It’s not something you hear too often….two big burly guys talking about nail polish color. “What’s the problem with Desert Flower – it’s a wonderful creative color name.”
“How do I know if it will match my Sunset Rose lipstick? At least with the word ‘Rose” I have some idea of what color it is. What if Desert Flower turns out to be more brown than red? Am I gonna look stupid with brown lipstick when I have red toenails?”
I can’t tell you what pleasure I got from the strange looks from passers by as they caught whiffs of this bizarre conversation between two macho guys. The best part was….I instigated the whole thing.
It all started innocently enough. I was talking with these two web tech guys and relaying a story about my pedicure adventures. I had just gotten back from a spa and was fretting over my nail color choice. You see, I’m missing a gene – the gene that most women get that allows them to choose flattering nail polish colors. It’s nowhere to be found in my DNA. No matter how hard I try – I almost always choose the wrong color.
The first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one. I have tried to ask for guidance from the nail technician or choose bottles that are almost empty (it must be a good color if lots of other people are choosing it). But when I run home and ask my one friend who I know will be brutally honest what she thinks of my color choice, her reply is usually, “unfortunate.”
If it’s this hard to choose colors in the offline world, imagine what it’s like online. Different browsers and screen resolutions can effect how a color will be displayed on your computer. What if you’re trying to decide between dark blue shoes and black shoes. It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference online. If the name of the color is “cloudburst” – is that blue, or is that black? It would be so much more helpful if the color name was “Midnight blue” – ok – now I know it’s blue.
The argument started between the guys because one guy pointed out that creative color names, at least for his wife, were half the fun of shopping. “She always tells me, it’s not orange, it’s papaya or tangelo. She digs those fancy color names.”
A valid point – but I agree more with my second techie friend.
“But it’s still about usability. If she doesn’t know what color it is – how is she going to match it to her hat.”
Her hat???? I swear, you just can’t make this stuff up. The point of all of this is – it’s ok to have fancy color names, but in the online world, try to provide at least some guidance as to what the color actually is.
Well, it's better to make the wrong choice in the nail salon than buying a whole bottle, getting it home and going, "ewwwww" (which I did a few weeks ago). See fellas, you miss out on so much frou-frou fun!
But points well taken - particularly since what you see is so often most definitely NOT what you get in the online world. Different computers, different monitors, different shades. And, a suprisingly large number of people have some level of color blindness on top of that.
Posted by: Mary Schmidt | November 01, 2005 at 06:49 PM
Holly, so very true. The computer monitor is a poor judge of color, dimension, size, and overall quality. But then, so is the naked eye. As you say, even viewing it at the store doesn't work, sometimes, for some people.
The answer online is to use recognizable words -- and descriptions, instead of trying to be creative. I had a similar experience shopping at Land's End a few weeks ago.
The top I bought was labelled 'salmon' which I expected to be a soft orange, but which turned out to be pink. Or, something close to pink.
Not horrible, but not right.
Posted by: Yvonne DiVita | November 05, 2005 at 02:48 PM
Interesting observations. I actually read an article how these fancy names for crayons, lipsticks, nail polishes... actually persuade customers to buy the products. What do you think about that?
In my experiences, I've honestly been more inclined on buying the black cherry sundae over red-black. (essentially, they were the same colors!)
Posted by: Jinal Shah | November 28, 2005 at 01:17 AM
Интересно, прикольно, супер
Posted by: grinfilll | August 18, 2012 at 02:18 PM