The Only Color With No Dark Side

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Colors carry meaning—sometimes uplifting, sometimes negative. Blue is beloved for its association with calm skies and serene waters, but it’s also tied to melancholy (“feeling blue”) and risqué humor (“blue jokes”). Green, the color of life and renewal, carries shadows of envy (“green with envy”), inexperience (“greenhorn”), and even a sickly pallor. Yellow radiates warmth and happiness but turns jaundiced—a name for a yellowing sickness. Even regal purple has its downsides, becoming “bruised” or heavy-handed in certain contexts.

Red, vibrant and passionate, often signals danger, anger, or vulgarity when it becomes garish. From ashy browns to pale grays, virtually every color has a skeleton in its closet.

But not orange. According to Faber Birren, a renowned color theorist, orange is unique in its immunity to negativity. Birren pointed out that orange was named relatively late—centuries after green and purple—and it has “virtually no negative associations.” Despite its links to traffic cones, safety vests, and even prison jumpsuits, orange has no universal word to describe a “bad” shade.