Why don't I know my colours?

[cottonreels]

I don't know my colours and I find it embarrassing. Obviously I know the basics - red, blue etc. I also know turquoise, burgandy. I go a bit quiet when mauve, maroon and others are mentioned though.
A serious question: where did you learn all the colours? Was I away that day at school or something (rhetoric).
I always seem to be struggling to describe a dress I've seen or a wall paint in a restaurant that I like. When I try to describe a colour i feel like I'm forever saying "you know, a sort of reddy orange".
Recently though I've felt a bit that I can't even describe my own DD's eye colour. I've posted a pic on my profile of a close up if anyone knows how to describe a greeny browny eye.
I know it's not really 'am I being unreasonable' but more of a 'am I a bit wierd that I can't do this' and how do I improve it? Bottles of nail polish and dulux charts just seem to come up with fanciful names like 'sunset glow'.
Just to add, as far as I know i'm not colour blind or anything.

can't see your profile but could they be hazel?

I describe colours as reddy orange, bluey green, pinky purple etc, i dont think its that unusual, the dulux charts just give them fancy names so they can charge you a fortune.

Usually described as hazel when greeny/brown (proud owner of greeny brown eyes :) )

its a fashion thing, and the name change on a regular basis don't worry about it, don't know how to veiw profiles but hazel? mine are too

maroon and burgundy are the same thing

taupe, fawn, beige, are all the same too

mauve, lilac, heather, pretty much identical..

I get annoyed with so many silly ways to describe colours. My new laptop case is apparently "jet and cabernet". Looks like black & red to me!

squeakytoy - these are exactly the sort of colours that fox me. Im ok with beige and lilac but the rest are a mystery. Surely there must be a difference between them. What would a pale lilac be, or a dark lilac for that matter. I'm not even sure I'd think to say lilac in conversation but probably say pale purple .
Where can I gem up on it?
Thanks for the hazel tip - though I just looked on google images for hazel eyes and theres quite a wide variation still, so if someone described someone as having hazel eyes I would translate to myself " they might be greenish, they might be brownish". I'd love to know the colour. I always wonder if artists would know that kind of thing, so when they paint, say, a sea scene from memory they say to themselves "x colour, with y flecks in it"

apparently you can get blue and lilac dogs

I keep on wrongly calling them grey

My collie is officially a Red Tricolour
er...no, she's brown with some cream bits!

I had a bumper back of Crayola crayons as a child and they were just about every colour under the sun. They used to write the name of the colour along the label on the crayon, no idea if they still do. Particular favourites of mine were Periwinkle, Burnt Ochre and Sienna!

burnt ochre and Sienna are used in paints too

better known as diarrhea brown and fox poo brown

I learned all the 'fancy' colours as a child when I got a massive Crayola colouring set. All the crayons and colouring pencils had their colours printed on the paper of crayons and 'engraved' on pencils.

Some people just use poncy names for something instead of saying it is black they use 'Jet' for red they use 'Scarlet'.

I am a bit arty farty so maybe that is why it interested me as a child.

My dogs are officially 'dark sable' colour - most people have no clue and ask me what breed they are and why they are that colour.

oops x post with pj

PMSL @ fruit shoots!

"My new laptop case is apparently "jet and cabernet". Looks like black & red to me!"

I had to chuckle at this. I have to market products on the website at work and some of the colours that our suppliers call their products are utterly ridiculous. I only have a limited number of characters to describe products so things that are called cabernet red, aquamarine blue, gunmetal silver, kermit green etc just get called red, blue silver and green, much to the chagrin of the suppliers.

My mum paints with oils and looking at oil paint is a really good way to define vague colours (if it really matters to you :))

For instance, if you paint - you know what Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Vermillion etc look like and you can apply them to describe things in life. But in all honesty most people would find it much easier to understand what 'mustard yellow' looks like than Yellow Ochre.

Trust your instincts: Some people would argue that violet is bluer than lilac or vice versa but there really is no gold standard unless you are the CEO of Pantone Colour charts, and I think we all describe things using 'words' that mean the same thing.

People aren't being pretentious by saying things like Scarlet, instead of Red. How many different kinds of red have you seen? Are they all the same? No. Well then sometimes, you'll need something more than RED.

HellNoSayItAintSo You are right though. I had my colours done many years ago and learnt about the colour spectrum and how most people can wear the same colour, but it has to be a different shade to suit the individual's colouring. So I can wear scarlet for example but not brick red.

It is some of the pretentious names that marketing bods come up with that make me laugh.

My dad was a painter & decorator, so I grew up with dulux colour charts and as a kid they fascinated me... as time went on I progressed to crayola crayons and cara'ndcache artist pencils... and nowadays it is lipstick and nail varnish....

Red lipstick is one of the hardest "colours" to find that suits you I think.

I learned because of oil paints/pastels too..Burnt Sienna = Terracotta = reddy brown

I remember having a heated debate with my sister over the colour peuce (or puce if you prefer). I thought it was hot pinky red, she insisted it was sludge green. I was right of course!

A lot of these colours are comparisons too. They help you to picture the exact colour. So "jet" is the colour of jet, the semi precious stone- a lovely glossy rich black. Sable is the colour of a sable, gunmetal is the colour of gunmetal, chestnut is the colour of chestnuts and so on. I find this stuff helpful. After all, as HellNoand Bunbaker say above, there is a whole spectrum of colours.

I only learnt "teal" recently, for years I thought it was purple, now I hear it is a greeny blue colour. I learnt magenta and cyan through farting about with a ZX Spectrum in the 80s (they were two of the colour choices on the keyboard.

I thought puce was cream!

This is helping - thankyou! I honestly thought everyone knew and used them except me.
I'm now thinking of buying a giant crayola set and trying to take a bit more notice.
I agree with hellno and though some names are clearly just being pretentious (jet and cabernet) I'd like to convey exactly what colour I mean.
I have no idea at all about teal scurries off to try to find it or peuce.
Am thinking there really shgould be a standard colour chart so we all know where we're at...

Ohh, teal is one of my favourite colours (I just thought it was turquoise) but Im not too keen on puce. Feeling quite pleased I know some more colours repeats teal, puce, teal, puce over and over

I cannot wear Teal or Petrol Blue or shades thereof. It makes me look horrendous although I love the colour, so rich and pretty. But I can wear orange, yellow and most other bright shades. The colour spectrum is actually quite an amazing thing when you think about it a bit deeper.

And I agree with whoever posted about a shade of red lipstick - you get orange reds or blue reds and depending on your skin tone will decide which one you can wear.

My apologies for using 'scarlet' as a poncy shade, I did actually mean Cabernet.