Acid Green

One of my favorite colors is disgusting–even its name is gross. Yet, as with most aesthetically ugly things, there is something otherworldly, compelling and…beautiful (?) about it too. I am speaking of acid green, a goblin-ish haunted color somewhere between bright yellow and brownish green (although, lately, contemporary car manufacturers are trying to present fluorescent neon green as acid green).

The real acid green is a sort of dirty, unwholesome chartreuse. Although this color was big in the sixties, its name does not come from Lysergic acid diethylamide, but rather from stomach acid (which, uh, isn’t really green–the real name for this color should be bile green).

Acid green somehow does not look like a natural green anyway, but like something that came out of an industrial vat or was summoned into being by a necromancer. It is this ersatz anti-green feeling which makes the color appealing. Grandma Connie liked to refer to things as acid green or include it in her stories. Come to think of it, Grandma had a real fondness for that color too (or near variants through the years like avocado (70s), chiffon (50s), green apple (80s) and so forth). Because she was so elegant and good at using colors, I always thought of it as an elegant color. Maybe I inherited the affection for the color from Grandma. I wish I had asked her where she first started to like this yellow green. Maybe it is an affinity stretching over the generations. Do you have colors that male you think of people too?

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