Yesterday evening, as my husband and I were about to go to bed, he started looking for my lip balm. I told him it was in the “pink bag,” which led to confusion and a debate about colors minutes afterward.
The problem was that there were two bags on my vanity—one was a dark fuchsia color (considered to be pink), and the other was a light wash of lavender (considered to be purple).
Once I gave him the lip balm, we started our debate on which bag was MORE PINK.
This also got me thinking about the gold and black dress the internet was crazy about a few years ago.
So my husband argued that the lavender bag appeared to be a more pinkish tone than the fuchsia bag, which, to him, was more purple. I, on the other hand, argued the opposite. So, of course, I turned to Google for backup. Ha-ha.
Despite fuchsia being a middle point between purple and pink, Google confirmed that it is a more pinkish color and is on the warmer side of the color spectrum. Lavender contains blue, which makes it more purple and a member of the cooler side of the color spectrum.
This is where our debate sort of ended, and my husband said, "Thank you for the lecture!"
However, I was not happy about the fact that we saw two different things. I know that cones in human eyes (photoreceptor cells that help you perceive different shades of color) may vary in type and number, and scientists believe that women, in general, see more colors compared to men. That wasn’t enough for me.
So I started digging.
I came across the color Lilac Purple, which is a warm purple and is considered to be a pinkish-purple.
So why did the lilac bag appear pink to my husband? Well, this may have something to do with how the human eye perceives color. As I mentioned earlier, the human eye perceives color through specialized photoreceptor cells in the retina called cones, which detect different wavelengths of light and transmit signals to the brain for processing and interpretation.
The reason why we see certain objects a certain color is because of their ability to reflect and absorb specific wavelengths of color.
So for those of you who are fans of nerdy details, here are some: for an object to appear, let’s say purple, it needs to reflect a combination of shorter-wavelength blue light and longer-wavelength red light while absorbing other wavelengths within the visible spectrum. Specifically, the object would reflect wavelengths primarily in the blue (approximately 450-495 nanometers) and red (approximately 620-750 nanometers) portions of the spectrum, while absorbing most of the green and yellow wavelengths in between. This combination of reflected blue and red light, along with the absence of reflected green and yellow light, creates the perception of the purple color to the human eye.
This leads to another clue about me and my husband’s “PINK BAG MYSTERY”.
We were observing the bags under the dim, extremely yellow bedside light. Yellow is a warm color ranging approximately from 570 nanometers (nm) to 590 nanometers (nm). That is a relatively low-frequency region compared to other forms of electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet (UV) light, X-rays, and gamma rays. Anyway, let’s not get too scientific.
The point here is that when yellow light illuminates the lavender purple bag, the wavelengths of the yellow light combine with the wavelengths of the purple (lavender) bag. Depending on the specific shades of yellow and lavender purple, the colors may mix or interact to create new perceived colors. For example, if the yellow light is intense, it may blend with the purple, resulting in a shift towards a warmer hue, such as a reddish or pinkish tone.
I hope this post helps you if you ever find yourself in a low-light situation, arguing about colors with somebody!