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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….
ferrebeekeeper 