Jewel tone colors, jewel tone finishes...I notice these terms pop up a lot in the search results in our google reports. So I wonder what people are really looking for? Are they searching for knobs that resemble precious gems? Do they want something that shines or refracts light? Webster defines jewel tone as any of various colors (as amethyst, emerald, and ruby) that resemble those of gemstones. The wise geek states further that typically jewel tones have a high level of color saturation, which makes them very dynamic and distinctive.
I took some extraordinary liberties when I named the colors in our palette. The knobs being an offshoot of my jewelry designs, I wanted to stay true and consistent with all things precious. So I cleverly named every color after a gem or mineral. In many cases I was confined by length (try tagging the back of a 1" knob blue tourmaline) or the obscurity of the word. I wanted to use peridot for example, but realized that few people knew it was green and even fewer knew how to pronounce it (per- i- dough). So some of my color names are a bit of a stretch, I will admit.
When our customers need a little color clarification, I tend to use more common descriptons that are easily recognized and not often challenged. This reminds me of a conversation I had with a European friend years ago who asked me why do Americans use foods to describe colors? Is this an American phenom? So here's my very American translation of all our resin colors:
alabaster = coconut
agate = milk chocolate
amber = honey
amethyst = red plum
bronze = olive
copper = orange
coral = peach
dark copper = cinnamon
deep gold = mustard
deep opal= honeydew
emerald = spinach
garnet = cabernet
jade= celery
lapis = blueberry
light amethyst = shrimp
light bronze = pink champagne
light gold =lemon
light sapphire = Bombay gin (bottle, sorry, just scarcity of blue food!)
moonstone = herring
ruby = raspberry
periwinkle= blue grape
silver = ice
turquoise = blue cheese (veins only)
And there you have it - the Susan Goldstick color palette right from the pantry. Although these descriptions are easy to identify, I couldn't possibly use them to label our jewel like hardware. Imagine a Birdie finial colored in alabaster and deep gold labeled in coconut and and mustard- yech. But one thing is for sure, whenever we use these foody modifers to explain colors, the customer gets it immediately.