Today’s bog post is going to be largely visual—because I can’t find any reliable history about my subject. One of my favorite decorator colors is seafoam green. All sorts of kitchen appliances, bathroom fixtures, automobiles, and consumer goods come in this beautiful pale blue-green. Additionally its name is surely one of the most successful of all the names created by advertising agencies and creative departments. Seafoam green immediately makes one think about the Caribbean Sea or about Aphrodite emerging from the waves. From a purely visual perspective, the color is simultaneously bright yet neutral. It is green or blue depending on the light. It is perfect to offset all different skin hues.
Yet, I have no idea where the name came from or when the color came about (nor can I find the first references). If I had to hazard a guess, I would say it comes from the late nineteen fifties or early nineteen sixties because, well, look at it. It just seems like a color that would have come out of that affluent consumer-oriented period when all sorts of new chemicals and bright pastel colors abounded.
Is this Seafoam green 1954 Packard Convertible a hint?
Of course now that I have sung the praises of sea foam green, I should add one substantial complaint: sea foam green is not the color of sea foam at all! The foam of waves is white rather than pastel green. Somehow the name manages to evoke freshness, beauty, nature, and the ocean without really having anything to do with reality! I guess that is the alchemy of poetry….
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June 28, 2014 at 4:41 AM
Beatrix
Most hospital interiors in Asia are painted a ‘healing’ shade of sea foam green.
Perhaps that is why sea foam green seems so ‘institutional’ to me?
It is green enough so that blood stains look brown instead of red, yet blue enough to look ‘clean’.
It is also a popular shade for kitchens & the elusive INDOOR bathrooms in Nepal & India.
Our kitchen, dining room & bathrooms are all painted an eye searing shade of sea foam green here in Nepal. Husbandji refuses to paint it a more sedate shade of anything as we are renting.
I’m just not a ‘blue’ sort of a person. I don’t find blues soothing, calming or healing but rather cold, brusque & harsh.
July 2, 2014 at 12:39 PM
Wayne
Oh dear…it sounds like you might not like seafoam green too much! I know that a fair number of hospitals here use green too (although usually a more muted shade of mint green) and it is easy to dislike anything to do with hospitals. Still, I think seafoam has its own robust beauty.
An Indian-American friend of mine tells me that India is vastly more colorful then the U.S.: people are not afraid to wear bright shades or use bold colors inside. That sound good to me–sometimes it seems like Americans only like gray, navy blue, and ecru.