Long before I could explain it, chartreuse was already finding me.
I would reach for it in a store without thinking. Notice it first in a room. Feel pulled toward it the way you feel pulled toward something that already belongs to you — with a magnetic force I couldn’t name and didn’t try to. It just kept showing up, and I kept saying yes.
It took years before I understood what was happening. I wasn’t just gravitating toward a color. I was gravitating toward a version of myself. The bold one. The unhidden one. The one who takes up the space she was given and fills it completely.
Now I choose chartreuse deliberately. It is my signature color — not by accident, not by trend, but by decision. And every time I put it on, it reminds me of the promise I’ve made to myself: don’t shrink. Don’t hide. Show up fully.
“Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.”
Matthew 5:15
This verse has lived in me for a long time. The idea that your light — your gifts, your presence, your whole self — was never meant to be covered. It was meant to illuminate. Too many of us, especially women, spend years making ourselves smaller. Quieter. More palatable. At some point, something in you says: enough.
Chartreuse is my answer to that call. It is not a subtle color, and that is the entire point. You cannot put on chartreuse and then disappear into the background. It will not let you. I chose it as my signature precisely because, when I need that reminder, I can be cloaked in it, see it in my shoes, or wear it on another accessory.
“I wasn’t just gravitating toward a color. I was gravitating toward a version of myself.”
Now, I want to talk about skin. Because one of the most common things I hear when people see me in chartreuse is that it looks extraordinary against brown skin. And it does. That electric yellow-green against deep melanin has a luminosity that stops people mid-sentence. I will never get tired of it.
But here is what I have also noticed after years of wearing this color in every kind of room: I have never seen chartreuse look bad on anyone. Fair skin, deep skin, warm undertones, cool undertones — it gives something beautiful back to every complexion it meets. That generosity is part of why I love it. It is not an exclusive color. It welcomes everyone.
“I have never seen chartreuse look bad on anyone. It has a generosity to it.”
Midlife has made me more deliberate about everything — time, energy, relationships, and yes, the colors I wrap myself in. Chartreuse is woven into Simply Marvelous Living not as a branding decision but as a genuine expression of what this whole life is about: living fully, beautifully, and on your own terms.
If you have been thinking about finding your own signature — your color, your word, your way of showing up — I want to encourage you. It doesn’t have to be chartreuse. It just has to be yours. Something that calls you forward. Something that won’t let you hide.
Put your light on the stand. Let it give light to everyone in the house.
Style & Identity · Simply Marvelous Living
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