Tobacco leaves, when they dry, are a warm brown.

It's the name of a color.

We recently ordered two leather chairs in "Tobacco", a deep, warm brown/black that I am fervently hoping works in our room. We'll know in March when they are slated to be delivered. I don't think tobacco is a new name for a color or finish on decorating or even clothing items, and I agree, it's the color of the leaf, not the color of the dried and ground product that goes into cigarettes.

sandyponder

I have to agree with the others. It is merely a name of a color. I don't think it is glorifying smoking any more than the name "Gin Rummy" is suggesting to drink alcohol. I have no problem with it.

If you had ever been in a tobacco farm in Virginia or Kentucky, you might even like tobacco. It has a wonderful aroma but you cannot stay long, it's strong but it's like a nicotiana plant, smells good...like a nightblooming fragrance. Hey, the big guy in the WH smokes 4 packs a day...so we are not glorifying it, just agreeing that it must not be all bad. He's pretty healthy and vigorous.

the big guy in the WH smokes 4 packs a day

If you mean Obama, he has been smoke free for 2 years....he quit because of his daughters, or so the mythology goes.

Thanks for the picture. I never would have known. I have never seen that color referenced until the last few months, so it was surprising. It is a really pretty color. I am okay with that color title because it's truly the color. Although, one of the items I saw bearing that name was much more red and not very dark.

I won't go there with you further, Patricia, but finding famous people to justify that smoking is good is a sorry excuse for an argument. Nor do anecdotal single-case examples make for good science.

Colorfast, I had never noticed it, until you mentioned it. I agree with you though, all else equal, I'd rather not romanticize tobacco.

The other day I came across a very old movie --- it was even an old movie when I watched it as a kid. It's called "The Trouble With Angels". I remember my sister and I liked to watch it.

So I thought, finally something wholesome for the kids.

What I didn't remember was that most of the movie has the two cute young heroines (in a Catholic boarding school) trying to find somewhere to hide for a smoke. It made smoking seem naughty in a cute girly way, a way for friends to bond in a shared indulgence.

I was appalled at how attractive it made smoking (circa 1966 - that explains a lot!)

I guess I will go back to those PG13 movies where the kids are all smart azzes and their parents are idiots and their families are all blended and a little twisted too...

I don't think it's romanticizing tobacco. It's just a color description, and one that most people instantly recognize (if they've ever seen a tobacco leaf). I think it's kind of a stretch to believe that acknowledging the existence of a color will incite people to take up the smoking habit. ;-)

I don't think tobacco use is being glorified by such names for colors, but I do fervently hope that smoking becomes such an uncommon act that those names will have to be changed because nobody knows what they are.

The interior of our house was painted various shades of tobacco when we bought it in 2005. In fact, one of the colors was actually "tobacco road." It was a muddy mess and it took a paint crew of five about seven days and multiple gallons of kill and paint to get rid of it. My point is that it's not anything new or trendy.

Maybe tobacco is the new espresso?

Mtnredux, I loved that movie as a child and so did my kids. DD thought that's what her boarding school would be like. Needless to say, it wasn't!

We did the requisite talk about tobacco during the smoking scene and they've seen plenty of photos of cancerous lungs so i dont think seeing the movie did much damage. Two of our kids are singers who wouldnt have dreamt of smoking anyway.

I loved those movies!! I disagree--the smoking only looked as immature and silly as the rest of their antics. Did they make you smoke? They certainly didn't me--nor would I have worried they would make my kids smoke. I would love for the days when "naughty" behavior was only catching a random smoke.

"Tobacco" has always been used as a colour name, specially in leather; it's not new at all: I guess it just has come to your attention recently so it might be offensive to you.

Colorfast, now that you mentioned it, I'll never be able to see "tobacco" as a color without being reminded of smokers' grime. That icky yellowy-brown that...ewwwwwwwww.

:)

I get a negative image in my mind when I hear of the color tobacco. In fact I would never buy anything with that color name.

Actually it might be a fun thread to start about color names and the postive or negative image you think of. It sounds silly but I could never buy a paint color if I hated the name.

KSWL and Arcy,

I am not saying that it is as simple as Monkey See, Monkey Do. It's a little more insidious than that.

I know when I watched movies like that, I wanted to be one of those girls and have the fun they did. They made smoking seem like fun. My kids were actually kind of baffled; and they asked me "how old are those girls, Mom".

No one ever enjoys their first puff. It's not like other vices ... I mean everyone can enjoy a pina colada, for example. The only reason people start smoking, IMHO, is to look grown up and cool. We have spent a few decades trying to make it uncool. This movie sent a different message. In the movie, it was harmless girlish fun.

I never became a smoker, but I did smoke from time to time when i was in my midteens. I liked the way it looked to hold a cigarette. I felt grown up because my Mom smoked too. Honestly, when I watch Betty Draper do it, she looks good! Do they still make Virginia Slims?

My girls love Glee, and they are too young for it, esp the sex, but I think i'd prefer it over something that gives them the notion that smoking is pretty and cute and FUN!

Patricia, so very true-- the smell of tobacco leaves is lovely. I like it in colognes and for a number of years, I worked in an office that was in an old tobacco warehouse. I loved all the cool details in my office-- but the best was on hot or rainy days when the smell of dried tobacco leaves would come up from the wood floors. No, it's nothing like the smell of cigarettes.

I love the color-- it's warm, rich and organic.

Mtn, I also loved those movies and while I won't blame it on the movies lol, I did smoke in my late teens and early 20s and I thought I was sooooo cool. Yeah, I was so cool that when I had panic attacks when I finally quit 30 yr later (just a few days more than a year ago). I love old movies.. and it's hard to find a movie with a great female character who doesn't smoke.

I have always loved the color traditionally referred to as tobacco. Our leather sofa in the family room is the perfect shade of tobacco-and the two-leather & the color name, just seem to go hand in hand to me. I've never associated it with nasty cigarettes.

Just like I refuse to associate Eric Clapton's song Cocaine with the drug...just love the sexy beat of the song, but it doesn't make me want to go snort up a nose full!

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about the attractiveness of smoking in that movie in particular. Tolerance for exposing one's children to vices is obviously personal, though, because although I love Glee I wouldn't want my kids watching it---and not just for the sex, either. But to be fair, we let our kids watch horror movies we considered campy that completely appalled some very good parents, so no judgments from my corner :-)

I agree that the whole question of what influences behavior is much more complicated than monkey see, monkey do!

Tobacco is not my color of choice in decorating, but my dad is a tobacco farmer and home builder. I have never partaken (is that a word?) in the former, but the latter is paying off as my dad is building our house right now. Growing up nwxt to the barn yard, the smell and color forage both nostalgic. Tobacco paid for my college years, so I cannot complain. I always yearned for home on those fall days at school when the fallen to leaves on the sidewalk started to cure/ferment and they smelled much like home in the summer. :).

A funny story... My nephew (5 yo) has no idea what the tobacco his Papa grows us used for saw at his soccer game that a kid was stung by a yellow jacket and a nearby observer offered her chewing tobacco to lessen the sting. My nephew began jumping up and down screaming, " my papa's tobacco helps people!". Ha ha!

Knowledge,

I'm curious, why wouldn't you want your kids to watch Glee (my biggest concern is that the sexual innuendo can be a bit much for kids). ... Not wanting to be controversial, I actually would like hear your thoughts as you seem very reasonable to me so I'm curious now!

I am hoping you mean me, mtnredx :-)

There are a few things about it that I would not want to have to explain to kids. First, I think it glorifies participation in extracurriculars over academics. Every now and then they throw a bone to the work (one girl gets into Yale) but the real business of school is treated almost as a joke. Second, the Brittany character is a wreck. She's presented as a village idiot, someone who is actually stupid as well as promiscuous and completely unable to have control over any part of her life except who she sleeps with. Third, the boy Artie plays a paraplegic, and I find that incredibly offensive. They couldn't find an actual paraplegic for the show? In a few episodes they showed him dancing in his dreams, and the actual actor was dancing. The wrongness of that is--well, it's just WRONG. And finally, they did incorporate a Christian character, but in order to make him socially acceptable he had to have dreadlocks and be uber-cool. That is a stereotype superimposed on a bias---or the other way around---and I think it shows a lack of sensitivity and understanding dressed up as commitment to diversity.

I would consider this show a true PG-13 and would have restricted it from mine until that age, although they would probably seen it at friends' houses. We didn't have a tv at home while they were growing up mainly because I considered it a time waster and too much of it was just stupid, and I didn't want them to see things they had no context for. We weren't fanatical about it---they saw tv elsewhere and I didn't have a problem with that.

My son's best friend from childhood is gay and he is like a fourth kid in our house. He's the one who recommended Glee and I subscribe to it on itunes. I do enjoy it, love the singing and most of the characters, but it does seem to have some major red flags for kids. FWIW, our youngest was a total musical theater kid in HS (and is in an acting program in college) and HATES Glee..... go figure!

Yes, I do mean you KSWL, and thanks for answering! I "called" you by your "first" name --- aren't you Knowledge Speaks, Wisdom Listens, IIRC?

I share your view of TV as a time-waster. We are very pleased that our kids can't even name a "favorite TV show", and that we have only one TV in the whole house and no TV at the lake. There is no "screen time" on schoolnights and only an hour per day on weekends. When they do have screentime, they prefer to spend it on the MAC or Wii over TV.

I too started watching Glee on my ipad. My kids had heard about it at school. It started with me just showing them musical numbers, but of course, they wanted more.

They can only watch it with me, and I find myself stopping it a lot to explain it (sometimes with a spin or a distraction!). You make good points, all. I personally like it because it is funny and I like the music. For my kids, I hope it makes them think about how to treat people who are different, and how to react when people mistreat you. But it does do so in a very heavy handed way, to be sure.

Annie, we are not sure, but we do take Jay Carney's word for it among other things, that he is no longer smoking in the WH.
Colorfast, please do not use my name and sorry in the same sentence again. Thank you.

" But it does do so in a very heavy handed way, to be sure."

I wholeheartedly agree with you on that point. Tv ---even the British period dramas so dear to my Anglophile heart--- isn't known for subtlety:-)

I watched Glee when it started, but then lost interest when the storylines didn't seem to fit the age of the characters. I didn't feel it was appropriate for my kids ... I'm the mean Mom who insists you have to be 13 before being able to watch a PG-13 movie! Not too many of us left out there.

"Actually it might be a fun thread to start about color names and the postive or negative image you think of. It sounds silly but I could never buy a paint color if I hated the name."

I've been thinking about this, too. It's so hard for me to find colors that speak to me; I'm pretty sure I'd just base my choice on my reaction to the color itself.
(There are exceptions, ha ha! I won't gross anyone out by going any further!)

Names like tobacco and champagne don't bother me; it just helps me see the color in my mind if someone's describing it.
But I do not enjoy being anywhere near cigarette smoke or drunk people.

Similarly, even though I strongly dislike the taste of "raspberry" and "licorice," they are just color descriptors and wouldn't keep me from using a color if I liked it.

Someone mentioned "hospital green" to me the other day, and I instantly knew what they meant: that sickly green color of almost all the hospital walls in our area in the 1970s and '80s. Some school cafeterias used it too, I think.
I wouldn't choose "spring meadow" if it LOOKED like "hospital green."

Some actual color names and colors that bother me are "puce" and "mauve." It's not just the colors, it's the names, too.
I don't know why. Maybe it's just me.

:)

This thread has taken off and I have not had time to be online. As I said in my second post several days ago, I understand now why this term is used. The color itself really is pretty. I appreciate all of the thoughtful comments, with one exception. I really have struggled with the following reply:

"Colorfast, please do not use my name and sorry in the same sentence again. Thank you."

Patricia, When someone tells you straight out that a specific topic pains them, your response was incredibly insensitive. Use a celebrity figure to justify a behavior as being healthy. Make a joke? Laugh it off? And now you're insulted?

As I said originally, I grew up with smokers. We mostly avoid the elephant in the room, but sometimes it comes up. Smokers' rights. Anecdotes. Anything but the guts to look at the numbers or the science. Last week there was an article in the local paper, that the number two cause of lung cancer was radon. The article barely mentioned the number one cause because it's not news: Smoking.

It's hard thing to watch someone dying from lung cancer, which is what killed my grandfather, who smoked most of his life. He and my grandma had a little over four short years to travel together after he retired. Grandma had 20 years as a widow. It didn't have to be that way. And my mom the denier and smoker will come up with excuses even about that.

patricia43, my reference to mythology was concerning michelle's explanation as to why he finally quit...he didn't want to try to prevent his daughters from doing something he was still doing himself. I believe he tried to quit early on in his presidency and failed, but has been more successful since.

More power to him. I congratulate any smoker who has managed to quit.

FWIW, my father, a smoker all his life, had lung cancer twice. My mother never smoked, but died of non-smoking related lung cancer. I also had a SIL who was a heavy smoker and died at 39 of lung cancer.

I however, see tobacco no more a problematic description of a color than blood red or baby poo.

Hi, Annie, I said in my second and third posts, I am okay with the color now that I understand.

But I am not okay with people using a public figure as an valid reason to smoke.

I am really sorry to hear about the lung cancer in your family and the loss of your mom and SIL.

Annie, I quit smoking exactly for the same reason-I did not want my son to see his mother smoking. I was not one to say "do as I say, not as I do" as one of my aunts used to say. My father also quit for the same reason when I was in elementary school. Perfectly understandable for those of us who have been there-most definitely not 'mythology.'

This post was edited by cyn427 on Sat, Jan 26, 13 at 19:27