Color Names Nail Polish and Cars
Cosmetic and Automobile Companies Color Names Reflect Culture
Nail polish and car manufacturers have color names that reflect current events and current culture. Cosmetics and De Soto car color naming strategies are compared.
Have you ever taken the time to read the names of various cosmetic colors? A random sampling of a nail polish collection yielded a bounty of intriguing and esoteric names such as: Dazzling, Shausha, Glitzy Stars, Sweet Dreams, The “It” List.
Nail Polish Colors
Then there are the color names that actually give you a hint as to their hue: Plum Pudding, Eggplant Frost, Luxury Lime Crème, Black Lace, Citrine Cheer. Allegedly, color naming marketers have been influenced by coffee shops and cooking tv programs and have started giving their products names with a foodie flair such as, Espresso Black, Salsa Red, Black Licorice and Cool Vanilla.
OPI’s nail polish colors are famous for their quality, and their fun, imaginative names. Some of them are esoteric, such as: Don’t Socra-Tease Me, I’m Not Really a Waitress, Lincoln Park After Dark, and Did Someone Say PARTY! Names with color hints include: Aphrodite’s Pink Nightie, Fiji Weegee Fawn, Melon of Troy, and Pistol Packin’ Pink. OPI is so aware of how hip their names are, they even have a nail polish color called Who Comes Up With These Names? Answer: Someone very, very clever. These names make consumers want to buy them to be cool by association, self included. Check out OPI here. (Ignore the lady on the front page of this website who appears to be using a piece of driftwood as a telephone.)
Car Color Names
From a website that features all paint colors from all vehicles ever manufactured, some historical car color names give us insight as to the convention of naming colors.
In 1940, the American car company De Soto’s blue cars were Hawaiian Blue and Bimini Blue. Perhaps the Hawaiian color comes from America’s interest in the South Pacific during World War II. Bimini sounds cool and is a small series of islands in the Bahamas. In 1950, the De Soto’s blue car is Pacific Blue, to capture a wider range of real estate, name-wise than just Hawaii, but it still harkens back to WWII. In 1960, the De Soto blue becomes Jamaica Blue, a shift in oceans and geography all together, reflecting America’s shift of attention to closer to home. Whatever the origins of these color names, they still imply that the color blue is best represented by names that imply water.
Color names are clearly important to us as humans in terms of identifying hue, but also in making us feel comfortable with a color. Color naming is largely a form of advertising, whose goal is to entice consumers to find the product irresistable. OPI clearly understands the naming game.
