Why Not Orange?

In the past few days I have been adding some photos to my decorating ideas folders. I noticed in the hundreds of photos that there was an absence of orange. I was not surprised; I dislike the color orange.

I don't look good wearing the color orange. (In fact, I try to avoid orangish-red and stick with bluish-red). However, I also don't look good in yellow, but my decorating folders have scads of photos with yellow. My flattering fashion palette doesn't include peach or coral, but I like those colors better than orange. I wear a lot of purple, but not many of the interior decorating schemes had purple. So part of my aversion to orange might be a lack of exposure, but that can't be all of it.

At the mall on Sunday, a lady rounded the corner wearing a bright orange top. I mentally recoiled; it was almost visceral. She looked fine in the orange so why this reaction?

I guess there is a science or psychology of color preferences. Supposedly 35% of Americans like blue best. I fall into that group.

Some of the preferences are culturally based. Some of the preferences might be because of individual associative memories. 

Orange is such an attention-grabbing color that it isn't used much in home decorating except as small accents. I associate orange with traffic cones, pumpkins, the sun, autumn leaves. Except for the traffic cones, I have mostly positive associations with orange. However, when I think of orange I tend to think most of food: the fruit, winter squash, yams, peaches.

Do you know somebody whose favorite color is orange? Why do you think that is the case?