What’s Your Favourite Colour

Do you have a favourite colour? Most of us do. It’s reflected in the towels and sheets we buy, what we wear and how we paint our homes. Psychologist tell us that colour has a significant impact on our mood. And then there are all those online quizzes with titles like, “What colour are you?”

My absolute favourite colour is periwinkle. It’s the colour of my bedroom walls and shows up in my garden too. My son loves orange; he’s had three bedrooms all painted orange. I don’t know how he slept with that colour, but he loves it. I’m not sure what my daughter’s fav colour is, though it might be that beautiful yellow of daffodils.

So what’s your favourite colour? Is it the green of an unfurling leaf, the blue of a robin’s egg, or the brownish-grey of tree bark? When you look in your closet, is there one colour that dominates? (No, black doesn’t count.) Or is there a colour that you’re always drawn to even if you know you can’t wear it. (For me, it’s yellow. I love that butter-yellow colour but I can’t wear it since it makes me look like I’m sick. Dyam!)

Would it surprise you to learn that countries have favourite colours. Yup, somebody has done a survey for that! And you know what? In the ten countries surveyed, blue came out the big winner.

Brits love blue the most, followed by Germans, Americans and Australians. (Canada wasn’t part of the survey, so quit holding your breath.) Blue comes first even among the Chinese who consider red and yellow to be lucky.

So is there a difference in the colours we love when we take gender into account? You betcha baby. But while blue is more popular with men than women, women still choose blue more often than any other colour. Sure some women like pink, but it wasn’t really the rage you’d think it was based on how we peptobismal our girl children! Pink turns out to be no more popular than red, purple or green.