• Calms and sedates

• Cools

• Aids intuition

Blue: The color of the throat chakra

Blue around the globe

• In Chinese culture, colors corresponded with the five primary elements, the directions, and the four seasons. Blue was associated with wood, east, and spring.

• Blue, blue-green, and green are sacred colors in Iran, where they symbolize paradise.

• In India, paintings of the god Krishna often depict him as having blue skin.

• In the United States, post office mailboxes are typically blue.

• In Mexico, blue is the color of mourning.

• In Aztec culture, blue symbolized sacrifice.

• In Greece, the color blue is believed to ward off "the evil eye." Those who believe in this Greek superstition often wear a blue charm necklace or blue bracelet for protection.

Religious & mythological associations with blue

• Several mosques are referred to as the Blue Mosque:
  • The Blue Mosque of Tabriz in Tabriz, Iran
  • The Blue Mosque of Cairo in Cairo, Egypt
  • The Blue Mosque of Yerevan in Yerevan, Armeni
  • Rawze-e-Sharif in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan
  • Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey
  • Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Mosque in Shah Alam, Malaysia.

• The Catholic religion associates blue with the Virgin Mary.

Political associations with blue

• Blue represented the Union (North) during the American Civil War.

• The color blue represents the U.S. Democratic Party and beginning with the 2000 presidential election, states that favored the Democratic candidates began being referred to as "blue states," while those that favored the Republican candidates were referred to as "red states."

• In the U.S. Congress, the Blue Dog coalition is a caucus of conservative Democrats.

Interesting information about blue

• President Martin VanBuren is credited with introducing blue into the decorating scheme of the White House in 1837 and since then, there has been a "blue room" in the White House.

• Blue is one color that means "low" or "guarded" in the color-coded threat system established by presidential order in March 2002. This system quickly informs law enforcement agencies when intelligence indicates a change in the terrorist threat facing the United States.

• Blue is the favored color choice for toothbrushes.

• IBM's Deep Blue became the first computer to win a chess tournament against a reigning world champion chess master. Deep Blue had 32 processors and processed about 200 million chess moves per second in its historic six-game match against Garry Kasparov. Today, Blue Gene is the fastest supercomputer in the world and the descendent of Deep Blue. It uses 131,000 processors to routinely handle 280 trillion operations every second.

• The blue ribbon has been widely recognized as a national symbol of child abuse awareness.

• Owls are the only birds that can see the color blue.

• Over the past decade, scientists have reported the successful use of blue light in the treatment of a wide variety of psychological problems, including addictions, eating disorders, impotence, and depression.

• People are often more productive in blue rooms.

• The highest quality ultramarine blue is made with powdered lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.

• The 1993 film "Blue" consists entirely of the color blue with narration and soundbytes.

• "Alice Blue" is a light blue-gray or steel blue color that was favored by Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt; it sparked a fashion sensation in the United States.

• Mosquito's are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color.

• In ceramics, a variety of ingredients -- including cobalt oxide, copper carbonate, and iron oxide -- produce the blue colors. The different variations are produced when each ingredient is combined with other materials or with each other. The application, thickness of the glaze, how it is applied, and the type of clay used also have an impact on the final color after firing. Unlike paint, raw glazes look nothing like their final appearance after firing.

• Blue Tigers (Maltese Tigers) have been sporadically reported in the mountains of the Fujian province in China. They are described as bluish-grey or slate-blue with white patches on the face and black stripes.

• Pablo Picasso's "Blue Period" refers to a series of paintings in which the color blue dominates and which he painted between 1901 and 1904. The Blue Period is a marvelous expression of poetic subtlety and personal melancholy and contributes to the transition of Picasso's style from classicism to abstract art.

Blue in athletics and sports

• In auto racing, a blue flag signals the start or resumption of a race, as well as advising a car to yield to faster traffic behind.

• Dr. Jigor Kano, founder of Judo, created divisions among students using Belt colors, in order to give students recognition for certain achievements. The Blue Belt symbolizes the blueness of our skies. In reaching this plateau of martial arts, one must not become complacent seeing one's knowledge as high as a tree, but instead, realize that this is not an end; one should reach still higher to the very blueness of the sky. Like the sky which engulfs and embraces us, knowledge should transcend the height of the trees so it may spread all around us.

Blue as a signature color

• Blue Man Group

Companies or brands identified primarily with blue

• Blue Cross Blue Shield

• Ford

• The Gap

• IBM

• Intel

• Pepsi

• Tiffany & Co.

• Bank Rakyat Indonesia

Popular phrases that include blue

• Out of the blue: unexpected

• True blue: to be loyal or faithful

• Once in a blue moon: an event that occurs infrequently

• Blue ribbon: first place; to describe something as being of the highest quality

• Blue blood: an aristocrat

• Blue law: laws about morality issues

• Blue comedy: jokes about socially taboo subjects

• Blueprint: a detailed design of an object or idea

• Blue plate special: a special priced meal at a restaurant

• Bluestocking: a woman with strong scholarly interests

• Feeling blue: to feel sad or unhappy

Quotes about blue

• "There is no blue without yellow and without orange." -- Vincent Van Gogh

• “Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.” -- John Ruskin

• “Blue is the only color which maintains its own character in all its tones...it will always stay blue; whereas yellow is blackened in its shades, and fades away when lightened; red when darkened becomes brown, and diluted with white is no longer red, but another color – pink.”  -- Raoul Dufy

• “I have broken the blue boundary of color limits, come out into the white; beside me comrade-pilots swim in this infinity.” -- Kasimir Malevich

• “If you see a tree as blue, then make it blue.”-- Paul Gauguin

See entire list of quotes about color...

What it says about you when you buy a blue vehicle

• The message you send by driving a vehicle that is Dark Blue: Credible, confident, dependable.

• If, however, your vehicle is a Light or Mid-Blue, you give a different impression: Cool, calm, faithful, quiet.

From The Color Answer Book by Leatricce Eiseman with permission

See what the color of the vehicle you buy says about you...

Songs with blue in the title

• "Blue" by Joni Mitchell

• "Blue" by LeAnn Rimes

• "Blonde Over Blue" by Billy Joel

• "Blue Christmas" by Elvis Presley

• "Blue Eyes" by Elton John

• "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" by Willie Nelson

• "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins, covered by Elvis Presley

• "Blue Sunday" by The Doors

• "Devil With A Blue Dress On / Good Golly, Miss Molly" by Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels

• "Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue" by Crystal Gayle

• "My Baby Blue" by John Hiatt

• "Blue Jean" by David Bowie

• Blue Jay Way by The Beatles

Blue in the garden

• Blue is one of the cooler colors in landscape design and it brings a soothing element to the garden.

• Blue plants visually recede, helping to make a small space appear larger.

• Blue's complimentary color in the garden is orange.

Blue and our sense of taste

• The color blue is the least common color in the foods we eat.

• Blueberries are the favorite of blue foods and they have been touted in recent years for their health benefits.

• Blue Moon ice cream is the name of a bright blue-colored flavor of ice cream, available almost exclusively in the mid-west United States.

Blue and our sense of smell

• "Blueberry" was the original scent of the blue colored Magic Scents Crayons from Binney & Smith Inc., introduced in 1994 with mostly food scents. However, there were numerous reports that children were eating the food-scented crayons, so the food scents were retired and replaced with non-food scents. The scent for the color blue became "new car."

• AromaPod, a scented lifestyle tool, uses the color blue with the scent that provides focus.

• "Fashion house Boudicca developed a blasphemous application method for its soon-to-be-released Wode: the perfume creates a blue stain when you spray it on. It eventually evaporates, but the point is made - the physical dimension of fragrance is no longer terra incognita." -- House and Garden Magazine

Tell us what you know about the color blue