um… is that "blood" or "lipstick"?

September 18, 2014 7:04 AM

Writer Creates “Color Thesaurus” To Help You Correctly Name Any Color Imaginable
posted by flapjax at midnite (36 comments total)

But...isn't that what paint chips do? But more hilariously?
posted by Grandysaur at 7:09 AM on September 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

This is really cool, but I wish it were WAY BIGGER, at least for the browns and creams, so we could use it to get out of the "describe skin color as some kind of food" that so plagues fiction. Maybe a collaborative effort between lots of writers?
posted by NoraReed at 7:10 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

The worst thing about fanfic is when you can tell the writer was just gifted a thesaurus for christmas. It is unbearable. THIS WILL NOT HELP.

sob
posted by poffin boffin at 7:13 AM on September 18, 2014 [4 favorites]

I love reading great posts here on the Azure.
posted by cacofonie at 7:30 AM on September 18, 2014 [9 favorites]

See also
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:31 AM on September 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

The problem with this this kind of thing is that it has the potential to go very very wrong, as with the Lays Flavor Creation contest (Cappuccino potato chips, anyone?)
posted by holborne at 7:36 AM on September 18, 2014

That one calls Metafilter "Cerulean." AskMe is "Killarney" and MetaTalk is "Dim Gray."
posted by smackfu at 7:37 AM on September 18, 2014

(The link's not working for me for some reason. Here's a cache in case anyone else has the same problem.)
posted by Iridic at 7:41 AM on September 18, 2014

The other day somebody said metafilter was cerulean. The closest tile on my display is just blue, no modifier. The scale I use the most is the prismacolor scale. (My own box only has 120 but I see they have grown to 150 now.) On the prismacolor scale I make out metafilter as True Blue, #903. Anybody have a link to explaining the new 30 prismacolors?
posted by bukvich at 7:43 AM on September 18, 2014

For all you obsessive compulsives out there, MetaFilter is Bahama Blue.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 7:54 AM on September 18, 2014

"is that "blood" or "lipstick"?"

I'll take "Questions you ask your children after they outgrow 'Is that chocolate or poop on your face?'" for a thouand, Alex!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:59 AM on September 18, 2014 [6 favorites]

Not any color. They don't have a name for the missing shade of blue.
posted by oddman at 8:03 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Does J. Crew still use those goofy color names? Back when the catalog first came out I had a friend who was great at making up new names for them. My favorite was "scab".
posted by Room 641-A at 8:13 AM on September 18, 2014

Jesus, what a bunch of crap. Pantone has DONE this for, I don't know, decades now.
posted by jfwlucy at 8:28 AM on September 18, 2014

I said a "flesh colored" Cadillac, motherfucker.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:27 AM on September 18, 2014

This is the second mention of blood that has my blood up - what kind of blood? Currently bleeding mammal blood? Half-clotted blood? Cooked blood? (Never mind the blood of some reptiles and crustaceans. )

And if you can't remove blood stains from your hands then I am not sure I trust you in a kitchen.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 9:29 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

When I was in HS we got a catalog of gels and they all had really weirdly suggestive names, which was great, because we were teenagers.

None of the "ceruleans" are correct to me, because I think of cerulean as the color of cloudless, daytime New Mexico skies.
posted by NoraReed at 9:44 AM on September 18, 2014

This is just, like, someone's opinion. If you told me something was "fossil" or "fog", I wouldn't assume they were purple. According to the first person who described the color on the ColourLovers community, Metafilter is "Skinny Blue".
posted by bleep at 10:07 AM on September 18, 2014

OH MAN I FOUND THEM

they aren't quite as suggestive as I remember but "dominant lavender", "submissive lavender", "whiskey tint", "fatherless amber" and "sailor's delight" are still pretty good.

A lot of makeup companies have really great names for their stuff but don't actually do a very good job of describing what they are (I think this is a problem with most color lists though): Urban Decay, Mac, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics.
posted by NoraReed at 10:22 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

OPI was really outstanding for years, but I think they're wearing out.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 10:37 AM on September 18, 2014

I realize this is just meant as a tool for one writer, and isn't really intended to be definitive or anything. That said:

Sand castles are not a different color from sand

Banana is the color of the inside of a banana???

Only pink lemonade is pink. Regular lemonade is (pale) yellow

Why is salt so dark? Does she only eat sel gris or something?

Tiger is not a color, it's a pattern. Describing something as tiger evokes stripes

However, bumblebee is okay as an unstriped yellow. Not sure why

Sandstone varies too much in color to be a useful descriptor

She spelled fuchsia wrong

I completely reject "spider" as a color

posted by aubilenon at 11:25 AM on September 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

I strongly feel that the author of a color thesaurus should properly spell fuschia.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:27 AM on September 18, 2014

AV! You got it wrong too!

But "Nobody can spell fuchsia" is one of the conclusions from the XKCD color survey.

Spelling tip: Fuchsia is named after a guy named Fuchs.
posted by aubilenon at 11:38 AM on September 18, 2014 [6 favorites]

The actual author's blog post. Bored Panda basically scraped her entire material.
posted by Rumple at 11:42 AM on September 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

This post's title is misleading, as clearly all of these colors are "lipstick" shades. ALL OF THEM.
posted by nicebookrack at 11:45 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Some immoderate proposals:

Gangreen
Seasick
Recycled Grocery Shopping Bag
Xenon Headlight
Earl Scheib Cheapo Powder Blue
Tattered blue plastic shopping bag hanging in a tree in February
Lips on a six year old who's stayed in the pool too long
Tidy Bowl
Prose Purple
Phlegm
Coors
Yellow Jacket
Couscous
Circus Peanut
International New Black
Sodium Vapour
Pontiac Aztek (Formerly: Checker Marathon)
Poison Ivy (not the leaves: the rash)
Urinal Cake
Barbie
Catstongue
Compensation*
No Station (mono)
No Station (RGB)
Stainless Steel Kitchen
Maggot
Band-aid that matches no-one
Guiness Stout
Moiré
Fyooshaw



* This is the precise shade of red of the sports car you buy at 55 because you couldn't afford it at 25 when it was first marketed to you.
posted by Herodios at 11:47 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

This post's title is misleading, as clearly all of these colors are "lipstick" shades. ALL OF THEM.

Okay, I concede "spider" could be a shade of lipstick.
posted by aubilenon at 11:58 AM on September 18, 2014

Slaughte Red
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:01 PM on September 18, 2014

Meant to be a joke, aubilenon :-/
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:37 PM on September 18, 2014

Oops, sorry!
posted by aubilenon at 12:41 PM on September 18, 2014

Nobody can spell fuchsia is one of the best jokes on mankind, really.

I think the best thing to do is to pronounce it fyooks-iahhhhh with a nice open Aaaahhhh to really underline that you're having a wee safari in the glass house of your pseudo-Victorian scientistic mind. "Ah, the fyooksiahs are peeking from just beyond the cardoons, aren't they just too heady?"
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:47 PM on September 18, 2014

Blood or lipstick? I like a woman with both.
posted by klangklangston at 1:08 PM on September 18, 2014

...a fourth, never-before seen primary color has been discovered. This color has already been named by its discoverer, Dr. Wohan Squant. With a distinctly questionable view of posterity, he has named the fourth primary color "squant"...

Photos

Troubleshooting Guide for the way-out-of-date Squant-viewing Plug-in
posted by not_on_display at 2:20 PM on September 18, 2014

Of course "spider" is a lipstick color!

Also available: Black Widow
posted by nicebookrack at 5:48 PM on September 18, 2014

okay I was thinking "hmm what color would that be" not "let me look at someone who has managed to use illusionary makeup magic to paint a BIG FUCKING SPIDER ON THEIR FACE"

aaaaa
posted by NoraReed at 6:09 PM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Of course "spider" is a lipstick color!

That would be even more apropos if I had made that other joke I was considering: "Spider is not a color. It's a flavor!!!"
posted by aubilenon at 9:36 AM on September 19, 2014