The Mystifying Color of Eau De Nil

In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was a craze for anything from Egypt. Motifs from tombs could be found on everything from lampshades to pottery and even the colors of the region shaped the designs of the time. Enter eau de Nil green, a subtle shade that’s hard to pin down today. However it was incredibly popular back in the era when the pharaohs’ secrets were all being first discovered. So what is this strange color really?

We have to wonder if the craze for Jadeite could be derived from the ubiquity of eau de Nil in the 1800s and early 1900s, particularly in the 1920s. The color was everywhere, but had a heavy presence in fashion, fabrics, and home decor. But, unlike the bright quality of the later Jadeite glass, eau de Nil had a darker, murkier quality to it that is often hard to replicate in the modern era.

The color description was enhanced by Gustave Flaubert, the Parisian novelist who wrote Madame Bovary, and who visited Egypt in 1849. He recounted a land full of color that he feasted on with his eyes. In particular he wrote that the Nile was “quite yellow”. The normally-blue waters become bogged down with yellow sand from the desert that fills the banks after the yearly flooding. The combination of blue, yellow, murkiness, and light led to the term “water of the Nile” as a color.

Eau de Nil has been compared to celadon, jade, sage, and even seafoam. Yet, each of these colors is either too dull or or too saturated to really be eau de Nil.

While this color was popular in Egypt-obsessed Europe from the late 1800s onward, it was during the Art Decor period that the color gained even more popularity. By the 1960s there were still scores of elegant British and continental women who used eau de Nil to describe this delicate color.

There was a mid-century revival of this hue thanks to Alfred Hitchcock’s affinity for the color. He placed both Grace Kelley and Tippi Hedron in eau de nil for their roles in the films Rear Window and The Birds respectively.

There has recently been a revival of the color, not so much in clothing, but in paint colors. Several paint lines famous for their reproduction historical colors have come out with eau de Nil green shades, like Laura Ashley and Little Greene. But, it probably won’t surprise you to know that these greens can be quite different to each other as the color can be interpreted in many ways. And, they are each different than Nile green, which is a separate color entirely.