Colours

   I was looking at some catalogs a few weeks ago. I wanted to pick up a few nice,new things for spring. (Yes, it does eventually come.) I found two casual dresses that I really liked. The hard part of catalog shopping, at least for me, is picking out colours. The names don't really help. I narrowed it down to two choices, tropical teal and Persian rose. When I looked at the dresses it looked like one was a blue-green and the other was a dark hot pink.
  Who thinks up the names for these colours anyway? If there is a tropical teal, does that also mean there is an arctic teal? Maybe the arctic teal has more blue in it. I have looked at many roses in my life and I've never seen a Persian rose. Are roses in Persia really that colour? I always thought that Persia was a desert country so roses wouldn't grow there.
  I must admit I do like looking at the names of colours in catalogs. They tend to be creative. There isn't any red, blue or green. There's snapdragon, clear emerald and cobalt.
  I'm sure it is geared toward helping the clothes sell better. A pajama set in mountain lilac heather and paperwhite sounds so much prettier than pink and white. Doesn't soft moss sound better than pale green? Berry or merlot sounds a lot more elegant than dark red. It also sounds better when someone asks you the colour of the lovely sweater you are wearing. Wouldn't you rather say freesia instead of light purple? (By the way, I always thought freesias where white.)
  The challenge is with these creative colour names they really don't help you to know what colour something is. There's arugula, lemongrass and sea salt. I have no idea what arugula is. Lemongrass could either be green like grass or yellow like a lemon. I have some sea salt in a salt shaker and it looks white to me. The arugula is a dark green. The lemongrass is a lighter green. Sea salt looks like it is a pale tan colour. ( I wonder what is in my salt shaker?) Why is classic navy one colour and true navy another colour?
  There are also colours with different names that look alike to me. My favourite example of this is in the movie "Steel Magnolias". At the beginning of the movie there is a wedding and the bride describers her colours as 'blush' and 'bashful'. Her mother says that the colours are pink and pink. I can't tell the difference between rosewater and pink blush. India ink and black look the same to me. Classic navy and indigo also look alike as do coral rose and sunset rose.
   When my dresses arrived I got to see what colour they really were. Tropical teal is more green than blue and Persian rose looks a lot like red to me. It's all right. They'll match the white and navy (or is it true blue) sweaters that I bought in case I need more sleeve length. The sand coloured capris I bought fit the way they should. I should be able to wear several different colours of t- shirts under my multi blue coloured tunic top.
  I think my wardrobe is set. Now I just have to wait for the weather to warm up so I can wear my new clothes. Until then I'll just wear my orchid coloured turtleneck with the pearl grey sweater. (or is it pewter heather....I can never tell them apart.)