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A color's name carries with it a unique origin story, often revealing a tireless pursuit of beauty. What we know now as the reflection of light or a simple string of RGB codes, people once tried to recreate and possess through all kinds of methods. From a deadly tree resin in Cambodia to mucus made from thousands of sea snails in Lebanon to Swedish copper mines to ceramics in China, here are stories behind colors with unique names.
Quercitron
North America
It's not tech jargon, but a yellow dye extracted from the bark of Eastern Black Oak, a forest tree indigenous to North America. In the 18th century, the dusty, citrus yellow color came to light by grinding the stem numerous times and sifting through the fibrous matter.
Carmine Red
Oaxaca, Mexico
A little goosebump: Parasites may actually produce the bright red color in your lipstick. The pigment is created from clusters of female cochineal removed from cactus pads and dried, after which large amounts of carminic acid are extracted from their dead bodies. Carmine red has at least 2000 years of history in textile dying, and is now widely used in cosmetics and food coloring.
Phlox
North America
This radiant magenta color comes from the name of a flower most commonly found in eastern North America. Meaning "flame" in Greek, the name says everything about the vibrant clusters of flowers with sweet fragrance when in bloom.
Indigo Blue
Huaca Prieta, Peru
The blue on your denim jeans has a history that goes back as far as 6,200 years. The earliest evidence was found on fabric at a burial site. Historically, the stunning color was widely produced and used from South Asia and the Middle East to Central America. Ancient people turned dried indigo plant leaves mixed with lye into a dye and trading commodity known as blue gold.
Mountbatten Pink
England
The murky mauve is a naval camouflage color at its most effective during dawn and dusk and first used by Lord Louis Mountbatten in the British Royal Navy during World War II. The color's usefulness is controversial, however, as ships may attract more attention with reddish shade. But if the surname Mountbatten sounds familiar, he was a distant relative of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.
Feldgrau
Germany
The name means "field gray" in German, and it was the official color for military uniforms of the German army during World War II. Today, armies in Chile, Finland, Austria and other countries wear uniforms of this dark, gray-green.
Falu
Falun, Sweden
Redder than mahogany, darker than crimson, Falu red is the iconic color of Scandinavian houses. Its origin is the Swedish copper-mining city of Falun where the pigment is a by-product of the mining process, mixed with minerals and linseed oil. Now it is a common color for barns, since the dark, brownish-red paint absorbs the sun's rays, maximizing interior warmth during winter months.
Alabaster
Cairo
You can find this color in the Alabaster Mosque, where the creamy white reflects golden sunshine. Or you'll see it in sculptures of medieval saints, in which the soft white perfectly transcends the figures' solemnity and tenderness. The shade of white comes from calcite rock originally from Egypt, porous and soft enough to be carved into decorative arts and dyed into colors.
Tyrian Purple
Tyre, Lebanon
This reddish purple dates back to as early as 1200 B.C. in Phoenicia, today's Lebanon. The extremely laborious process to make the pigment from thousands of murex and sea snails makes the pigment expensive, and thus a symbol for wealth and power. In fact, only the Roman emperor could wear clothing made entirely using the color, and some elites and nobles could wear a stripe or border of it.
Gamboge
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Coming from gum resin of trees native to Cambodia, this sunny yellow has a foul past: in the mid-19th century, it was the major ingredient of a pill some British quack-physicians touted as cure-all, like snake oil. Nearly a dozen people died after overdosing on the laxative pills. Today the mustard yellow is most associated with the robes of Buddhist monks.
Celadon
Zhejiang, China
Celadon pottery, also known as "greenware," originated in the Song dynasty. In order to obtain the most prized shade closest to jade green, artisans must finely balance the amount of iron oxide and the temperature of the kiln.
