Lavender (color)

Updated on Nov 18, 2023

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Hex triplet #E6E6FA CMYK (c, m, y, k) (8, 8, 0, 2) Source X11		sRGB (r, g, b) (230, 230, 250) HSV (h, s, v) (240°, 8%, 98%)

Similar Lilac (color), Purple, Periwinkle (color)

Lavender is a pale tint of purple. It applies particularly to the color of the flower of the same name. The web color called lavender is displayed at right—it matches the color of the very palest part of the lavender flower; however, the more saturated color shown below as floral lavender more closely matches the average color of the lavender flower as shown in the picture and is the tone of lavender historically and traditionally considered lavender by the average person as opposed to those who are web site designers. The color lavender might be described as a medium purple or a light pinkish purple. The term lavender may also be used in general to apply to a wide range of pale, light, medium, or grayish purple colors, as well as some pale or light pinkish, magenta, or purple colors as well as some pale or light blueish-indigo colors. In paints, the color lavender is made by mixing purple and white paint.

The first recorded use of the word lavender as a color term in English was in 1705.

Historical development of the concept of the color

Originally, the name lavender only applied to flowers. By 1930, the book A Dictionary of Color identified three major shades of lavender—[floral] lavender, lavender gray, and lavender blue, and in addition a fourth shade of lavender called old lavender (a dark lavender gray) (all four of these shades of lavender are shown below). By 1955, the publication of the ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names (a color dictionary used by stamp collectors to identify the colors of stamps), now on the Internet, listed dozens of different shades of lavender. Today, although the color floral lavender (the color of the flower of the lavender plant) remains the standard for lavender, just as there are many shades of pink (light red, light rose, and light magenta colors), there are many shades of lavender (some light magenta, some light purple, [mostly] light violet [as well as some grayish violet], and some light indigo colors).

Lavender blush

Displayed at right is the web color lavender blush. It is a pale pinkish tone of lavender.

Lavender mist (web color Lavender)

The color designated as the web color lavender is a very pale tint of lavender that in other (artistic) contexts may be described as lavender mist.

Languid lavender

Displayed at right is the color languid lavender. The source of this color is the Plochere Color System, a color system formulated in 1948 that is widely used by interior designers.

Lavender gray

The historical name for this color is lavender gray. It is listed in A Dictionary of Color as one of the three major variations of lavender in 1930 along with lavender blue (shown below) and [floral] lavender (also shown below). (This book also designates a fourth shade of lavender, called old lavender, also shown below). This color is similar to Prismacolor colored pencil PC 1026, Greyed Lavender.

Sample of lavender gray: ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names (1955)—Color sample of lavender gray (color sample #213):

Soap

The color soap is displayed at right. Soap is a color formulated by Crayola in 1994 as one of the colors in its Magic Scent specialty box of colors.

This color is a representation of soap scented with lavender, one of the most popular scents for soap.

Pale lavender

At right is displayed the pale tint of lavender shown as lavender in sample 209 in the ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names.

Lavender blue

Lavender blue was listed in A Dictionary of Color as one of the three major variations of lavender in 1930 along with lavender gray (shown above) and [floral] lavender (shown below). It is identified as being the same color as periwinkle. The first use of the term lavender blue as a color term was in 1926.

Light lavender (wisteria)

The color wisteria is displayed at right. Wisteria, a light medium violet color is equivalent to light lavender.

The Prismacolor colored pencil PC 956, which used to be called light violet and is now called lilac (the actual color of the colored pencil is equivalent to wisteria rather than lilac) is this color.

Wisteria in this exact shade is one of the Crayola crayon colors on the list of Crayola crayon colors. It was formulated as a Crayola color in 1993. The first recorded use of wisteria as a color name in English was in 1892.

Pink lavender

The color pink lavender is displayed at right.

The source of this color is the "Pantone Textile Paper eXtended (TPX)" color list, color #14-3207 TPX—Pink Lavender.

Lavender pink

After the introduction of the Munsell color system, in which purple, described as equivalent to red-violet is described as one of the five psychological primary colors along with red, yellow, green, and blue, some people began to think of lavender as being somewhat more pinkish color. This color can be described as lavender pink or pale pinkish-purple when purple is defined as equivalent to red-violet as artists do.

This tone of lavender, displayed at right, is the color designated as lavender (color #74) in the list of Crayola crayon colors.

Before 1958, the color shown below as medium lavender gray and now called purple mountain majesty by Crayola was called lavender in Crayola crayons.

Medium lavender magenta (web color plum)

At right is displayed the color medium lavender magenta which is equivalent to the web color version of plum (pale plum).

This color may be regarded both as a tone of lavender since it is a light color between rose and blue and as a light medium tone of magenta because its red and blue values are equal (the color signature of a tone of magenta for computer display).

Heliotrope

The color heliotrope is shown at right. Another name for this color is psychedelic lavender because this color was a popular color often used in the hippie psychedelic poster art of the late 1960s for the Fillmore Auditorium and the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco that were and are sold in the head shops of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. These posters were drawn and produced by such artists as Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Rick Griffin, and Victor Moscoso. Images of psychedelic posters:

Lavender (floral)

At right is displayed the color Lavender (floral). This color matches the color shown as "lavender" (viewed under a full-spectrum fluorescent lamp) in the 1930 book A Dictionary of Color (reference below), the world standard for color names before the introduction of computers. This color may also be called floral lavender. It is a medium violet.

This tone of lavender would be the approximate color you would get if you mix 50% violet paint and 50% white paint.

This tone of lavender may be regarded as actual lavender and the other tones displayed in this article can be regarded as all variations on this shade.

This lavender also closely matches the color given as lavender in a basic purple color chart.

Amethyst

The color amethyst is a moderate, transparent violet. Its name is derived from the stone amethyst, a form of quartz.

The first recorded use of amethyst as a color name in English was in 1572.

Though the color of natural amethyst varies from purple to yellow, the amethyst color referred to here is the moderate purple color most commonly associated with amethyst stones. There is disagreement as to the cause of the purple color of the amethyst stone. Some believe that the color is due to the presence of manganese, while others have suggested that the amethyst color could be from ferric thiocyanate or sulfur found in amethyst stones.

Deep lavender (web color medium purple)

Displayed at right is the web color medium purple which is equivalent to deep medium violet or deep lavender.

Lavender purple (purple mountain majesty)

Displayed at right is the color purple mountain majesty, a Crayola color since 1993. This color may be regarded as a medium lavender gray.

This color was the color called lavender in Crayola crayons before 1958, when Crayola switched to calling the color shown above as lavender pink as being lavender. See the website "Lost Crayola Crayon Colors". Because of that, another name for this color is lavender purple.

This color is a representation of the way mountains look when they are far away.

English lavender

Displayed at right is the color English lavender.

English lavender is a medium light tone of grayish pinkish lavender.

The source of this color is the "Pantone Textile Paper eXtended (TPX)" color list, color #17-3617 TPX—English Lavender.

Twilight lavender

The color twilight lavender is displayed at right. Twilight lavender is a color formulated by Crayola in 1990 as one of the colors in its Silver Swirls specialty box of metallic colors.

Although this is supposed to be a metallic color, there is no mechanism for displaying metallic colors on a computer.

Old lavender

The dark lavender gray color displayed at right is called old lavender. It is a dark grayish violet.

The first recorded use of old lavender as a color name in English was in the year 1924.

The source of this color is color sample #228 at the following website: —The ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Colo(u)r Names (1955), a website for stamp collectors to evaluate the colors of their stamps.

Culture

The color described above as [true] lavender or floral lavender or the color described above as lavender magenta may both be used to symbolize decadence, in the sense of a lifestyle devoted to aesthetic sensual enjoyment of sex, drugs, and rock and roll music (according to taste, some may prefer opera or classical music), sumptuous art with rich colors and complex Byzantine-like designs, rich gourmet food, and fine wine. The 1980 book Decadence: The Strange Life of an Epithet by Richard Gilman has a book jacket colored floral lavender and the interior paper of the inside front and back covers of the book is colored floral lavender. The tops of the pages are tipped in the color floral lavender. The 1972 book Dreamers of Decadence by Philippe Jullian (about the Symbolist movement in art in the late 1800s in Europe) has the spine of the book jacket colored the color described above as lavender magenta. [4]

In the formal rules of mourning dress in Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian Britain, lavender was one of the few colors generally considered acceptable for women's clothing during the period of half-mourning, during which the bereaved was considered to still be in mourning and required to dress in sober, muted tones, but was not expected to wear the all-black garments of full mourning.

Lavender roses are symbolic of "love at first sight".

Film

The Lavender Hill Mob is a 1951 British comedy film.

Food

Purple yams are colored ube and in the Tagalog language of the Philippines these yams are called "ube". (To see a picture of a purple yam, go to: ))

Fraternities and sororities

Lavender, along with maroon, is one of the official colors of Sigma Kappa.

LGBT

Just as in the 1890s mauve symbolized homosexuality, the tone of lavender described above as [true] lavender or floral lavender became the symbol of homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s. The first usage was in the 1920s to indicate an effeminate style. Seán O'Casey wrote in 1928, "I am very sorry...that I have hurt the refined sentimentalities of C. W. Allen by neglecting to use the lavender...language of the 18th and 19th centuries." Cole Porter's 1929 song "I'm a Gigolo," went: "I'm a famous gigolo, And of lavender, my nature's got just a dash in it." A 1935 dictionary of slang reported "streak of lavender," meant an effeminate man or a sissy, a term used in 1926 by Carl Sandburg to describe young Abraham Lincoln. In the 1960s, homophiles were sometimes referred to as the lavender boys (this term is still used by some people [both gay and non-gay] to refer to gays). A lavender convention is a convention of homosexuals. A heterosexual who has some homosexual tendencies is described as someone with a dash of lavender. In the 1970s pink became more often associated with homosexuality because of the use of the pink triangle as a symbol of gay liberation. However, gays of the baby boom generation still think of lavender as the gayest color. According to some sources, the reason lavender symbolizes homosexuality is because it is the color that is obtained when you mix pink (the color symbolizing girls) with baby blue (the color symbolizing boys). [5]

Lavender roses are sometimes given by LGBTs to each other on Valentine's Day or may be given to those entering into a same-sex marriage.

A Lavender marriage is a marriage between a man and a woman in which one, or both, parties are, or are assumed to be, homosexual. Usually, but not always, both parties are assumed to be complicit in a public deception to hide their homosexuality (although in some lavender marriages, the marriage partners may be bisexual).

In the bandana code of the gay leather subculture, wearing a lavender bandana symbolizes that you have a fetish for dressing in drag.

Lavender is the name of a LGBT magazine in Minnesota.

The Lavender Dragon Society was a club for gay Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

There was a gay bookstore called the Lavender Dragon in Menlo Park, California in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The Lavender Families Resource Network, formerly known as the Mothers' National Defense Fund, was a Seattle-based organization started in 1974 with the aim to provide lesbian and bisexual women with resources and information relating to child-rearing, custody and adoption issues, and donor insemination.

Lavender Graduation is an event that occurs annually at many colleges and universities where LGBT students get their own graduation ceremony to celebrate their identities and achievements.

The study of language used specifically by LGBT speakers is known as lavender linguistics.

Literature

Lavender and Old Lace is a novel by Myrtle Reed published in 1902.

The Lavender Dragon is the name of a 1923 Fantasy novel by Eden Phillpotts which is an "Ironic mock-medieval romance in which a benevolent dragon steals lonely humans to populate his utopian community, in spite of the attempts of knights errant to keep them in a world ruled by intolerance and injustice. A delightful exercise in inverted perspective."

Lavender Brown is a character in the popular Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling.

Medicine

A lavender ribbon symbolizes general cancer awareness.

Music

"Lavender Blue", originally an English folk song dating to the 17th century. This song became very popular during the 1950s rock and roll era, when it was sung by Solomon Burke. A hit version of the song, sung by Burl Ives, was featured in the Walt Disney movie So Dear to My Heart.

"Lavender" is a song by Marillion on the album Misplaced Childhood. It quotes the folk song "Lavender Blue" in its lyrics.

Politics

United States Patriots, who are advocates of gay liberation, point out that if you mix red, white, and blue, you get lavender.

The lavender scare refers to the fear and persecution of homosexuals in the 1950s in the United States, which paralleled the anti-communist campaign known as McCarthyism.

A synonym used for the original gay liberation movement which began in 1969 is referring to the movement as the lavender revolution.

During the 1960s feminism movement, lesbians were rejected by then head of the National Organization for Women, Betty Friedan, calling them the "Lavender Menace". These lesbian radical feminists adopted the name for their own informal group, consisting of many members of the Gay Liberation Front.

The Lavender Panthers was a gay rights activist group in San Francisco during the early 1970s, led by the Reverend Ray Broshears.

The GLBTIQ caucus of the United States Green Party is the Lavender Greens.

Religion

In Theosophy and the Ascended Master Teachings (a group of religions based on Theosophy), since the color violet represents the deity St. Germain, and lavender is simply a light tone of violet, lavender as well as violet objects may be placed on the altar to St. Germain.

The Christian holiday of Easter is represented by lavender and yellow because the crocus flower, which is lavender and yellow, blooms in Europe in the spring.

Television

The 1999 Gerry Anderson series Lavender Castle portrays the color lavender as very peaceful, describing Lavender Castle as a place "where peace exists, hopes are met, and dreams come true".

References

Lavender (color) Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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