Carmine color is the general term for some deep red colors that are very slightly purplish but are generally slightly closer to pure red than the color crimson is. Some rubies have the color shown below as rich carmine. The deep dark red color shown at right as carmine is the color of the raw unprocessed pigment, but lighter, richer, or brighter colors are produced when the raw pigment is processed, some of which are shown below.
The first recorded use of carmine as a color name in English was in 1523.
Variations of carmine
Wild watermelon
The color wild watermelon is displayed at right.
Ultra red is a color formulated by Crayola in 1972. In 1990, the name of the color was changed to wild watermelon.
With a hue code of 350, this color is within the range of carmine colors.
This color is supposed to be fluorescent, but there is no mechanism for displaying fluorescence on a computer screen.
Radical red
The Crayola crayon color radical red is displayed at right.
The color radical red was formulated by Crayola in 1990.
With a hue code of 348, this color is within the range of carmine colors.
This color is supposed to be fluorescent, but there is no mechanism for displaying fluorescence on a computer screen.
Paradise pink
Displayed at right is the color paradise pink.
The source of this color is the "Pantone Textile Paper eXtended (TPX)" color list, color #17-1755 TPX—Paradise Pink.
Since it has a hue code of 347, the color paradise pink is within the range of carmine colors.
Rich carmine
The rich carmine color tone displayed at right matches the color shown as carmine in the 1930 book A Dictionary of Color (cited below). This color is also called Chinese carmine. This is the color usually referred to as carmine in fashion and interior design.
Spanish carmine
Spanish carmine is the color that is called carmín (the Spanish word for "carmine") in the Guía de coloraciones (Guide to colorations) by Rosa Gallego and
Juan Carlos Sanz, a color dictionary published in 2005 that is widely popular in the Hispanophone realm.