations of the core seven.
What is Oneiric?: Possibilities
So, Oneiric is real—we may see it on the faces of people like Rooney Mara—yet it doesn’t fit the criteria of being a core style essence.
So, what is it?
Some possibilities:
Oneiric could be a combination of existing essences (such as Ethereal combined with Natural, Dramatic, Gamine, or potentially any other essence).
Oneiric could be a subtype of one of the existing essences (such as an Ethereal subtype with facial features that read as being on the more intense side of Ethereal).
Oneiric could be an interaction between color season and essence.
What is Oneiric?: Season and Style Essences
Of these views, the one I favor is that Oneiric seems to reflect having a particular personal color palette—often moody, deep, smoky, or moderate to high contrast, while simultaneously having a soft or muted quality—that feels, as people have said, like an intense version of Ethereal. Like a moody, brooding, gorgeously haunting dream.
Oneirics often have Ethereal but don’t necessarily need to have it. Sometimes other essence and season combinations can create an Oneiric feel.
Practical Implications?
I think it can be theoretically interesting to know if you have an Oneiric vibe.
But from a practical perspective, I don’t think it’s necessary to know.
Since Oneiric is (in my view) an interaction between essence and season, then if you’re an Oneiric, you’ll simply want to dress by both your season and your style essences (from within the core seven). This will ensure that you’re wearing the fashion that flatters you, in the colors that flatter you.
So, you don’t actually need to know if you have Oneiric to look your best.
Additionally, viewed from the lens that Oneiric is a combination of essence and season, I’m not sure that there’s any kind of objective way to say that someone definitively is Oneiric. This is because I don’t think there's any objectively-based consensus on what seasons and essence combinations can read as Oneiric.
I think it’s fine if people determine Oneiric based on subjective measures—I don’t think subjectivity is inherently bad.
But my aim for style analysis is to make it as objective as possible, based on the lines, lengths, and resulting figurative vibes that we see in fashion and faces.
So again, Oneiric doesn’t fit well as a core essence.
Conclusion
In summary, I respect views that consider Oneiric its own essence.
But if I’m being truthful, then this doesn’t reflect what my eyes see—I do think that the Oneiric beauty type is real, but I perceive it as a combination of color season and style essence, rather than an essence of its own.
Future posts will likely not discuss Oneiric much, because I don’t want to create confusion by extensively using the term in a way that may not reflect its standard usage.
However, future posts might further discuss interactions between season and essence, and how people with the same style type can differ in vibe based on color season.
Makeup posts are coming up next! : )
P.S.
Another way to think about whether Oneiric is its own essence is to consider that some people define Oneiric as the space between Ethereal and Dramatic—not as gentle as Ethereal, not as intense as Dramatic.
But does this definition work? One potential issue with it is that the space between Ethereal and Dramatic is the blunt-edged Natural space. So, if we’re talking about an essence in between Ethereal and Dramatic, I agree that one exists, but in my opinion, it’s Natural!:
The chart you may be very sick of, that we’ve been discussing this past month… in the seven essences system, Natural occupies that hard-to-define blunt-edged space in between Ethereal and Dramatic.
And there’s another problem with defining Oneiric as a “more intense” or “more powerful” version of Ethereal.
Namely, Ethereal in itself can look extremely powerful, and we don’t need another essence to account for that.
As discussed when exploring Ethereal’s best colors, Ethereal is often stereotyped as extremely gentle
And that stereotype has a lot of truth to it—gentleness is an obvious quality of many Ethereals.
But, that stereotype really only reflects one side of the essence.
Nearly everyone seems to recognize Ethereal as representing angelic, supernatural-feeling beauty—and what’s more powerful and intense than a supernatural being? So to categorize Ethereal as extremely gentle, and not capable of appearing powerful or intense, doesn’t seem to reflect the full reality of the essence’s core defining features.
We see this in blended type, too, like the Ethereal Natural Classic blend—on those faces, you can often see that Ethereal takes on a kind of deep, penetrating, staring-into-your-soul type beauty. The Ethereal essence goes beyond merely “gentle.”
So, I think many celebrities who others call “Oneiric”, we could accurately call “Ethereal with a moody or smoky color season—often a deeper color season than that of the stereotypical Ethereal.”
Conclusion Again
In conclusion, I do think there are people who possess dreamy, haunting beauty that feels similar to, yet more intense than, the stereotypical Ethereal vibe.
But in my view, we don’t need a new essence, or new fashion or facial feature categories, to capture Oneiric beauty. The existing seven essences (especially when we consider color season) have it covered!
