Rewards
Written by Michaela MacBlake Matthews
Welcome back to another edition of Color Swatches For The Soul, where we are taking a closer look at the symbolism of shades, and how to set the mood for your craft projects, fashion, and lifestyle with color psychology! Today we’re looking at Salted Caramel.
The Brown Family
The color brown symbolizes earth, grounding, and stability. Brown hues are composed of a balance between each of the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. Because of this, browns naturally represent a balance of all things coming together to meet in the middle, and take on the tone of a slow and steady pace.
How Salted Caramel Sets The Mood
Salted Caramel is a semi-bright, slightly orange shade of brown. Between these two color families, Salted Caramel takes on the personality of grounding and steadiness, while also tinting toward the self confidence of orange. It’s confident component is made of the joyful yellow and the active red.
With all of these subtleties working together in this shade, Salted Caramel is active in the pursuit of joy, while being tempered and diligent in its movements toward it. It is a very deep, rich, and complex shade, compared to some of the bolder colors on the spectrum.
How To Use Salted Caramel In Your Craft Projects
Salted Caramel is a wonderful home-base color for both home and fashion projects. It can easily dominate a color palette without feeling overwhelming, or too busy, and makes for a great base color to work with. Because it is neutral without being boring, Salted Caramel can easily welcome more colorful finishing touches, or stand on its own in the finished craft!
Salted Caramel colored craft projects make wonderful gifts for the person who has everything, or for retirement parties. While some gift-giving occasions are all about newness and taking leaps in life, Salted Caramel is a better fit for gifts in long standing relationships, where everything is as it should be right now!
Color Palettes For Salted Caramel
Salted Caramel is best paired with neutrals or pastels, especially when it is the dominant color in your palette. It can be paired with most any color, but may clash against very saturated hues unless they are used sparingly. (A classic example of this is a caramel colored leather, with turquoise and ruby embellishments in a Southwestern style palette.)
Salted Caramel also works well with jewel tones, when used in an intricate design, or a color block pattern. It becomes absolutely decadent when used in fine detail alongside white or cream, bringing out the dessert menu associated with caramels and vanilla! While it is a very versatile color, Salted Caramel feels most at home when the other colors around it are balanced. If there is a pastel element, it may work best two use two or three hues, to represent each primary. If there is a very dark color in the mix, it may call for a bit of light to balance it out, and so on.
Ultimately, this rich and warm color is very dynamic, and as long as contrasting colors have space between them to breathe, it can hold its balance fairly well in most color schemes!
Salted Caramel overall says, ‘I am balanced, and I am on the right path.’ It is a very affirming tone to use in your craft projects, because it alternates between the neutral assessment of brown, and the assuredness of orange. Use it to steady yourself in times of chaos, or to keep on with a good path!
If you can feel it, there’s a color for it!
"Mac" is on the Lifestyle Team here at Darn Good Yarn, and loves taking a ‘teach a man to fish’ approach to creative therapy. She is certified in neuro-linguistic programming, and is also the surreal artist and author behind Surrealismac.