Blue-Green to Teal

In 2019, if you asked me what my favorite colors are, I would have told you they were cobalt blue, Vikings/KSU Purple, and kelly green. They are all strong colors in the blue or neutral spectrum. What I didn’t know is that there was actually a fourth color, a color from my box of 2nd grade Crayolas that alternately fascinated or frustrated me. A color that snuck up on me when we last changed the color on our deck.

Crayola called it blue-green. The rest of the world knows it as teal.

As a kid, I would stare obsessively at this crayon in my box. I enjoyed the richness of the blue-green color of the crayon. But when I applied it to paper, it just looked gross. An empty promise of the actual crayon color. And I’d put it away. When I graduated to the 64 count box of Crayolas, I had the same problem with cornflower blue. So much promise in the color of the crayon, but using it was a disappointment.

I had a very short-lived fascination with turquoise as a middle schooler. Turquoise is not teal, as you will learn to understand by reading this article on 10 Differences. My favorite color at that time was any blue, and actually blue colors have stayed as a favorite since then. I was 30 before I realized what I really loved was cobalt blue, and the way I looked in it.

But back to teal. Sort of.

Our deck has been stained brown, at my husband’s insistence. That was a fiasco, because there is nothing hotter than a brown deck. After three years of getting hot flashes just stepping onto the deck, I demanded a color change, and that I got to pick it. We had light green, black, and oak deck furniture, red stripe and light green stripe cushions, and a green striped awning. That was the palette I had to work with.

As I stood at Menards, looking over a bunch of deck color samples (and avoiding my husband’s suggestions), I saw a light green-blue color, that I thought would work. We brought home the brochure, and I confirmed that was the color I wanted for the deck. My husband was skeptical. He finally gave in when I told him 1) if it didn’t work, we could pick another color the next year, and 2) it was a hell of a better choice than the brown I let him use the last three years. Back to the store we went for 2 gallons of what was called Marina Green, a very light green with a blue tint to it.

Marina Green looked great! And it matched the light green chairs and light green striped cushions exactly. It made the black, red, and oak pieces pop, too. The Skeptic was astounded by the transformation.

Now, really, back to teal.

I had started wearing shirt colors that were described as “pine green” or “deep green”, trying to expand my wardrobe palette from my mostly blue and black. I had purple, too, during football season. I finally figured out I could wear greens as long as there was no yellow in it at all. I played more with “pine green” shades and tones, and discovered this bluish green color combination was actually called teal, an even mix of blue and green. I became a big fan, and experimented with clothing that had that same base blue-green, but with more black or more white in it. I looked fabulous in teal.

I eventually realized that the deck was a light teal. And the blue-green crayon that I loved to look at, but not color with was teal (at least until you applied it to paper, then it took on a grey tone. Yuck.)

I had another color to add to my favorites. They are now, in order: cobalt blue, teal, Viking/KSU Purple, and kelly green. A whole cool (literally and figuratively) spectrum to play with.