[ gloss·ary ] peach

1959 ad

Today's post is all about peach but upcoming posts can focus on your favorite colors. Vote in the poll below or drop a comment with your choice.

The color peach is inspired by the fruit, though it's not specified which part or stage of ripeness influences the hue. An unripe peach displays shades of light yellow, orange, and pink, while a ripe one shows deeper yellows and reds.

ripe vs unripe peach (photos: smithsonian magazine, the kitchn)

Pantone’s color of the year, peach fuzz, is considered an ideal peach and mirrors the soft tones of a mid-ripe peach. It’s described as a “velvety gentle peach”.

sampling of more pantone peaches

Making peach: to create peach, you mix yellow, red, and white. The shade can range from light to dark and shift from neutral to warm, cool, or a blend, depending on the depth and temperature of the primary colors.

eatcakebemerry

A post shared by @eatcakebemerry

To better understand the range of peaches in the market, I analyzed a list of 598 peach blushes, lipliners, lipsticks and lipglosses. From that list, peach is most commonly associated with being:

• warm (88)

• soft (78)

• light¹ (75)

• shimmer² (75)

• golden/gold (57)

• muted³ (42)

• matte (38)

• pink (35)

• nude (28)

• sheer (27)

• neutral (24)

• bright⁴ (23)

• coral (22)

top 15 blush shades

Peach dominates blush but is less common in lipliners, lipsticks, and lipglosses. Out of 3,351 blush descriptions, 9.6% are peach. In 3,045 lipgloss descriptions, 3.9% are peach. Among 7,588 lipstick descriptions, 1.9% are peach, and within 1,802 lipliner descriptions, only 1.05% are peach.

Across these categories, the most popular variations include pink peach, nude peach, golden peach, coral peach, and champagne peach.

top peach shades across blush and lippies

Now, what does a “true peach” look like?

Out of the 598 peach products, I came across 8 “true peach” shades. Based on a sampling of those shades above, it seems a “true peach” refers to the fruit at its ripest, a shade that’s most warm and seemingly more orange than pink.

What does a “peach” look like?

There are more “peach” only shades though and some of these shades mirror a ripe peach, while others resemble a more unripe state. Few appear mixed with additional colors (like the shade on the bottom right above which refers to vieve muse sunset blush balm in ‘pesca’).

What does a “pink peach” look like?

When comparing these to peach pinks, I noticed that peach pinks are often darker in appearance. It seems that adding pink to peach lightens the shade.

What does a “nude peach” look like?

this is quite the variation...

This shade is full of surprises! At first, you might think adding “nude” to peach would lighten it up, right? But it turns out, some peach shades actually deepen or ripen more with the addition. Have you noticed this too?

Final observation: As with mauves, I’ve seen discrepancies in shade descriptions between retailers and brands. For example, Credo Beauty labels Soshe Beauty’s Ceramide Refillable Lip Silk in 'With Love' as a peach pink, while Soshe Beauty describes it as a warm peach. It’s worth double checking how a brand describes their own shades.

P.S. Here’s a list of peach products in the market —> link

P.P.S. Here’s a full lengthy document comparing different peaches —> link

1. includes similar terms like light, pale, baby, delicate, very light, pastel

2. includes similar terms like shimmering, shimmery

3. includes similar terms like dusty, dirty, smoky

4. includes similar terms like bright, vibrant, semi-bright, neon