Peach, coral or salmon: which is which?

Two questions that sort them

First, how deep is it? Second, does it lean pink or orange? Answer both and the name usually follows.

• Peach: light, soft, and leaning yellow-orange. Picture the paler side of a ripe peach.
• Salmon: light to mid depth, leaning pink. Picture the flesh of cooked salmon, a pinkish orange with no yellow in it.
• Coral: mid depth and saturated, an orange-pink that can lean red. Picture the pink-orange of reef coral.
• Gajri: mid to bright, orange with a pink cast. It varies more than the others because the name is used loosely.
• Apricot: sometimes added to the list, a light orange that sits between peach and a true orange.

Where gajri fits

Gajri is an everyday trade word, and like most shop colour names it has no fixed definition. Most of the time it means a warm, cheerful pinkish orange that you could call coral in English. Some sellers stretch it towards a bright carrot orange, and others towards a deeper red-orange, sometimes sold as gajri pink when it leans pinker.

Because of that range, gajri alone is not a safe way to describe the colour you want. Pair it with the English name you think is closest and a photo, for example “gajri, by which I mean a mid coral, more pink than carrot”.

Naming the shade in your reference photo

Screens shift warm colours easily, so a salmon can look peach on one phone and coral on another. Before you name the colour in a photo, check it against something neutral.

• Look in daylight: view the fabric or garment by a window, not under warm indoor bulbs, which push every colour towards orange.
• Compare with white: hold a sheet of white paper beside it. Pink-leaning shades look pinker against white; yellow-leaning ones look warmer.
• Compare with a known object: a peach, a carrot, a piece of salmon or a coral lipstick. Which is it nearest?
• Use a paint card: photograph the fabric beside a paint chart from a hardware shop and note the closest strip. It gives both of us a shared reference.
• Write it down: name, depth and lean, such as “salmon: soft, mid-light, pinkish, not as bright as coral”.

What each pairs with

Peach sits gently beside ivory, mint, grey and gold, and looks soft in summer lawn. Salmon pairs well with navy, white and olive. Coral is the opposite of teal on the colour wheel, so teal, turquoise and navy make it sing; our guide to finding a contrast colour explains why. Gajri has long been paired with greens and pinks for festive outfits, and looks lively beside a mehndi green dupatta.

If you are building a design around one of these shades, our guide to briefing a tailor with screenshots helps you put the photo and the words together. Then see Send Your Design and start a custom quote. The colour is agreed in writing before anything is cut, and a small difference in shade between a screen and the cloth is normal.