“Red is the colour of life. It’s blood, passion, rage. It’s menstrual flow and after birth. Beginnings and violent end. Red is the colour of love. Beating hearts and hungry lips. Roses, Valentines, cherries. Red is the colour of shame. Crimson cheeks and spilled blood. Broken hearts, opened veins. A burning desire to return to white.”  Mary Hogan, Pretty Face

Do you have a favourite colour? Mine is purple, always has been and although I have many colours in my wardrobe that I enjoy wearing, purple is the one that I can never resist. Humans are visual creatures and science is confirming what has been known for a long time, that colour can affect our mood and behaviour. People talk about 'looking at the world through rose tinted glasses' to describe someone who only sees the good around them, perhaps to their detriment, but a positive outlook all the same. I actually own a pair of rose tinted glasses and when I wear them I feel palpably calmer and soothed. I also have some golden yellow ones that make me feel more energetic, upbeat and positive.

You might think that I just have a bit of an obsession with strange sunglasses, but colour therapy is a thing. So with all the colours in the spectrum the one that I got particularly interested in this week is red. Red light district, lady in red, scarlet woman, red roses, red wine - red is most definitely connected to passion and sex. For women, how does putting on red lipstick make you feel? Anecdotally, when I wear a red lip I feel I get treated differently. I actually tried this every other day for a whole week and on the red lip days I felt like more people smiled at me, which in turn made me feel more confident... And of course the more confident you feel the more people smile at you... Imagine something so simple that can change your whole day.

Another fascinating thing about the colour red is that it is one of the first colours to be used by humans as art or body painting. In an archaeological site in South Africa, Pinnacle Point, ochre-coloured iron oxide drawings were discovered dating back to 170,000 years ago, coinciding with the time that Homo sapiens transformed from archaic to its modern form. So as soon as people felt the need to do more than merely exist, they expressed themselves in art painted on cave walls—in black, white, and red. There is no hint of any other colour being used, although green, blue, and other pigments were abundant.

A number of studies have tried to figure out the connection between the colour red and human behaviour, especially sexual attraction. In a series of experiments in 2008, Andrew Elliot and Daniela Niesta demonstrated that the colour red makes men feel more amorous toward women, and that men are unaware of the role the colour plays in their attraction. In a series of experiments they showed men pictures of women with different coloured borders - red or white - and asked them a series of questions such as 'How pretty do you think this person is?' Another experiment changed the colour of the shirt of the woman in the photograph digitally to red or blue and here men were also asked about their intentions regarding dating, as well as attractiveness. One question asked: "Imagine that you are going on a date with this person and have $100 in your wallet. How much money would you be willing to spend on your date?"

Under all conditions the women shown with or wearing red were rated significantly more attractive and sexually desirable, and on top of that men said that they would spend more money on a date with the red women. The full study can be found here.

I wanted to write a book that talked about the emotions of children, which is the rainbow. We all have moods. We talk about being blue when we're sad, and being yellow when we're cowards, and when we're mad, we're red.    

- Dolly Parton
 

Of course there is much more to learn about the colour red, as it is also often associated with danger, anger or violence - red flag, red card, seeing red, red alert. One thing we can perhaps conclude is that decorating yourself with red may help to attract attention of a sexual nature, so if you are a lover of dating apps then you may want to take that into consideration for your profile picture. At home you can use accents of colour, or even lighting to play with different colours in your surroundings and see how they make you feel. Each colour is associated with different emotions, pink for example reflects love, kindness and relaxation. Yellow makes you feel happy and spontaneous. Yellow is perhaps the most energetic of the warm colours, associated with laughter, hope and sunshine.

Finally back to my favourite colour - purple. Often associated with luxury, extravagance, creativity, mystery and magic - all things that I can get on board with. It also turns out that people who decorate their bedroom in purple have more active sex lives. In a survey on 2,000 British adults it was found that those with purple bedding or furniture had 3.49 'intimate encounters' per week, contrasted to those with grey who only averaged 1.8.

So the takeaway for me is this - add some purple accents to your bedroom if you fancy getting amorous a bit more often and if you want to attract a lover perhaps consider wearing some red.

Stay safe. Have fun. Issy x