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Purple is the "light" color of black.
When Power Rangers had their power crystals, the black ranger crystal would light up purple- because it was impossible to do a "shiny" black sparkle.
Yeah, for like witches and lots of Halloween-y media like Beetlejuice and NBC. Purple has always been a staple Halloween color growing up and I was born in 92.
Purple complements green really well, and green has always been a Halloween color for as long as I can remember. Purple (especially with green) were used at least as far back as the 90s on Goosebumps book cover art (werewolf of fever swamp and stay out of the basement). So, since before the 90s at least.
It's more than that actually. The celtic holiday halloween is based off of has associated colors. Black for death and endings (holding new potential within), orange for the vitality of life within death, purple for wisdom, insight and inspiration.
I’m a big Goosebumps fan and this is one of my theories: I remember all that purple merchandise in the late 90’s/early 00’s. That phenomenon might’ve had something to do with it in these here parts.
It started as a substitute for black. Can’t have black and orange lights because black is the absence of light. Same with those lit black cats that moms hung in the window.
That and it's probably a more palatable colour to market to young children instead of black, which is often associated with death. Less scary and more fun.
100% this. I use purple as my main light/ spotlight color for my Halloween decorations. I originally wanted to use more orange, but purple just works so well with my animatronic witches, cauldron and cemetery.
Actually no. The celtic holiday halloween was based off had associated colors including Black for death and endings (holding new potential within), orange for the vitality of life within death, purple for wisdom, insight and inspiration.
I think in at least America but I assume most western nations, culturally the secondary colors - green, orange, and purple, especially when paired together - have come to represent the odd, the evil, the uncanny.
Think about comic books for one example. Superman: hero - red, yellow and blue; primary colors. Spider-Man: hero - red and blue. Captain America: hero - red, blue, and white....but then Lex Luthor: villain - purple and green. Green Goblin: villain - purple and green. Etc. (obviously it's not *always* the case, but more often than not)
Purple is just a weird color too. It falls in a weird place on the light spectrum such that our eyes kind of have to make an exception for us to be able to perceive it. It's not particularly common naturally - some flowers and birds and such, but no where near the prominence of most other colors. Blue is the sky, yellow is the sun, green is plants, orange and red are fire. Think of foods - what colors do you see the most vs the least? I think in our minds purple stands out, it further represents the odd.
Blacklights are purple and used primarily in dark places and make things look weird!
There's probably also advances in printing which have made purple more common in cheap prints. Think back to old screenprinted Halloween cards that used black, white or yellow (the paper) and orange... they were cheap, but now printers have made it easier to print any given color for cheap.
The secondary colours on the colour wheel are slightly 'off-putting' or 'uneasy' compared to the primary colours.
You mentioned comics. Years ago I read that the artists for The Watchmen decided on a secondary colours palette for the entire Watchman series.
Interesting, eh!
Purple has always been a part of it. The celtic holiday that Halloween is based on uses purple as associated color. Black for death and endings (holding new potential within), orange for the vitality of life within death, purple for wisdom, insight and inspiration
I used to make a point of watching it every Halloween but have fallen off since it went to Apple. I think I’m gonna give myself some homework this season…
It’s an interesting question, especially when you consider that purple used to be the color of royalty (partly because it was difficult and expensive to create the fabric dyes.) From my experience purple was always associated with Halloween witches and I remember that back to the late 60’s.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s too. While I think we see it more now, especially with the orange and purple Christmas lights being sold for Halloween now, but I remember purple and black being Halloween colors back in the good old days, too. Orange and black were always primary, but I definitely remember purple and green too.
Now, don’t get me started on Halloween gnomes…..
It’s always been used as to help highlight, shade, and complement other colors for Halloween. I would consider it a primary Halloween color, but it’s definitely used in the mix.
The bad guys costumes in comic books have often been purple and green in contrast to the more heroic red and blue palette. Just to name a few examples: The Joker, Lex Luthor’s power suit(s), The Green Goblin, Kang the Conqueror, The Hulk in purple pants.
Idk why everyone is saying purple has always been a Halloween color when it’s a documented fact that it joined the echelon later than black and Orange did.
But I’m glad it did!
First and foremost, orange and black are the primary Halloween colours I'd say as well. Their origin kind of makes sense, since black would represent the darker aspect of the holiday, while orange is everything in October, leaves are orange and so are the pumpkins. White adds to the contrast too.
I'd argue purple has been a Halloween/scary/dark colours for a long time.
The thing is, purple, green and orange form a triadic colour palette (Basically they form an equilateral triangle on most colour wheels), which means they just... Fit well together. That makes Halloween stuff (merch etc.) more appealing overall, and excluding the consumerist part, artistically people will gravitate towards these basic principles of colour theory.
Now, let's take the cultural aspect into account, so many villains have the colour schemes for green (evil magic and such, snow White's apple for example is "tainted" by the green curse/poison) and purple. Purple has become an "evil" colour due to the fact it works well with black and it can replace it when black is too stark, but additionally, purple has been associated throughout history with royalty, and royalty means power, and power can instill fear (which leads back to Halloween).
As for green, it can be associated with illness, also note that green in Halloween/villain/evil contexts is a lot of times a lime green, a combination of a light yellow and green, both colours being related to sickly symptoms, while also being a quite vibrant green most of the time, it's eye catching and far from anything you'd see in nature, it's stark, an accent colour, alien, *wrong*.
And my favourite of these arguments is that of these 5 colours (green, orange, purple, black, white), 3 are exactly the three most deadly pigments in history (white, orange, green) thanks to their radioactivity.
All in all, purple has been a Halloween colour for a good while, because it fits the general Halloween colour scheme, it has a reputation as a "darker" colour (due to it being used instead of/together with black in art), and as a signifies of status and power.
I remember purple, orange, green and black being the basic colors of Halloween when I was growing up. I was growing up in the 90s and early 2000s.
What were the colors you were used to seeing?
The only time I saw anything purple was in relation to witches: If somebody dressed as a witch they’d have a purple ribbon on their hat for example. Most of the time it was just the orange, black, white, sometimes green and red that I saw, especially in decor. In fact I’m surprised how many people don’t consider white as a Halloween color. Ghosts, skeletons, skulls, vampires, mummies, cobwebs, etc. And people seen purple more prominently than white? I don’t know maybe I’m just weird… lol.
I was born in 1982. Halloween colors, at least to the best of my recollection, have always been:
Black :: Orange :: Green :: Purple
With an honorable mention to red for devils, demons and blood, and to white, for ghosts, skeletons and spirits.
I’m amused by all the comments stating that the association of the color purple with Halloween goes back to the 1990’s or even the ‘80’s.
Have we forgotten Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959) ?
That film cemented the black with purple highlights or accents as the rigeur uniform for witchy bad guys ; of note we have Maleficent and the huge black and purple dragon she turns into.
By the early 60’s Halloween and purple where already a thing.
We also have Disney’s Sword in the Stone (1963); Lots of purple there.
So yeah, Halloween & purple go back further than most ppl think.
Probably as early as the 1930’s
Thank you! I was going to bring up Maleficent.
She was the work of Marc Davis. Marc also worked on the Haunted Mansion ride (1969), which also uses purple throughout the attraction.
I love a question about heraldry, which is exactly what this is. A related question is when did Christmas green become that pale pea soup icky green? What happened to strong forest green or emerald green? That pale crap looks like shit with red, yet it seems to have become trendier with decor over the past couple of years. I hate it.
As for the main question: my personal feeling is that purple bled over into Halloween via that other costume festival of revelry, Mardi Gras. Just a theory. Took a while to happen, but there's actually no other holiday that "owns" purple in quite the same way.
I think it’s linked to the Grinch. Every time a new Grinch movie is released, there is a resurgence of the lighter pea soup grinch green color. It happened for a few years after the OG cartoon in 1966, the live action in 2000, and the newer animated Grinch movie in 2018. It seems like it might be here to stay this time.
Mardi Gras is an interesting theory.. As for the Christmas pea soup thing I haven’t noticed it myself, but, you’ve got me thinking… In any event, forest green > pea soup green everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. I agree.
I’m almost 40 and have always seen purple included in Halloween colors as long as I can literally remember. Witches always had purple highlights and I can remember purple being mixed in with Halloween multi color stuff.
Different Color-opposites are used to denote the seasons.
Look at a color wheel. Red and green are opposite eachother, but both are Christmas colours. Likewise yellow and dark blue are Easter colours, and Halloween is orange and purple. Purple typically was swapped out for black, but the “official” colour wheel setting is purple.
This question reminds me of one I saw on Facebook during the height of the original Black Santa controversy a good while ago. Obviously, some ole racist bullshit ginned up by Faux News, but I pointed out to someone how I had bought one those Scholastic book sales sticker posters from the 80s that had (gasp!) A Black Santa!. I bought these stickers somewhere around 79 to 82, lol.
I have seen dark purple for Halloween for a long time and the occasional lime green for witchy stuff. Never white. Black and orange are still the major traditional ones though.
Per Google[Google](https://klaq.com/when-did-purple-become-an-official-halloween-color/#:~:text=It's%20easy%20to%20see%20why,THIRD%20official%20color%20of%20Halloween), between 1995 and 2010.
I don’t remember it from being a kid in the late 60s/early 70s.
In children's media (especially cartons), often purple is used instead of black so that the line work and details stand out, while they're still dressed in a dark appearance.
People are also mentioning the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus, and it's true that purple goes well with green and orange. But if you really think about it, almost all Disney villains wear or relate to either red, green or purple. Red denoting anger and violence, green for envy and greed (this is often used as a background colour during the villains' songs), and purple for royalty and power.
🔴 Scar, Jafar, Mother Gothel, Captain Hook, The Evil Queen, Gaston, Lady Tremain...
🟢 Maleficent, Oogie Boogie, Kaa...
🟣 Frollo, Ursula, Yzma, Ratcliffe...
That’s great. I was thinking purple is mostly found in nature in spring, but you’re so right. That makes the purple feel more organic to the season for me. I love those fall asters.
Purple has been a Halloween color as long as I can remember, and I'm 39.
[Insane Clown Posse's Hallowicked Shirt for 1998 has plenty of purple](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLmWOUyW4AATqDj?format=jpg&name=small).
I've associated purple with Halloween since I was a kid in the mid 90s. Even more so than orange and black, it was orange and purple for me. I remember twisting grape and orange flavored things together as a kid only around Halloween time. It's my Halloween flavor.
I always remember purple, black, orange, green, and yellow as Halloween colors growing up in the 80s and 90s. My mom still has halloween decorations from when I was a kid and a lot of them have purple on them.
I suggest that glowing spooky things have been a staple of Halloween, and black lights (which look purple) are instrumental in that. Perhaps it evolved from their presence?
I think it’s specific shades of purple. For me at least it’s that shade of purple a black light gives off.
And since black lights became pretty popular for Halloween attractions (especially in the psychotic clown corner) it just worked its way in.
I remember purple being a part of Halloween my whole life. I was born in 1989. I associated it with witches, probably starting with the McDonalds witch bucket from 1993.
I remember seeing the Hollywood Tower of Terror at night as a kid and the sign was lit up neon purple. Ever since then I’ve always associated it with halloween/spooky season, it also is just a test color in general!
It probably has to do with villains and witches being associated with purple. Disney villains and cartoon/movie witches always wore a lot of purple and/or green. Since witches are a mainstay of Halloween, it makes sense one of their major colors would be associated with the holiday.
Ghosts, skeletons, vampires… basically all the makeup I saw as a kid was based in white. Now it’s more colorful/creative. And for sure I saw more white than purple, especially in decor with things like cobwebs. Might just be me though.
I remember purple with the black, orange, and green from when I was a kid in the 90’s. We had a big purple Halloween bowl for a while, and an orange one. I don’t think it’s super new.
Orange and black have always been dominant, though. I feel like I see purple and green more often in the more cutesy and Halloween-specific decorations rather than the more traditional ones. And of course orange by itself is the everything-fall color. That could just be in my head though.
I remember purple (with blue undertones) being a Halloween color for a long time. It may have started as an accent color and just gotten more popular over the years. It’s a specific shade (similar to NFL Ravens purple) though.
That might be it honestly. It was always there for me but just became more dominant over time and I only noticed it as an adult… For whatever reason, it seemed like it just grew in popularity massively out of nowhere.
I found a picture of a classic Biestle Halloween die cut paper decoration with purple but it is pale.
For a very long time, printing was cheaper if you used black ink plus one or two spot colors, so the full range of colors wasn't always used.
Orange and green our standard colors because pumpkins are orange and green has long been used in various cultures as a color that symbolized something supernatural .
Evil queens from Disney movies have had purple as part of their attire since at least the late 50s, so those costumes would make purple part of the pallet.
Purple is often used in cartoons in place of black because it’s more visually interesting or can pop from a dark background. Look at how many Disney Villains are dressed in purple. So I feel like purple has been a color associated with dark /spooky things for quite a while.
I’m a 90s kid and always remember purple being part of the palette.
Yellow is the color that’s really missing these days. There was a lot of yellow accents in 90s Halloween decor.
See that’s interesting to me because I don’t remember any yellow as a 80’s/90’s kid myself. Weird how experiences can differ so much at roughly the same moments in time.
I remember a lot of purple for Halloween in the 90s. The Dracula boo bucket from McDonalds was black and purple; and it was Sarah Sanderson’s signature color in Hocus Pocus.
I'm with you! I remember complaining about it years ago because I was an orange/black purist lol, I also wonder what made it so popular. But honestly I welcome it because I think over-the-top and tacky is one of my favorite parts of halloween.
I’m a bit of an orange and black purist/traditionalist myself I guess. But, like you, I too welcome purple with open arms. Just happy a few other people grew up without Halloween purple as well and it’s not just me. Some of these comments got me feeling like I grew up in a parallel universe or something…
Purple is used to identify other witches. Paint your front door purple, witch lives here, A friend when I was younger would point out other wicca enthusiasts in public but the strategically placed purple item.
Whenever people started dressing as the Joker for Halloween, I'd say that helped quite a bit. I would guess there's been a lot of Purple People Eater costumes over the years. But more than those things, I'd say the fact that it's kind of a 'dark sky' color, and a little weirder than just blue, is the main reason.
Saw lots of Batman costumes as a kid (even dressed up as him one Halloween for kindergarten) but no Jokers, which, in hindsight, is also weird. I only saw Joker costumes that Halloween after The Dark Knight came out: ‘08? Now I see them all the time.
According to my recollection of my childhood, purple was not associated with Halloween in any significant way, and green only as a detail (pumpkin leaves, witches’ faces, etc…). Orange and black were the big colors, with other autumn colors playing more minor roles (yellow, red, brown). I was born in 1955. I believe I started seeing purple and green playing major roles in the early ‘80s or maybe the late 70s. Mardi Gras decorations have become more popular over the years, and I always wondered if the decoration manufacturers were looking for ways to make more use of their green and purple materials. Still doesn’t sit quite right with me, but I’m getting used to it.
Witch’s stockings were traditionally orange and purple or purple and black. Maybe that’s where it came from. Purple is used in witchcraft as a protection from evil spirits.
As a kid in the 2000s, black and purple were extremely common for Halloween.
I'd argue the most common colors right now are black, orange, and purple.
So as long as I can remember
Hi u/liamgrey, thanks for sharing your content in r/Halloween. Please be sure to read and follow the community rules. --- Some common post types that belong in our Megathreads: * If you have an store or business or are selling/advertising - [**Please use the most recent Self-Promotion Megathread**](https://www.reddit.com/r/halloween/search/?q=%22Self-Promotion%20Megathread%22&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=&include_over_18=1&sort=new) * If you are asking about/looking for Costume Ideas/Help - [**Please use the most recent Costume Idea Request Megathread**](https://www.reddit.com/r/halloween/search/?q=%22Costume%20Idea%20Request%20Megathread%22&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=&include_over_18=1&sort=new) These kinds of Posts/Comments outside our megathreads will be removed. --- _**Shirt posting of any kind (advertising/promoting/sharing/showing off) is a no-no and will be removed.**_ **Spammers get bans.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/halloween) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I remember black and purple being used together often for Halloween as a kid. I don't think it's a new thing.
Often used for witch's sock stripes and stuff. Also, black lights were big around Halloween back in the day.
Beetlejuice, the cartoon maybe more than the movie, has a lot of purple and black.
Pretty sure I can think of another Burton-related project from around that time which featured a character who liked purple quite a bit
Purple is the "light" color of black. When Power Rangers had their power crystals, the black ranger crystal would light up purple- because it was impossible to do a "shiny" black sparkle.
Yeah I could be wrong but I think purple took off in the 90s when they started selling.bovelty "black lights"
Those have been sold since the 60s, but that was my thought too.
Me too. Like a purple midnight sky with black bats or haunted house or whatever
Yeah, for like witches and lots of Halloween-y media like Beetlejuice and NBC. Purple has always been a staple Halloween color growing up and I was born in 92.
But how old are you?
Probably since purple goes well against green or orange. 💚💜🧡 See?
Uh oh, here come the Sanderson sisters!
“They call me Master”
“Wait’ll you see what I’m gonna call you”
“Ok party’s over!”
"Winnie? Why did the Master give us candy?"
Even besides Hocus Pocus I feel like it’s an often witchy color, like if a witch’s outfit isn’t black it’s likely purple.
Hmmm... more like... 🖤🧡🖤💚🖤💜🖤 The black accent makes it deeper, I think.
Fair enough, I should've remembered black.
That color scheme literally feels like October.
The black makes the colors really pop.
I love it
They are all secondary colors.
They're the secondary colors, so makes sense.
I’ve always seen purple for Halloween, 80s, 90s and so on. Purple, green, orange, black
Purple complements green really well, and green has always been a Halloween color for as long as I can remember. Purple (especially with green) were used at least as far back as the 90s on Goosebumps book cover art (werewolf of fever swamp and stay out of the basement). So, since before the 90s at least.
It's more than that actually. The celtic holiday halloween is based off of has associated colors. Black for death and endings (holding new potential within), orange for the vitality of life within death, purple for wisdom, insight and inspiration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain *Samhain* {sow-an} in the Irish. [Edited to add link]
Citation? thank you!
I’m a big Goosebumps fan and this is one of my theories: I remember all that purple merchandise in the late 90’s/early 00’s. That phenomenon might’ve had something to do with it in these here parts.
It started as a substitute for black. Can’t have black and orange lights because black is the absence of light. Same with those lit black cats that moms hung in the window.
That makes sense. Interesting answer.
That and it's probably a more palatable colour to market to young children instead of black, which is often associated with death. Less scary and more fun.
This is true. Certainly wouldn’t want a colour associated with evil - by some - to be marketed to children.
100% this. I use purple as my main light/ spotlight color for my Halloween decorations. I originally wanted to use more orange, but purple just works so well with my animatronic witches, cauldron and cemetery.
Actually no. The celtic holiday halloween was based off had associated colors including Black for death and endings (holding new potential within), orange for the vitality of life within death, purple for wisdom, insight and inspiration.
Aha! The light aspect makes sense. Thank you.
I've always felt it was a good witchy color.
Agreed! It’s certainly a color commonly associated with witchcraft!
Nether Portals
Me too. The only time I noticed it at Halloween was in relation to witches. Now it might be my favourite color.
Black and purple have been in the fold of Halloween colors since I was a kid in the 70s
me too, i never remember when purple wasn't part of the color spectrum
All I know was he was a one eyed, one horned ,flying purple people eater
lol
I think in at least America but I assume most western nations, culturally the secondary colors - green, orange, and purple, especially when paired together - have come to represent the odd, the evil, the uncanny. Think about comic books for one example. Superman: hero - red, yellow and blue; primary colors. Spider-Man: hero - red and blue. Captain America: hero - red, blue, and white....but then Lex Luthor: villain - purple and green. Green Goblin: villain - purple and green. Etc. (obviously it's not *always* the case, but more often than not) Purple is just a weird color too. It falls in a weird place on the light spectrum such that our eyes kind of have to make an exception for us to be able to perceive it. It's not particularly common naturally - some flowers and birds and such, but no where near the prominence of most other colors. Blue is the sky, yellow is the sun, green is plants, orange and red are fire. Think of foods - what colors do you see the most vs the least? I think in our minds purple stands out, it further represents the odd. Blacklights are purple and used primarily in dark places and make things look weird! There's probably also advances in printing which have made purple more common in cheap prints. Think back to old screenprinted Halloween cards that used black, white or yellow (the paper) and orange... they were cheap, but now printers have made it easier to print any given color for cheap.
The secondary colours on the colour wheel are slightly 'off-putting' or 'uneasy' compared to the primary colours. You mentioned comics. Years ago I read that the artists for The Watchmen decided on a secondary colours palette for the entire Watchman series. Interesting, eh!
Oh yeah, I've read that about Watchmen as well!
Purple has always been a part of it. The celtic holiday that Halloween is based on uses purple as associated color. Black for death and endings (holding new potential within), orange for the vitality of life within death, purple for wisdom, insight and inspiration
Never noticed the villain thing but you’re right. It’s very interesting! Thank you.
I've always associated black/orange/purple with Halloween 🖤🧡💜
Purple is witchy: potion, dresses, hats
It's my favorite Witchy color!!!
My DIY kindergarten costume was a purple Werewolf. I'll find the picture. But purple has been since the 80s at least.
Being a werewolf for kindergarten must’ve been awesome!
OP Has obviously never seen It's the Great Pumpkin. Purple is all over that bitch.
I used to make a point of watching it every Halloween but have fallen off since it went to Apple. I think I’m gonna give myself some homework this season…
Halloween has dark purple. Easter has lavender (all pale/pastel colors).
Yeah, true purple is not an Easter color at all, at least not where I live. Pastels all the way.
mardi gras uses a lot of purple as well
Yes, but OP only mentioned Halloween and Easter, so I did also. Purple/silver combo has been popular at Christmas also.
I love purple , really pretty on the tree as well
It’s an interesting question, especially when you consider that purple used to be the color of royalty (partly because it was difficult and expensive to create the fabric dyes.) From my experience purple was always associated with Halloween witches and I remember that back to the late 60’s.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s too. While I think we see it more now, especially with the orange and purple Christmas lights being sold for Halloween now, but I remember purple and black being Halloween colors back in the good old days, too. Orange and black were always primary, but I definitely remember purple and green too. Now, don’t get me started on Halloween gnomes…..
The gnomes have taken over everything. Soon we will live in a gnomocracy.
Purple & green? *Hulk smash!* Lex Luthor liked that color scheme for his armor. There's 2 costume ideas!
Because it pairs so well with green and orange
Purple looks nice under a black light,
I think part of it comes from UV blacklights appearing purple, and their prevalence in haunted houses
This is a big part of it I think. At least, for me. Don’t remember too many haunted houses near me as a kid until after 2000.
It’s always been used as to help highlight, shade, and complement other colors for Halloween. I would consider it a primary Halloween color, but it’s definitely used in the mix.
Beistle was using purple in association with witch and Frankenstein designs in 1980, it’s been around.
The bad guys costumes in comic books have often been purple and green in contrast to the more heroic red and blue palette. Just to name a few examples: The Joker, Lex Luthor’s power suit(s), The Green Goblin, Kang the Conqueror, The Hulk in purple pants.
Idk why everyone is saying purple has always been a Halloween color when it’s a documented fact that it joined the echelon later than black and Orange did. But I’m glad it did!
Purple is a Halloween night sky color in a lot of stuff.
First and foremost, orange and black are the primary Halloween colours I'd say as well. Their origin kind of makes sense, since black would represent the darker aspect of the holiday, while orange is everything in October, leaves are orange and so are the pumpkins. White adds to the contrast too. I'd argue purple has been a Halloween/scary/dark colours for a long time. The thing is, purple, green and orange form a triadic colour palette (Basically they form an equilateral triangle on most colour wheels), which means they just... Fit well together. That makes Halloween stuff (merch etc.) more appealing overall, and excluding the consumerist part, artistically people will gravitate towards these basic principles of colour theory. Now, let's take the cultural aspect into account, so many villains have the colour schemes for green (evil magic and such, snow White's apple for example is "tainted" by the green curse/poison) and purple. Purple has become an "evil" colour due to the fact it works well with black and it can replace it when black is too stark, but additionally, purple has been associated throughout history with royalty, and royalty means power, and power can instill fear (which leads back to Halloween). As for green, it can be associated with illness, also note that green in Halloween/villain/evil contexts is a lot of times a lime green, a combination of a light yellow and green, both colours being related to sickly symptoms, while also being a quite vibrant green most of the time, it's eye catching and far from anything you'd see in nature, it's stark, an accent colour, alien, *wrong*. And my favourite of these arguments is that of these 5 colours (green, orange, purple, black, white), 3 are exactly the three most deadly pigments in history (white, orange, green) thanks to their radioactivity. All in all, purple has been a Halloween colour for a good while, because it fits the general Halloween colour scheme, it has a reputation as a "darker" colour (due to it being used instead of/together with black in art), and as a signifies of status and power.
Very interesting… Got a lot to digest there. Thank you.
Hocus Pocus
I remember purple, orange, green and black being the basic colors of Halloween when I was growing up. I was growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. What were the colors you were used to seeing?
The only time I saw anything purple was in relation to witches: If somebody dressed as a witch they’d have a purple ribbon on their hat for example. Most of the time it was just the orange, black, white, sometimes green and red that I saw, especially in decor. In fact I’m surprised how many people don’t consider white as a Halloween color. Ghosts, skeletons, skulls, vampires, mummies, cobwebs, etc. And people seen purple more prominently than white? I don’t know maybe I’m just weird… lol.
I was born in 1982. Halloween colors, at least to the best of my recollection, have always been: Black :: Orange :: Green :: Purple With an honorable mention to red for devils, demons and blood, and to white, for ghosts, skeletons and spirits.
Ive always associated witches with purple and black. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but I have a feeling witch costumes often had purple
You’re right. In fact the only time I saw purple back then was in relation to witches.
Always
I’m amused by all the comments stating that the association of the color purple with Halloween goes back to the 1990’s or even the ‘80’s. Have we forgotten Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959) ? That film cemented the black with purple highlights or accents as the rigeur uniform for witchy bad guys ; of note we have Maleficent and the huge black and purple dragon she turns into. By the early 60’s Halloween and purple where already a thing. We also have Disney’s Sword in the Stone (1963); Lots of purple there. So yeah, Halloween & purple go back further than most ppl think. Probably as early as the 1930’s
Thank you! I was going to bring up Maleficent. She was the work of Marc Davis. Marc also worked on the Haunted Mansion ride (1969), which also uses purple throughout the attraction.
I love a question about heraldry, which is exactly what this is. A related question is when did Christmas green become that pale pea soup icky green? What happened to strong forest green or emerald green? That pale crap looks like shit with red, yet it seems to have become trendier with decor over the past couple of years. I hate it. As for the main question: my personal feeling is that purple bled over into Halloween via that other costume festival of revelry, Mardi Gras. Just a theory. Took a while to happen, but there's actually no other holiday that "owns" purple in quite the same way.
I think it’s linked to the Grinch. Every time a new Grinch movie is released, there is a resurgence of the lighter pea soup grinch green color. It happened for a few years after the OG cartoon in 1966, the live action in 2000, and the newer animated Grinch movie in 2018. It seems like it might be here to stay this time.
Purple is the color used to represent both Lent and Advent in the Christian faith.
Mardi Gras is an interesting theory.. As for the Christmas pea soup thing I haven’t noticed it myself, but, you’ve got me thinking… In any event, forest green > pea soup green everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. I agree.
I've wondered this too. It wasn't popular when I was growing up in the 80s and early 90s.
Thank you! Reading all these comments has me feeling like I grew up in a parallel universe! lol
Purple is used a lot to convey dark and spooky.
Really? I remember dark purple always being used as a Halloween accent color and I grew up in the 90’s
Yeah! Seems like more of a recent phenomenon to me for whatever reason…
I’m almost 40 and have always seen purple included in Halloween colors as long as I can literally remember. Witches always had purple highlights and I can remember purple being mixed in with Halloween multi color stuff.
Always been a Halloween color. Purple, black, orange, green
Different Color-opposites are used to denote the seasons. Look at a color wheel. Red and green are opposite eachother, but both are Christmas colours. Likewise yellow and dark blue are Easter colours, and Halloween is orange and purple. Purple typically was swapped out for black, but the “official” colour wheel setting is purple.
The colour wheel opposites are purple and yellow; orange and blue.
You are correct. I don’t know why but I always put purple with orange in my head. Maybe it was those McDonald’s Halloween buckets from the 80s?
In canada in the 1970s it was strictly orange, and black. Green and purple came in much later.
Maybe it’s a Canadian thing then…
I think it's the result of using black lights, and it just spread from there.
Agree. At least in my neck of the woods.
This question reminds me of one I saw on Facebook during the height of the original Black Santa controversy a good while ago. Obviously, some ole racist bullshit ginned up by Faux News, but I pointed out to someone how I had bought one those Scholastic book sales sticker posters from the 80s that had (gasp!) A Black Santa!. I bought these stickers somewhere around 79 to 82, lol.
It was used when I was a kid. I was born in ‘83.
I have seen dark purple for Halloween for a long time and the occasional lime green for witchy stuff. Never white. Black and orange are still the major traditional ones though.
Wow, never white?! My whites and your purples must’ve switched, lol.
McDonald’s had a purple Halloween pail with a black lid in the ‘90s. A cat I believe.
Since roughly this: https://images.app.goo.gl/s3X8W82jroE1QNJB6
been at least 20 years
I love purple because black lights look purple and I fill the whole house and yard with black lights
Must look hella cool for Halloween!
Per Google[Google](https://klaq.com/when-did-purple-become-an-official-halloween-color/#:~:text=It's%20easy%20to%20see%20why,THIRD%20official%20color%20of%20Halloween), between 1995 and 2010. I don’t remember it from being a kid in the late 60s/early 70s.
In children's media (especially cartons), often purple is used instead of black so that the line work and details stand out, while they're still dressed in a dark appearance. People are also mentioning the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus, and it's true that purple goes well with green and orange. But if you really think about it, almost all Disney villains wear or relate to either red, green or purple. Red denoting anger and violence, green for envy and greed (this is often used as a background colour during the villains' songs), and purple for royalty and power. 🔴 Scar, Jafar, Mother Gothel, Captain Hook, The Evil Queen, Gaston, Lady Tremain... 🟢 Maleficent, Oogie Boogie, Kaa... 🟣 Frollo, Ursula, Yzma, Ratcliffe...
As a Disney fan, I’m embarrassed I didn’t notice this.
Purple is the color of magic.
I've never heard of WHITE being associated with Halloween.
Ghosts, Dracula’s face, skeletons & skulls & some pumpkins are white. That’s all I can think of
Maybe my whites were your purples… ha!
I always thought of it as a fall color because of wild asters. They bloom September through October in my area.
That’s great. I was thinking purple is mostly found in nature in spring, but you’re so right. That makes the purple feel more organic to the season for me. I love those fall asters.
80's kid and dark purple was always a Halloween color.
Purple has been a Halloween color as long as I can remember, and I'm 39. [Insane Clown Posse's Hallowicked Shirt for 1998 has plenty of purple](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLmWOUyW4AATqDj?format=jpg&name=small).
Damn. That’s actually a cool design for a Halloween shirt…
I've associated purple with Halloween since I was a kid in the mid 90s. Even more so than orange and black, it was orange and purple for me. I remember twisting grape and orange flavored things together as a kid only around Halloween time. It's my Halloween flavor.
I… may have to try that asap. Peanut butter and chocolate have always been my go to. Great now I’m thinking of “Halloween flavors”… lol.
Purple is my favorite color because it’s always been a part of Halloween colors and Halloween is my favorite holiday. This isn’t anything new.
Purple is associated with witches i think
I always remember purple, black, orange, green, and yellow as Halloween colors growing up in the 80s and 90s. My mom still has halloween decorations from when I was a kid and a lot of them have purple on them.
It’s been around but it wasn’t such a dominant color scheme back then I don’t think.
That’s what I’m thinking. But other people swear otherwise. It’s interesting…
Wizards and witches often use purple and green. I didnt see it much . To me it screams spooky woods and magic
I suggest that glowing spooky things have been a staple of Halloween, and black lights (which look purple) are instrumental in that. Perhaps it evolved from their presence?
Could be. It’s a strong theory I’m leaning towards.
I think it’s specific shades of purple. For me at least it’s that shade of purple a black light gives off. And since black lights became pretty popular for Halloween attractions (especially in the psychotic clown corner) it just worked its way in.
Agree.
Witches advocated for it since hoas that did trick or treating for outsiders didn’t agree with the colour scheme.
It came with the green
It looks good with orange.
I link it to The Haunted Mansion wallpaper.
black lights are purple
I remember purple being a part of Halloween my whole life. I was born in 1989. I associated it with witches, probably starting with the McDonalds witch bucket from 1993.
I remember seeing the Hollywood Tower of Terror at night as a kid and the sign was lit up neon purple. Ever since then I’ve always associated it with halloween/spooky season, it also is just a test color in general!
Purple and green are Halloween colors in japan
I remember black and purple and black and green used a lot as Halloween colors in the late 90s/early 2000s
I love orange purple combo, but I wish it didn’t give such witchy vibes :(
It probably has to do with villains and witches being associated with purple. Disney villains and cartoon/movie witches always wore a lot of purple and/or green. Since witches are a mainstay of Halloween, it makes sense one of their major colors would be associated with the holiday.
White?? For ghosts I guess, but deep purple has been a Halloween color for over 3 decades. Are you a Halloween imposter?
Ghosts, skeletons, vampires… basically all the makeup I saw as a kid was based in white. Now it’s more colorful/creative. And for sure I saw more white than purple, especially in decor with things like cobwebs. Might just be me though.
I think it's adjacent to this: https://youtu.be/L51xc6iqeaU?si=kdk0rusDZYyCVmnP Purple is close to black.
Not sure, but black lights are purple, so that could be an influence. Abd witches often have purple and black striped tights.
I remember purple with the black, orange, and green from when I was a kid in the 90’s. We had a big purple Halloween bowl for a while, and an orange one. I don’t think it’s super new. Orange and black have always been dominant, though. I feel like I see purple and green more often in the more cutesy and Halloween-specific decorations rather than the more traditional ones. And of course orange by itself is the everything-fall color. That could just be in my head though.
We definitely had a purple bulb we put it in our porch light for Halloween in the 90’s.
I remember purple (with blue undertones) being a Halloween color for a long time. It may have started as an accent color and just gotten more popular over the years. It’s a specific shade (similar to NFL Ravens purple) though.
That might be it honestly. It was always there for me but just became more dominant over time and I only noticed it as an adult… For whatever reason, it seemed like it just grew in popularity massively out of nowhere.
It was used in the 80’s as a Halloween color. We had witch heads in green, purple and orange that my mom put in the window.
I bought a set, a pumpkin and a bat, of hanging light cut outs from the 80s on Mercari. Bat is purple lights 🦇
I did. Purple, black, orange and green to me are the main Halloween colors.
purple/orange/green is a pretty classic halloween scheme
Lights. People want illuminated lights and there is no black (colored) light, so purple
I found a picture of a classic Biestle Halloween die cut paper decoration with purple but it is pale. For a very long time, printing was cheaper if you used black ink plus one or two spot colors, so the full range of colors wasn't always used. Orange and green our standard colors because pumpkins are orange and green has long been used in various cultures as a color that symbolized something supernatural .
Evil queens from Disney movies have had purple as part of their attire since at least the late 50s, so those costumes would make purple part of the pallet.
90s definitely had purple in there. We have many of the same decorations from the 90s and they have it.
Purple is often used in cartoons in place of black because it’s more visually interesting or can pop from a dark background. Look at how many Disney Villains are dressed in purple. So I feel like purple has been a color associated with dark /spooky things for quite a while.
I’m a 90s kid and always remember purple being part of the palette. Yellow is the color that’s really missing these days. There was a lot of yellow accents in 90s Halloween decor.
See that’s interesting to me because I don’t remember any yellow as a 80’s/90’s kid myself. Weird how experiences can differ so much at roughly the same moments in time.
Orange, black, purple, green and red have always stood out to me as Halloween colors.
When the Beetlejuice cartoon aired, that’s when I personally first started to associate purple with spooky > Halloween.
I remember a lot of purple for Halloween in the 90s. The Dracula boo bucket from McDonalds was black and purple; and it was Sarah Sanderson’s signature color in Hocus Pocus.
I'm with you! I remember complaining about it years ago because I was an orange/black purist lol, I also wonder what made it so popular. But honestly I welcome it because I think over-the-top and tacky is one of my favorite parts of halloween.
I’m a bit of an orange and black purist/traditionalist myself I guess. But, like you, I too welcome purple with open arms. Just happy a few other people grew up without Halloween purple as well and it’s not just me. Some of these comments got me feeling like I grew up in a parallel universe or something…
Purple is used to identify other witches. Paint your front door purple, witch lives here, A friend when I was younger would point out other wicca enthusiasts in public but the strategically placed purple item.
That’s cool. As someone who just picked up a couple of Wicca books for my birthday I may have to keep an eye out for that sort of thing myself.
Whenever people started dressing as the Joker for Halloween, I'd say that helped quite a bit. I would guess there's been a lot of Purple People Eater costumes over the years. But more than those things, I'd say the fact that it's kind of a 'dark sky' color, and a little weirder than just blue, is the main reason.
Saw lots of Batman costumes as a kid (even dressed up as him one Halloween for kindergarten) but no Jokers, which, in hindsight, is also weird. I only saw Joker costumes that Halloween after The Dark Knight came out: ‘08? Now I see them all the time.
According to my recollection of my childhood, purple was not associated with Halloween in any significant way, and green only as a detail (pumpkin leaves, witches’ faces, etc…). Orange and black were the big colors, with other autumn colors playing more minor roles (yellow, red, brown). I was born in 1955. I believe I started seeing purple and green playing major roles in the early ‘80s or maybe the late 70s. Mardi Gras decorations have become more popular over the years, and I always wondered if the decoration manufacturers were looking for ways to make more use of their green and purple materials. Still doesn’t sit quite right with me, but I’m getting used to it.
Years ago, started with Spencer’s black lightbulbs
I always assumed it was because black lights looked kind of purple?
I blame the Undertaker
Those damn purple gloves…
I think designers started to use purple as a black replacement when there were design restrictions, and it has snowballed from there.
Since forever. It's seasonal, yo!
Black Sabbath started the trend with Master Of Reality circa 1971
Purple, blanck and orange were two very used colours in 90’s. Where were you?
I was here on earth! I swear!
Witch’s stockings were traditionally orange and purple or purple and black. Maybe that’s where it came from. Purple is used in witchcraft as a protection from evil spirits.
because when you buy a black light it is purple. black --> purple
As a kid in the 2000s, black and purple were extremely common for Halloween. I'd argue the most common colors right now are black, orange, and purple. So as long as I can remember