Lavender (color)

Lavender is a light shade of purple or violet. It applies particularly to the color of the flower of the same name. The web color called lavender is displayed adjacent—it matches the color of the palest part of the flower; however, the more saturated color shown 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 average people as opposed to website designers. The color lavender might be described as a medium purple, a pale bluish purple, or a light pinkish-purple. The term lavender may be used in general to apply to a wide range of pale, light, or grayish-purples, but only on the blue side; lilac is pale purple on the pink side. 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.
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 darker 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).
Displayed at right is the web color lavender blush. It is a pale pinkish tone of 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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. This version of "lavender" is a lot pinker than the other shades of lavender shown here.
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).
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. These posters were sold in the head shops of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and were drawn and produced by such artists as Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Rick Griffin, and Victor Moscoso.
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 resulting from a mix of 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.
The color amethyst is a moderate, transparent violet. Its name is derived from the stone amethyst, a form of quartz. Amethyst is the birthstone for those born in February.
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.
Displayed at right is the web color medium purple which is equivalent to deep medium violet or deep lavender.
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.
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.
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.
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 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a lavender colored banknote of ₹100 denomination under Mahatma Gandhi New Series. The bank note measures 142 mm × 66 mm.
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