What are pastel colours? Shades and how they differ

Common pastels and their shop names

Pakistani fabric shops have their own names for several pastels. These names are used loosely and vary from seller to seller, so treat them as a guide and confirm the shade with a photo.

• Baby pink or tea pink: a pale, gentle pink. Tea pink is often a touch warmer or dustier.
• Mint or pista: a pale green. Pista, from pistachio, usually has a little yellow in it; mint is cooler.
• Powder blue or ice blue: a pale, soft blue, lighter than the sky blue shops call asmani.
• Lilac: a pale purple, sometimes sold as kasni.
• Lemon: a pale, fresh yellow, softer than a true bright yellow.
• Peach: a pale orange-pink.
• Pastel aqua: a pale blue-green, a lightened turquoise.

Pastel, pale, muted and neon

These four words get mixed up on listings, but they describe different things. Pale means light in any way at all, so ivory, beige and silver grey are pale without being pastel. Pastel is pale with a clear colour still in it. Muted or dusty means grey has been mixed in: dusty rose and sage are muted, and they can be light or deep. A dusty pastel exists, too: a pale colour with a little grey that looks softer and less sugary. Neon is the opposite of pastel, a colour pushed to maximum brightness until it looks almost fluorescent.

So baby pink is pastel, dusty rose is muted, ivory is pale and shocking pink in its loudest form is close to neon.

Wearing pastels

Pastels look fresh in daylight and summer, and they combine more easily than most colours because they are all equally light. Two pastels together, such as mint with pink or lilac with lemon, look soft and cheerful. A pastel with white or ivory looks crisp. A pastel with a deeper version of itself, such as powder blue with navy, adds depth. Silver and gold both sit easily beside them.

Because pastels are close in lightness to many skin tones, some people find them less striking near the face. If that is you, our guide to why some colours wash you out has simple fixes, and the rule-free colour guide has a daylight test to try first.

Lining and care for pale shades

Pale colours let more light through than deep ones, so a pastel lawn kameez can show shadows in strong sun. A lining in a colour close to your own skin, rather than bright white, usually hides more; our guide to whether a kameez needs lining explains the options, and lining is one of the choices you can make on the quote form.

Pastels also show marks sooner. Wash them apart from deep colours, which can bleed onto them, and dry them out of strong direct sun, which can fade a soft shade unevenly. Our guide to drying without fading covers the rest, and the care label always comes first.

To order a pastel outfit, see custom stitching and describe the shade with its name and a daylight photo when you ask for a quote. The colour is agreed in your written quote before anything is cut.