know your Crayolas

[low_delta]

In 1962, Binney & Smith chose to change the name Flesh to Peach in response to the Civil Rights Movement, since not all people are the same skin color. In 1999, the name Indian Red was changed to Chestnut because children wrongly perceived the color to be that of Native Americans, when in fact "Indian Red" had its roots in a dye from India.

Indian red was always one of my favorite crayons. I still remember what mine looked like. A good inch worn off the end, with a lot of the paper torn off.

The average child in the USA will wear down 730 crayons by his or her 10th birthday.

Not me. I don't think I used up any of mine. I never did learn to do color.

Other favorite colors were brick red and blue-gray (long since retired). Copper was pretty cool too.

Comments

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[whorlpool.livejournal.com]

What a strange coincidence!! This morning, I was doing a little bit of research for my writing, and I came across the fact that Crayola at one point changed the chartreuse crayon to Atomic Tangerine, because they had the wrong colour for chartreuse; it's supposed to be greenish-yellow, but the actual crayon was reddish-orange. (Source: wikipedia)

Anyway, isn't that odd that we both found out info today about Crayola changing the names of colours?!

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I wonder if that's why it took me a while to figure out what color chartreuse really was. A lot of people seem not to know that, though. It took them eighteen years to realize the problem?

At the same time they renamed that color, they added a bunch of "wild" colors. Purple pizazz, radical red, wild strawberry, razzle dazzle rose.

Wild. Earlier tonight I had a picture of a cornflower, and then went to look up the crayon. As a kid, I always wondered what cornflowers were and why the crayon was blue.

[cynnerth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too! I was all wrong about chartreuse long into my adulthood. Never thought to blame my crayons!

[emschin.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I realize I knew what the color was before Crayola made a crayon of that name. Somehow I never realized Crayola was wrong--didn't notice.

Do you have a copy of old Spike Jones songs? In one of them--I think the horse race, maybe--he says CHAR-TREUSE!!

[whathisname.livejournal.com]

Oooooooo ... you had copper? You must've had the big box. Was it the 64-crayon box, with the built-in sharpener? I'm so jealous.

[emschin.livejournal.com]

Some years back the company offered a big box (sans sharpener) with a metal box to keep them in. I told myself it would be a good way to keep crayone for "the kids". Well, this kid still has it and I'm not giving it up. It moves with me.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Nothing less than the best!

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Blue-gray is the color of my eyes, and they retired it. Silly crayon makers...
They also retired maize.
The sharpener on the boxes was a marketing technique to wear down the crayons faster so that they would sell more. No one really needs a crayon sharpener.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I needed the sharpener. I did some very precise coloring. :-)

[mummm.livejournal.com]

So did I... no sharpener. :-)

[lonita.livejournal.com]

I got the superduper big selection at Christmas, almost two hundred crayons.

I wish they'd bring back all the discontinued ones. I'd be all over that. I love crayons!

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

A collector's set of the discontinued colors would be very cool!

[roadskoller.livejournal.com]

I was always disappointed with the gold.
And I realized that for a while, Warner Brother's were coloring Bugs Bunny periwinkle.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

The gold and the silver weren't all that exciting. The copper was, though.

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

cornflower blue = the best

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Did you see my comment above about why I got on this subject? I said, "Earlier tonight I had a picture of a cornflower, and then went to look up the crayon. As a kid, I always wondered what cornflowers were and why the crayon was blue."

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

I actually don't even think cornflowers are that pretty! but the color is lovely...

[emschin.livejournal.com]

My guess is that you didn't "color" pictures much because you were an artist and did things yourself.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Yeah. With pencils.

[sirreal13.livejournal.com]

i can't for the life of me understand why they didn't just rename it "India Red." Instead they practically admitted to being racist for no good reason.

I saw Crayola paint colors at Menards the other day. The names bear little relation to the colors and the Spanish translations seem to be random. I like tangible pigment names like "burnt siena" or "yellow ochre." My favorite color of crayon was probably yellow-green, but I went through a LOT of black.