If you were feeling blue after Crayola’s March announcement that the company would be retiring the bright yellow hue, Dandelion, you’ll soon have a new blue crayon to color in your tears with.
The company announced in March that a member of the blue family would take Dandelion’s spot, but the specifics were lacking, until now. On Friday, Crayola announced that the new blue is inspired by the YInMn blue pigment.
Not familiar with YInMn? Don’t worry, it’s pretty new to the color scene. The pigment was discovered by accident in 2009 at Oregon State University in a chemistry lab run by Mas Subramanian, a professor in materials science, and his graduate students. Accident or not, Crayola liked the new hue.
“When we knew that we would be retiring one of our colors from our broad color palette we also wanted to insure that the new color that we brought into our color spectrum was fresh, inspiring and most important innovative,” says Karen Waters, Crayola’s director of content, PR and social marketing. “With all of the attention drawn to the pigment that Mas and his team discovered, there was no better team to reach out to.”
As NPR reported in 2016, the group of chemists had been mixing and heating different chemicals while they worked to find a new material to be used in electronics. One particular sample, after being heated to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, came out a bright blue color.